Episode 23: Elevating Diversity in Biotech with the Equalize Program, featuring Key Opinion Leader Kirsten Leute

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I'm Sharon Courtney, Vice President for Government and Community Relations at Tulane University.

And I'm Nicole Honoré, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Economic Development and Strategic Initiatives at LSU Health New Orleans.

And this is Bio from the Bayou. I'm Sharon Courtney, the Vice President for Government and Community Relations at Tulane University. Welcome to today's episode where we're talking to Kirsten Loita, University Relations Partner at Osage University Partners and a founding member of the Equalize program. Equalize is a groundbreaking virtual mentor program and pitch competition. This initiative was specifically crafted to address the significant gender disparity among women academic inventors when it comes to forming university startups. Join us as we explore the inspiring journey and impact of Equalize on this episode. Welcome to the show, Kirsten.

Thank you so much for having me.

Could you take a few minutes to tell us about the history and goals of the program?

Absolutely. So as you mentioned in the intro, there is a large disparity between women academics, or women in academia I should say, and those who start taking an entrepreneurial journey compared to their male counterparts. This is something that I'd been working on with other people at other universities for a long time. I previously worked at a university before joining OUP about 8 years ago. And so as part of this work, I was introduced to a lot of people who were also interested in this particular area, one of whom was Nicole Mercier at Washington University in St. Louis. She had developed a program at WashU for women who were in the STEM areas and who perhaps hadn't taken an entrepreneurial journey yet, but had innovations that could potentially could lead to that. She had this idea of creating a national program. For women academics so that they could talk with each other, hear about what each other was doing at their own institutions, and then pairing them with mentors and also having them be introduced to other people that could help them with this entrepreneurial journey. So we started in 2020 with a cohort of, I think it was around 12 participants at that time, and here we are now. A number of years later and the program's going strong. So the goal of the program is to provide the women with mentors and other types of things that help them get from the bench to actually doing something in the entrepreneurship field. It may not be running a company itself, but taking more of that innovation journey with what they're doing in the lab.

What are the key building blocks that make up this transformative program?

I always love this question, and because we're really proud of the building blocks that we have, we know that there are more that we could be adding, and we are adding some more of those in the coming year. So the current building blocks that we have, number one is a one-on-one mentorship match with each participant in the program. So we have participants who are from the therapeutics fields, from the med tech fields, and for the physical sciences fields, and we match them each with a mentor for six months. They meet with the mentor at least once per month during the program, sometimes more. It kind of depends on their schedule and the mentor's schedule. They start off talking about what it is that the goal of the participant is as far as their entrepreneurial journey. They start talking about the potential business or the applications for their technology that they've been developing and build more of the business case around that. Then they go on and move on to a pitch deck, and the program culminates in a pitch competition in June of each year. So the program starts in January of each year culminates in a pitch competition in June. And so the mentors are helping them along the way understand what their business is, hone in on what the business could be, and then developing that pitch deck. The mentors also may be providing them with networks, referrals, etc., that may also help them in their journey. So part 2 of the program is training. We provide education and training to the participants. And so we started out with just a few sessions for their participants. As we've gone through this over time, we've added more and more sessions. I believe for this coming year we plan on around 10 sessions, but it kind of morphs and we're flexible with the participants and talk with them about what it is that they're looking for that would be helpful for them with their entrepreneurial journey. But we start off with, you know, basics on startups, basics on pitching, the basics on license agreements. Different things about funding and fundraising and thinking about fundraising, et cetera, as part of the program. Another element of the program is networks and communities. So what we're trying to do is help them develop their own community amongst each other, so learning from each other, but also building their networks outside of the academic sphere. That could be, for example, with entrepreneurs, other entrepreneurs who are looking perhaps to take something forward themselves. It may be with possibly with investors. It may be with people who can give them experience or advice in certain areas that they're looking for with their particular innovation that they're taking forward. So those are the 3 main elements of the program that they have. And then, of course, it all culminates in this pitch competition at the end that I mentioned.

So I hear there have been some additions to the program since its inception. Can you tell our audience a little bit about those?

Yes. So we originally founded the program around female faculty members. We are now adding on cohorts for grad students and postdocs as well. So we're really excited for that to be happening. And then we also are adding an in-person day. When we originally started this program in early 2020, we had actually imagined there would be an in-person day as part of the culmination event. We ended up keeping the culmination event virtual because there are so many people from all across the country who want to participate in the program as well as listen in on the program that we actually decided to keep that part of it virtual. But now we've decided to have an in-person day, which people have been asking for for a while. And we're back in a place where we can do that again, where they can meet each other in person, receive more training in person, and also get to interact with a local community, a local vibrant innovation and entrepreneurial community. And so we are planning on having everyone come together in Cambridge, Massachusetts next year. We plan on probably rotating that each year to some different environs to give people different experiences each year.

Well, I'll just throw New Orleans' hat in the ring for that for the future as well. In your view, what's the ultimate measure of success for the Equalize program?

So there's a lot of people participating in this program, both as volunteers and then going through the program, et cetera. I have imagined that each of them has a goal in mind themselves when they either volunteer or participate in the program. One of the main things that I see as a metric of success is a mind shift. The mind shift being that my role isn't necessarily just as an academic, but that I can be an entrepreneur as well. And so there's that mindset shift, like just thinking outside the box of being an academic, and that you can take your innovation forward. Obviously, there's other types of goals where people go ahead and actually incorporate their company, receive different funding for their companies. A number of the people who've gone through the program have done that with their company. Some of them are incorporated when they actually start with us, but most of them have not raised much in the way of funding yet. So some of the times they're incorporating, getting other people on board, going out and funding, and their funding may be from all sorts of different areas. It could be from government grants like SBIRs. It could be from angels, other local investors. It could be from VCs, other types of mechanisms as well. And sometimes it's going through the experience and realizing, hey, this is not going to work, but now they have more information to look at it perhaps the next time and what may work with a new innovation or perhaps a tweak on the, the current innovation that we have. So For me, it's a lot of that shift in mindset that could happen for the people who go through the program. We, of course, love to see all the connections that people make with each other. A lot of our participants have connected with each other and helped boost each other through their own journeys that they're going through with regards to taking their innovations out of the institution and into a startup.

Why is Equalize not just important, but almost absolutely essential in the realms of academia and startup innovation?

Programs like this are so important because there is a disparity, and it's a large disparity between the number of people who are female in the STEM areas in academia and those who are starting companies. There's a very disproportional amount of people who are taking forward their innovations in an entrepreneurial manner. And so we want to help equalize that plane. And so we're looking forward to those numbers getting more towards parity. Obviously, we'd also like to see the amount of investment put into these companies come towards parity as well. I don't know if you've looked at the PitchBook numbers that they, they have a dashboard where they're tracking how much funding female-led companies or female co-founded companies receive. But there's still a large disproportionality there, and we'd like to see that rectified.

Kirsten, what do you all find are the barriers that women are experiencing?

It's a great question. And obviously, a lot of what we've been doing arises out of information that we have around these barriers. In fact, Nicole Mercier and I, the person I mentioned who co-founded the program, were co-authors on a paper with a number of terrific other people who we've worked with for a number of years. on this. We did a study of women in academia where we reached out to them and asked them, what are your barriers, or what barriers did you encounter with regards to your innovation journey? And so we published a paper. It's called Engaging More Women in Academic Innovation: Findings and Recommendations. A lot of the main areas that women found that they had barriers with regards to their innovation journeys were some of the elements that I mentioned that are parts of our program. Which are didn't know where to go for training or to ask their questions, didn't have a mentor who could help answer maybe what were basic questions, or they didn't even know sometimes the questions to ask. And so having someone there to, to guide them and help, you know, perhaps prod and understand what it is where the hurdles were would be helpful. Funding was another hurdle for them as well.

Time.

Also another thing that just having the time to work on an entrepreneurship area, considering all of the other responsibilities that women often have, not just perhaps in academia or taking on other positions within academia, more senior roles, etc., but also time perhaps in their personal life that was interfering perhaps with them being able to make waves with regards to their innovation. And then we mentioned also there's the networking component as well. Perhaps their networks weren't as built up as much, and they were finding that to be a barrier as well. So thank you for asking that question. But those were our major findings. But please go read the paper. There are some, a bunch of recommendations as well about what universities and technology transfer offices and the government, for example, could do to help create more parity in this particular field.

Thanks for that response, Kirsten. We'll have more information in the paper on that in our show notes. For those eager to get in on the action or apply, what's the best way to take that crucial first step?

Absolutely. So reach out to us, go to our website. We have a terrific website that has information all about our program. There's actually 2 different ways to get there. It's equalizestartups.org or equalizeprogram.org. There is a section under there that says pitchers, and it'll show you the information on how to apply for our program. We open up usually the applications in September or October of each year. And then we accept everyone in, notify them in December of each year, and the program starts in January of each year. This is a process that's gone on for a number of years now. We are looking forward to having more applicants from all over the US. And honestly, we'd also be willing to have applicants from outside the US as well. We really want to spread this program and what it's able to do and help people. The other thing I would say for people who want more information is we do also have a news section on our website that actually shows videos of previous pitch competitions, the speakers, the panels, etc. So you can get more of an idea of what the program is like and what the culmination is like as well.

Thank you so much, Kirsten, for sharing your insights. We're genuinely excited to track the future of Equalize. As always, you can find Kirsten's contact details and informative links in our show notes. Don't forget to explore those for more in-depth information. Once again, Kirsten, thank you for being part of our podcast today.

Such a pleasure, and we look forward to seeing more applicants from Tulane and the Louisiana area.

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We'll catch you on our next episode of Bio from the Bayou.