SpInnovation: Fostering Entrepreneurship in Makerspaces by connecting students with unexploited university patents

This paper introduces SpInnovation, an 8-week course designed to foster entrepreneurship in makerspaces by enabling students to work with existing patents and explore potential business opportunities. The Schumpeter Laboratory for Innovation (SLFI), an academic Makerspace situated at the Graz University of Technology, acts as a connector, bringing together student teams with inventors to work on existing patents. This paper provides an overview of SpInnovation and outlines an organizational framework for conducting such initiatives within Makerspaces. It additionally includes project phases and schedules and outlines the knowledge base provided for students within the project. Further, it describes the role of Makerspaces in facilitating collaboration, innovation, and access to tools. Additionally, an overview of the project’s so far conducted cycles is discussed, addressing learnings, and implemented improvements of SpInnovation. It concludes by presenting future perspectives, emphasizing the potential for expansion, collaboration, and further studies. By promoting entrepreneurship in Makerspaces, SpInnovation contributes to the development of an entrepreneurial university, which was defined as a strategic target at the Graz University of Technology. Moreover, entrepreneurship becomes an increasingly important topic in the education of engineering students.
The contribution of the underlying paper for the ISAM focuses on (1) intellectual property (IP), entrepreneurship and commercialization, (2) interdisciplinary making outcomes and (3) integrating makerspaces into the curriculum.