Adam Torres and Dr. Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto discuss Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Dr. Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto, Director at Business Economic Development Center at University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, explore University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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About Dr. Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto
Doctor Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto is a Professor at the School of Business Administration (BA) of the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (UPRM).
She obtained a doctoral degree on Management at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. De Hoyos-Ruperto is a faculty member and Co-Director in the Business and Economic Development Center (BEDC) of the UPRM, and currently she is offering courses within the minor of Entrepreneurial Development that is offered by the UPRM-BA programs.
She has participated in various research activities that include studies about the factors that are hindering the entrepreneurial environment in P.R, how to promote the commercialization at the university, and how to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem with the university serving as a host.
Moreover, she is co-founder of the UPRM E-ship Network, a collaboration movement to promote the Entrepreneurial Mindset from and through the university. Since 2014, she serves as PI, Co-PI and Senior Personnel of various outreach initiatives granted by NSF, EDA and EPA.
Her expertise is innovation, entrepreneurship and ecosystem, resulting in publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations in USA, Latin America, Europe and Oceania.
About The Business and Economic Development Center (BEDC)
The Business and Economic Development Center (BEDC), attached to the RUM College of Business Administration, is a program established in 1986 with the purpose of promoting economic and business development throughout the island. It is the only “University Center” in the Caribbean sponsored by the Federal Economic Development Administration (EDA), which seeks to use resources for the long-term sustainability of companies. It has been providing services to entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico for 38 years.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right, so today I am in Irvine, California, and I’m at the Medical Innovation Forum powered by Octane, and I’m with Dr.
Maraima de Hoyos Ruperto. Did I say it right? Yeah. Yes. Kind of close, right? I tried. Moraima de Hoyos Ruperto. There we go. It’s a Latin name. It is. So, and you come to us today from Puerto Rico, right? The University of Puerto Rico? Yes. We, we came from Puerto Rico, from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Campus, which is in the west side of Puerto Rico.
Hmm. Now, is this your first time to an Octane conference? Yes. It’s our first time. We are a group of a 18 between professor and students here from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez. And this is our first time here. How do you like the conference so far? I like it so much because I, we have the opportunity to see the innovators in place.
Those people who are looking for create new things in the medical. area. So it’s so nice for us as a professor. It’s a very good experience. And of course, for our students to. Yeah. So was this like a collaboration or I’m just curious, how did 18 students and individuals from Puerto Rico get get over here to this conference?
I’m curious. I need to know the story. Yes, we are part of the NSF Icor site. . . We have an NSF Icor site in Puerto Rico in the May West campus. . . And we have the challenge to make a customer discovery process for the idea of the students. So the way that we found this is that this conference may help those students to understand how develop an idea from the need.
from the identification of a problem to the develop some technology or something like that. So we think about, came to the conference to expose the students to the real world of the innovators, how they identify the need, how they identify the problem. And through the showcase that we saw and the speakers and the experience of those people who are here, it’s, it’s a, help them to create that kind of connections.
Whose idea was that? Or how did it come about? Cause I think it’s so cool. I think more, hopefully if more universities are watching this, like more will show up, I think it’s an amazing for students. Like, how did that come about? Like, was it the faculty or some students or like, how did it from the faculty, our PI, who is Dr.
Jose Lugo mentioned, well, we need to make customer discovery process. How if we’ve. Go to that conference and the student make the interviews to the people in the conference. So they are here learning from the process through the speakers and the showcase, but also they are making the interview through the participant in the conference.
And so what will happen next? So for after the conference for the students and just for the project, what happens next? The next is they need to continue the interview process because here they made 20 interviews or 25 interviews. They need to obtain at least 100. So this is just the beginning. But through the next, we support them in the interview process and how they can pivot their idea.
For that reason, in my case, like a director of the Business and Economic Development Center, which is a EDA university center, We support them in their process of discovery process. Mm. So they continue the interview? Yeah. We continue talking with them. We ask, we made many questions to them. Yeah. in order to, of course to move forward from the, their ideas.
. . And later if they continue the process. . , if they prove their idea. Or prove their the, the need. Yes. We help them in the business process in into con convert the idea to a business. So we continue the support through, through the, all the pathway. Yeah. What an amazing program. Maybe talk about the program and the business that your program overall, even outside of this and, and what you do.
Yes. We support from the idea. . To the startup. But also to the expansion of the business. So we have different programs. It’s a to support the innovators and the entrepreneurs. So we have one program for from those who have only an idea and we work with them. In things like this one. Yeah, yeah.
But also we have an incubator and a, and a accelerator. So if you already have your startup, but you are in the beginning process and you need to work with the business issues because many entrepreneurs start the process, but they didn’t know nothing about business. Yeah. So we work with them, try to. to fix the administrative things.
And also we have another program for those who already have the business and maybe have Five year or more and they need to grow they need to move forward They need to go to the next step to so to connect them with other companies or other suppliers or Anything that they need in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
So we are like a liaison Yeah around the Iceland. Yeah, we have Very good connection through the Puerto Rico Island, but also with the mainland US mainland We are like a hub that glue that connect people. That is basically our role. How is the like entrepreneurial ecosystem in Puerto Rico in general?
Like, how is that? I’ve just never Okay, right now I think that it’s very, it’s in a very growing process. Actually, we studied the entrepreneurial environment in Puerto Rico almost 12, 15 years ago. or 13 years ago. And we found that one of the problem that we had was the lack of connection between entrepreneurial advocates, between the program and those kind of things.
So we start to work with a different players and different advocates to connect Between us and work together to assist the entrepreneurs. Yeah, and I think that we are very successful in that. And right now, I can say that we have an ecosystem, a support, a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs. And We saw that from that day that we have in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor a 3.
1 percent for people who think to create the business. Right now we have like a 20 plus percent. So in one decade That’s huge. We, it’s huge. We, help to people to understand that they they are opportunities and we are here for help them. So that movement is like a movement that we create.
Actually, we create something that we call the UPRM Egypt network, which is a movement from the university that connect all the players in order to, to assist the innovator and entrepreneurs to connect to the opportunities. Yeah. So we create that kind of movement. And for that reason, if one innovator thing need to talk with.
Some industry we we found someone that can help us and connect them. Yeah, that is our role Amazing. What a great story That’s a big big improvement in numbers. Yes, amazing Well final question if somebody’s watching this or listening to this and they want to learn more about any of the programs you mentioned or University of Puerto Rico or any of anything else you’re working on or social media.
How do they do that? Yes, people can find us and Through the Facebook, Instagram, and our webpage. It’s in Spanish. It’s a Desarrollo Económico. But also you can find us as a Business and Economic Development Center at the UPRM. Or you can find through University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, Business. And you can find our programs and Connect with us through Facebook, Instagram LinkedIn, and the webpage.
Amazing. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put some links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, Hit that subscribe button. This is a daily show each and every day.
We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration. That’s going to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And thank you again so much for coming. It’s been so much fun. Thank you for the opportunity.