Lamonte Russell, supervisor of the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, delivers the featured presentation at the Jan. 30, 2024, Idea Pub: Morning Edition where he outlines the services his team provides for University of Nebraska Innovators.
OMAHA, Nebraska (January 31, 2025)—UNeMed opened its 2025 slate of networking seminars Thursday with the return of the popular Idea Pub event, Morning Edition.
The featured speaker was Lamonte Russell, supervisor of the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, a student-led business strategy program that was named the 2024 Innovation Champion during UNeMed’s 2024 Innovation Awards. The Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, or MTVA, operates within the University of Nebraska’s startup incubator, UNeTech Institute.
Russell, the Strategy and Ventures Manager at UNeTech, described the MTVA process for helping University of Nebraska inventors develop their ideas into working prototypes; or how to get started on building a company around a new invention.
Several members of the MTVA team also spoke, including Brent Clark, PhD, who is also the Associate Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Franchising at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
As several inventors in the room nodded their heads, Dr. Clark likened an invention to its inventor as the emotional equivalent of a child to a parent.
“We try to help the inventor see through the emotion,” he said, “to see if this a real, marketable invention.”
The end result of the efforts typically results in either a working prototype or a 20-30 page report that outlines the path for an inventor looking to start their own company. Sometimes it’s both.
One of MTVA’s more recent clients is Elizabeth Beam, PhD, the UNMC nursing professor behind the Beam PAPR Helemt—UNeMed’s 2024 Most Promising New Invention. She also spoke to the gathering, describing how the MTVA helped her bring to life her idea for a better helmet that could protect healthcare providers from infectious diseases during an outbreak.
She said “the biggest challenge of being an inventor is knowing how to talk” to the wide range of people needed to transform an idea into a product. The MTVA helped her navigate the process that first allowed people to wear her design in virtual reality and eventually guide the engineers who helped build the first prototype.
Dr. Beam will return for a more detailed discussion of her invention and its developmental journey. She is set to be the featured speaker of the next Idea Pub: Morning Edition on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 9-11 a.m. in the DRC II commons.
UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for UNMC and UNO, sponsored the event, which will continue as a regular monthly series featuring guest speakers from the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Idea Pub strives to provide UNMC and UNO innovators an opportunity to build new partnerships and allies that can help develop their innovative ideas and discoveries into products that help people.
Morning Edition will continue in 2025 on the last Thursday of every month, featuring a new speaker each time. Each Morning Edition will also feature “Office Hours,” with UNeMed and MOVE, a pre-seed and seed venture capital firm focused on investing in Nebraska technology startup companies. Office Hours creates the opportunity for faculty, students and staff to have one-on-one time with MOVE or UNeMed professionals to discuss new technologies or startup potential.
