Abstract

Chile is an incipient country regarding knowledge exchange (KE). The actual ecosystem started 15 years ago and it’s just generating the first outcomes, cultural fits, and potential benefits. The Innovation department at Universidad de los Andes, created the TTO in 2011. It works together with its research "partners" and their faculties or schools, in order to give support during the research process and the needs arising during development of products or technologies to market. The model that we initiated tried to replicate the triple helix framework in where academia interacts with government and industry. For this, we created an incubator that provides capacities, support, and services in resource management, networking, policies and regulations, management of resources, attracting talent and communicating to all actors the benefits of KE. We also built an accelerator for projects that advance on technological readiness in where we seeked to deliver resources and mentoring to investors and private sector to promote the development of technologies as part of being a "bridge" between academic and industry sector, facilitating understanding and ensuring progress relevant to all interested parties or stakeholders. We have now evolved our TT model to KE model and include the penta-helix components. In this sense we include social innovation, teaching capabilities to our student community and sustainable initiatives with the civil society, which along with the previous approach led to the sustainable innovation model. We have generated more than 20 TT cases in the health, biotech, engineering and education space. A clear example if “Dia+”, a self-applied assessment of reading skills and mathematical competence to provide immediate feedback with analysis of the performance of the students assessed and suggestions on how to strengthen weaker areas. This technology has improved the learning of 220.000 students in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, and Mexico.