Editor’s note: This article was published last July 2, during our first week in existence. Given the attention to last week’s post by Chris Gabrieli questioning Harvard’s legacy of tech transfer, we wanted to share Sahin’s thoughtful observations with a wider audience. The buzzword of the 1980s and ’90s was “entrepreneurship.” This decade, the obsession … Continue reading “Innovation and the University-Industry Interface”
Author: Kenan Sahin
Dr. Sahin is the founder and Chief Executive of TIAX LLC, a leading collaborative product and technology development firm that accelerates innovation to help clients achieve growth and create an impact in the market–and in people’s lives. TIAX is a laboratory-based company with more than 50 laboratories and 200 engineers and scientists operating in Cambridge, MA, and Cupertino, CA, focusing on clean energy, power, chemicals, and materials.
Dr. Sahin’s role as CEO of TIAX caps an already prolific career as an academic, technologist and entrepreneur. He received his B.S. (1963) and Ph.D. (1968) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then served on the faculties of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst until 1985. During his distinguished academic career, he received several teaching awards and obtained U.S. and international patents.
In 1982, Dr. Sahin founded Kenan Systems with a $1,000 personal investment and no outside funding. The company went on to become a world leader in telecommunications software, employing nearly 1,000 people and with offices in a dozen countries. Both Kenan Systems and Dr. Sahin received numerous awards, including the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998.
In early 1999, Kenan Systems was acquired by Lucent Technologies and Dr. Sahin became Vice President of Software Technology at Bell Labs and President of Lucent’s Software Products Group, serving in those positions through 2000.
Dr. Sahin was chosen by the World Economic Forum as one of its 40 Technology Pioneers for 2003 and received the New England Business and Technology's first “Circle of Excellence” award in 2004. In 2006, he was given the Golden Door Award by the International Institute of Boston.
He has published numerous articles. Most recently he addressed the innovation backlog in articles for R&D Magazine and Technology Review. He is also a frequent speaker on the topic of successful implementation of innovations in technology.
Dr. Sahin serves or has served on numerous non-profit boards, including those of the Council on Competitiveness, MIT (for whom he is a life member), the Boston Museum of Science, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Symphony, and the American Field Service.
He is married and lives in Boston.