NanoPitch Health: Driving health innovation

Dr Leong Mar is the Head of the Commercialisation at the University of Sydney. Leong has over 25 years commercial experience in both the private and research sectors and hands on experience throughout the whole innovation lifecycle from inventor, to co-founder, mentor, advisor and non-executive director of new ventures. Prior to joining the University, he spent over 8 years at CSIRO commercialising technologies in number of industry sectors and played a key role in guiding a spin-out from launch to IPO in 5 years. He has sat on the Uniseed Investment Committee since 2018 and on the Investment Subcommittee for the NSW Physical Sciences Fund since its inception in 2019. Leong also boasts 10 years at DuPont, global science corporation. Leong holds a BSc (Hons) and Ph.D. in Chemistry from UNSW.

Lisa Linssen is the Commercialisation Ventures Advisor in the Commercialisation Team at the University of Sydney. Prior to this, Lisa was the general manager and co-founder of RingIR, a defence and agriculture startup for 7 years and raised AU$11M in non-dilutive funding. She was also IP Commercialisation Manager at UNSW and worked in global corporations, Huntsman Chemical, Toyota and Akzo Nobel.

Rupal Ismin is the Director of the Sydney Knowledge Hub, a research commercialisation centre that aims to scale the impact of research at the University of Sydney by serving as a bridge between researchers and industry partners. Rupal has helped launch and scale mission-oriented businesses, including City Innovative, a Bay Area startup working with city governments, Hub Australia, a network of coworking spaces, and Andable, an ecommerce marketplace with a social mission, as founder.

Kai Man Yuen is the Program Lead at INCUBATE, the award-winning startup program at the University of Sydney. Graduated with a Master of Science and Master of Business Management, he co-founded a platform SGNZ (Science Grad New Zealand) to help science graduates make the most informed decision about their career. He advocates the need to have the backbone of frameworks and models at the start of your entrepreneurial journey.

Nicholas joined The University of Sydney in early 2020 and leads efforts within Faculty of Medicine and Health to identify and develop new engagement and collaboration to grow research partnerships both locally and internationally between university, industry, government, and other stakeholders. 

Prior to joining the university, Nicholas’ career spans thirty years working in industry, government, and higher education sector leading innovation, commercialisation, partnerships, engagement, and enterprise management.   Including over twenty years based in the Greater China region.