Jeff Weiner

Runway startup postdocs An Nguyen, Hussam Abu-Libdeh, Rimas Gulbinas and Daniel Hauagge talk business at Cornell Tech offices in New York City.

The Runway Startup Postdoc Program – described as “part business school, part research institution, part startup incubator” – at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech has begun accepting applications for its next cohort.

The program is designed to capitalize on participants’ doctoral research and launch companies that build on their technical innovations. Startup postdocs are provided funding, space and mentoring from the first day they arrive.

Traditionally a postdoctoral research position is the next step after receiving a Ph.D., and usually has an academic focus. The Runway Program represents a paradigm shift toward an entrepreneurial outlook. The Jacobs Institute provides startup postdocs with the Runway Award, valued at $150,000, that includes salary and housing allowance, a research budget, workspace on campus, classes on entrepreneurship, and significant mentoring and networking opportunities on and off campus in New York City.

“Runway completely changed my mindset,” said startup postdoc Hussam Abu-Libdeh, Ph.D. ’14. “As a Ph.D., I was trained to pursue new scientific insights and find solutions to problems through long-term experimentation. Runway provided a completely different education: the skillset to build a company from scratch.”

The 11 companies that have already incorporated include Paragon Measure, offering software that tracks the hand movements of those with motor-related diseases like multiple sclerosis using a commercial device like an iPad; SHADE, a UV radiation monitoring system for those suffering from lupus; and PeachyLabs, with a method to report the nutritional data of food by analyzing an image. Collectively, the companies in the program have raised more than $5 million in investment capital.

In addition to the Runway Award, startup postdocs receive benefits and corporate support valued at $320,000. The program pilots a new intellectual property model that gives the postdocs an exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual license to use the technology that they develop in the program in exchange for a stake in the company comparable to the value of the Runway Award.

Unlike accelerator programs focused on short-term market risk and customer development with proven technologies, the Runway Program focuses on new ventures based on technology that needs a longer time frame, according to the program’s director, Uzi de Haan. The “runway” is a place to build up speed for takeoff.

De Haan, founder of the Bronica Entrepreneurship Center at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, leads the program with Entrepreneur in Residence Shuli Shwartz, whose background is in bringing new medical devices to market.

Cornell and Technion professors in connective media, health technology, security and privacy, and computer vision serve as academic mentors for the postdocs. A typical business mentor is Denise Barbut of the biotech company Sarentis Therapeutics, who is lending her expertise as a physician and entrepreneur to a startup postdoc who is tackling hospital-acquired infections.

Postdocs also have access to a team of legal, industry and venture capital advisers off campus.

“The Runway mentors transformed my academic mentality into a business-oriented one that balances technical depth with speed, agility and practicality,” said startup postdoc Rimas Gulbinas, whose company, Maalka, offers a data management platform to clients in sustainable construction. “After a few months, I had truly evolved into an entrepreneur.”

Since the program began in 2014, applications have been received from around the world. Offers are extended based on candidates’ academic and professional track records, entrepreneurial drive and motivation, and the proposed enterprise.

Applications for the fall 2016 program will be accepted through Feb. 15. Decisions will be announced April 15. The program starts in August 2016 and runs for one year with a possible extension for another year.