Loyola University New Orleans Partners with the National Security Agency Technology Transfer Program (TTP) to Bring Technologies to Market
NEW ORLEANS (April 2, 2019) – Loyola University New Orleans announces its partnership with the National Security Agency TTP SPARC Program for the Lean LaunchPad MBA course during the Spring 2019 semester. The course, taught by Loyola management professor Dr. Felipe Massa and Center for Entrepreneurship head Kate Yoo McCrery, leads student teams through the entrepreneurial process of assessing the commercial potential for two technologies patented by the National Security Agency. At the end of the semester, students will have the opportunity to launch their own technology startup around one or both of the technologies.
Founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank, Lean LaunchPad is an internationally recognized entrepreneurship methodology used by the National Science Foundation and top universities such as Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, and Columbia University. The process focuses on validating market demand for the technologies by gathering substantial consumer feedback before introducing a product to the marketplace.
“The Lean LaunchPad MBA course is part of a deeply experiential and nationally competitive entrepreneurship program at Loyola,” said McCrery. “Our students ‘learn by doing’ through commercializing these real-world technologies, and they develop skills that allow them to be successful startup founders, corporate changemakers, and leaders of innovation, no matter what they do.”
Throughout the course, students will interview up to 100 potential customers and report their findings weekly in class. Students will also be guided by a network of over 30 business leaders and content experts throughout the semester. Previous mentors for the Lean LaunchPad course include: Foster Duncan of Bernhardt Capital, Rick Babb of the Louisiana Fund, Chris Reade of LookFar, Aimee Quirk of innovationOchsner, Kris Khalil of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, and Adele Tiblier of StoryBlock Media, among many others.
The Lean LaunchPad course has been offered at Loyola University New Orleans since 2016. In previous years, students worked with NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on commercializing pieces of technology created by Stennis engineers. This is the first year Lean LaunchPad students will be working with the National Security Agency.