This Small Business innovation Research Phase I project to be carried out by Foresight Science and Technology, Incorporated builds a software engine providing decision support for the development of commercialization strategies. Commercialization strategy formulation can be viewed as a problem that involves a set of elements that mutually constrain each other. Coherence is philosophical method for maximizing a set of positive and negative constraints. As a coherence problem, commercialization strategy formulation requires discovering those strategies which best fit or cohere within a pattern involving (1) the technology being commercialized, (2) the internal company environment, (3) the external environment (especially the market), and, (4) the commercializing firm's goal(s), and which best leverage elements in the internal and external environments of the company and the technology, in order to attain company goals by exploiting opportunities and neutralizing or avoiding threats. To build this tool, Foresight Science and Technology, Inc. will specify the elements in the knowledge domain based on relevant social scientific literature. Research by Paul Thagard established that coherence can be computed via connectionist networks (neural nets) and Thagard's codes will be adapted for this project. The project proffers a decision aid for commercialization in Small Business Innovation Research projects, federal labs, universities, and major corporations and an analytical tool to allow investors to access the commercialization strategies of companies with technology developments.
