A new collaboration between University of Minnesota researchers and Cisco Systems seeks to advance cutting-edge technologies that transform the way people access, manage, and protect data.
Cisco—which develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment, and other high-technology services and products (like WebEx)—has funded six projects at the University and plans to fund more in the near future. The awards come through the company’s research arm, Cisco Research, which connects Cisco’s own engineers and researchers with academic research labs to explore technologies with potential to maximize the company’s business, technological, and societal impact.
UMN Technology Commercialization and the Corporate and Foundation Relations team at the University of Minnesota Foundation worked with Cisco Research to form a master research agreement and solicit project proposals from the University community. The entire process happened quickly, taking just three months.
“University-industry partnerships are not always easy to set up, as they are often subject to various laws and regulations that make for intellectual property transfer from university to industry an extremely tedious and arduous process,” said Ramana Kompella, PhD, Cisco research head in systems and networking. “We found University of Minnesota a fantastic place to collaborate and partner, with their extremely industry-friendly and forward-looking MN-IP initiative, which lays out an awesome foundational framework for us to foster a win-win collaborative agreement.”
Read the full story to learn more about the collaboration and the funded projects.