Imagine, a cellphone you don't have to recharge. Just stick in a cartridge, and it runs all on its own.

This could be available soon — well, it actually is now — at a university near you, or at least near to your heart.

It's happening because University of Illinois professor Richard Masel was in search of a businessman, and entrepreneur Neil Huff was in search of a technology. Huff, a Canadian, found Masel's work on the Internet and came to the U of I to visit. Through the help of the University's business-catalyzing operation called IllinoisVENTURES, a new company called Renew Power was born. By the first quarter of 2006, the company plans to begin marketing a cellphone run on a fuel cell cartridge for up to two weeks at a time — no recharging.

"It absolutely would not have happened without the guys at OTM [Office of Technology Management] and IllinoisVENTURES," said Huff. "We saw right away that here was a group of people with the right model to allow a group such as ours to come in and start a company."

Renew Power is one of many companies now beginning to flower because of a deliberate restructuring of the bureaucracy driving the U of I's technology-transfer apparatus. The rethinking, UI officials say, provides a "seamless system" in which ideas flow uninterrupted from seed to fruit.

So let's say you're a faculty member who thinks you might have an invention, software or discovery and want to market it. The first place your idea goes is OTM on campus. Your idea would be put through these wringers:

• Potential disclosure would be assigned to one of four teams of tech managers, whose responsibilities are divided among the College of Agricultural, Environmental and Consumer Sciences; the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the College of Engineering and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology; and software and copyright.
• Screening would take four to six weeks and proceed to an in-depth commercial assessment and a marketing, licensing and patenting stage. More than 50 outside consultants help evaluate the technology.

It is a far different place from what Mike Fritz saw when he took over in 2001. Fritz, the former CEO of Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, has led several economic development enterprises in the Champaign County area.

"I'm not a tech-transfer specialist, but I am a pretty decent businessman. This office," he said, "was really pretty sad."

With only six employees and a backlog of 700 technologies, there was a sense, Fritz said, that "if you went through OTM, it went into a big hole.

"That's changed."

The backlog was attacked with a $3.3 million commitment from the University. In addition to intellectual property experts and industry consultants, 16 graduate student interns — people in the MBA program with undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, biochemistry, finance and other fields — were brought in and paired with industry experts.

From those stalled technologies, the office has written nearly 100 licenses. And opportunities continue to abound.

Through the end of this fiscal year (June 30), the office had 180 disclosures submitted compared with 111 at the end of FY02; 70 licenses written compared with 45 in FY02; 14 companies started compared with six in FY02; 50 patents issued compared with 23 in FY02.

"There's no question these licenses will generate significant sums of money down the line," Fritz said.

According to UI policy, that significant money is split three ways: 40 percent for the inventor, 40 percent for the vice chancellor of research (the University) and 20 percent for the inventor's home department.

Following closely on the heels of Fritz's office is IllinoisVENTURES, created by the University in 2000, with offices on both the Urbana and Chicago campuses. Once your idea is "vetted" by OTM, IllinoisVENTURES provides business development expertise and seed money. The organization offers three types of help:

• General consultation to faculty, tenants of the UI Research Park and customers of Illinois Technology Enterprise Corp. centers, eight of which exist around the state.
• Developmental funding and seed capital, awarded on a merit basis.

Why would the University venture in this direction?

Banta calls IllinoisVENTURES the "missing piece" in the transfer of technology from the academy to the marketplace.

Fritz points out the positive effects. "There's ... no question we're making a difference in people's lives, we're creating jobs, and we're returning money to the University and its investors," he said.

And Chet Gardner, vice president of academic affairs, said at the park's birth in 2000, "Our goal is to create a critical mass of high-tech jobs so more of our graduates stay here. This will benefit everyone: The University will gain corporate partners; private companies will have more and better people to hire; and the local and state economies will benefit from the creation of more jobs" (Illinois Alumni, September/October 2000).

As of this writing, 22 start-up companies occupied EnterpriseWorks, a 43,000-square-foot building in the South Research Park built by the state to help "incubate" new businesses. The site provides lab space (including 12 "wet labs") designed to accommodate a wide range of sciences, from robots to biotechnology, as well as housing for IllinoisVENTURES' Champaign office.

IllinoisVENTURES has invested in about 25 companies and has helped organize investors for 10 of them. Nearly $4 million dollars in federal grant money has gone to UI-related companies, with an additional $18 million from private investors.

And the funding opportunities keep growing. While $4 million in public dollars was available this year for investment, the University is also tapping the private sector. The Illinois Emerging Technologies Fund, a University-related, private equity fund, has raised its first $20 million for early-stage equity and equity-related investments, Banta says.

Renew Power has come a long way since its founders visited Masel's lab and watched a formic acid fuel cell the size of a quarter, with no moving parts, running a little fan.

With $900,000 from IllinoisVENTURES and additional outside funding as seed capital, the company leased lab space at EnterpriseWorks last August and is now on the verge of commercialization. Applications range from PDAs and laptops to cellphones and cameras, even portable TVs.

"People don't want to be tied to a wall," Huff said. "The portability, the convenience — you can't beat it."

The firm has eight employees, plus military contracts that will bring in product revenue of at least $250,000 this year alone. Large-scale manufacturing isn't far off, Huff said.

Banta said Renew Power is just one of several companies at EnterpriseWorks that are ready to "graduate."

"It's been kind of a gestation period," Banta said of the Research Park's evolution. "Things are really starting to take off."