#42 - Guest Fred Farina

Market Meditations

Chris and Neal invite Fred Farina to the podcast to discuss tech innovation and the fostering of new startups jumpstarted by both CalTech and JPL technologies. Fred Farina is Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of Caltech - OTT (California Institute of Technology - Office of Technology Transfer). He negotiates licensing deals with industry and fosters the creation of new startup companies based on both Caltech and JPL (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory) technologies. His responsibilities include managing OTT’s staff, evaluating inventions at Caltech and NASA -JPL, supervising patent prosecution and portfolio management. An electronic engineer by training, before joining the office Fred worked for eight years as a Research Engineer in the GPS field. Fred holds a "Diplôme d'Ingénieur" in Electrical Engineering from the Institute National des Sciences Appliquées, Lyon, France, and is a graduate of Caltech where he received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1992. He is a registered U.S. patent agent. Born in Corsica, his father comes from Sardinia and he was a professional football player.