Purdue Research Foundation and Universidad de Caldas in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia, have partnered to increase commercialization activities for both universities over the next 10 months. Two Colombian university officials, Rogelio Ocampo and Patricia Salazar, came to West Lafayette, Ind., as part of this partnership, which was funded with grants from iNNpulsa and Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, both Colombian government organizations.

"The goal is to share best practices on technology transfer and commercialization between both universities," Vicky Montenegro, a project manager at the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, said in a release. "Patricia and Rogelio are here to gain initial exposure to the Purdue technology commercialization process and will return to develop transfer and commercialization strategies at their university in Colombia."

Ocampo, who is the director of research at Universidad de Caldas, said he had already found the trip and the partnership informative.

"Similar to Purdue, we have a strong engineering and agricultural presence at our university," he said. "Applying new and different perspective to commercializing our technologies is important for the university and the region, which has a firm agricultural base and is located in one of the most significant coffee growing regions worldwide."