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From Stars to Startups by Dr. Anna Barnacka

As an astrophysicist I studied the mysteries of supermassive black holes using arrays of Cherenkov telescopes and when the resolution of these gigantic observatories was insufficient, I proposed using galaxies as high-resolution cosmic telescopes. After receiving Ph.D. in astronomy and physics from Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw and Paris Sud 11 I become an assistant professor at Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University. Seven years ago, I arrived as a post-doc to work as a NASA Einstein Fellow at Harvard. There, just as a hobby, I invented a new technology that turns earbuds into high-precision devices to gather biometric data. The scientific endeavors pursued in my free time become now a fast-growing start-up with 10 full-time employees and prototypes in clinical trials. During the seminar I intend to present "lessons learned" about how to turn the scientific experiments into a business. Critical takeaways on founders' agreements, winning investors, building teams, contracts, and intellectual property protection will be discussed.