Presentation at Careers in Neuroscience Symposium CNS 2014 on the scientist as entrepreneur.

1. The Scientist-Entrepreneur
Billy O’Connor
Professor of Physiology
Medical School, University of Limerick.
Ireland.

3. Inside-the-brain.com/

4. Would you have invested?

5. The importance of opportunity (luck)
Of the seventy five richest entrepreneurs in human history fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid- nineteenth century. Reason: In the 1860s and 1870s the American economy went through its greatest expansion - railroads, manufacturing, etc. All named on the list had vision and talent but they were also given an extraordinary entrepreneurial opportunity.
The Outliers. Malcolm Gladwell, Penguin 2009

6. This is where you want your business venture to take you!
The key is to enjoy the adventure for its own sake.
Creativity is the type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
- Arthur Koestler
(1905-1983)
Flow: the optimal scientist-entrepreneur mindset
Three key requirements are autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward.

7. Skills: know your game
The key to success is to practice a specific task for ten thousand hours (10 years).
The Outliers. Malcolm Gladwell, Penguin 2009
Practice isn’t the thing you do once you are good.
It’s the thing you do
that makes you good.
The idea of apprenticeship or mastering your trade will give you confidence in business.
In a competitive situation knowing your game can literally make the difference between success and failure.

8. Time management
Time has value so spend it wisely.

9. Entrepreneurship education not only imparts information but also empowers creative thought.
Remembering
Envisioning the Future
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 2, 642 (2007).
BRAIN ACTIVITY DURING PAST AND FUTURE THOUGHT
Education: where do creative ideas come from?
The ability (i) to learn and remember and, (ii) to think creatively involve the same brain regions.

10. “Fortune favours the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur.
Read six non-fiction books a year.
Read widely
1. Mindset 2. Skills 3. Education

11. Atlas shrugged
Wealth creators be proud. Fight for your freedom to innovate and produce and never accept the guilt of the non- productive.
‘Self interest is in full accordance with nature and therefore brings the more moral end.’
- Adam Smith
Rand is the patron saint of the 21st Century entrepreneur - advocating a philosophy of maximum self-expression combined with a desire for technological progress.
Wealth is a sign that significant individual thought has taken place. To create something and to make money out of it is the essence of human morality.
The purest brand of capitalism represents a triumph of the creative mind over the state, religion and tradition.

12. Creativity in a crisis - the hallmark of the human condition

13. Most radical innovations harness the cross-pollination of disciplines
"The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust