Ron Kessler and Pike Powers are out to create a “third coast” in America: the Central Coast. And just as the East and West coasts are doing a good job at attracting venture capital, they believe the Central Coast, better known as the Midwest, can better compete by focusing on the technology innovations of the Big 12 Conference universities.

Kessler, an executive coach in Austin, Texas, and Powers, chairman of the Texas Technology Initiative, have spearheaded an initiative known as the Big 12 Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization. It’s an idea that each of the Big 12 schools in seven Midwest states, including Iowa State University, has endorsed.

“The pattern we see is that this part of the country is not getting the venture capital that other parts of the country are,” said Kessler. “It’s been our experience that capital is drawn to good ideas, good inventions and business plans. … We wanted to create a process that encourages more commercializable technologies.”

According to a venture capital survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree, venture capital investment per capita in the seven Big 12 states averaged $42.87, far less than the national per-capita average of $72.31. The Big 12 region accounts for 15 percent of the U.S. population, but attracted only 4 percent of the nation’s venture capital investments.

On March 1, ISU representatives and their counterparts from the other Big 12 schools will meet in Kansas City, Mo., for an inaugural conference aimed at forming new collaborations between venture capitalists, university scientists and business development groups. The conference will take place at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in conjunction with EntrepreneurshipWeek USA.

Steve Carter, president of the Iowa State University Research Park Corp., will be among the officials who will represent ISU at the conference.

“One effort is trying to attract folks from the investment community to attend this conference and hear very brief descriptions from these scientists about their efforts and to get some feedback from these folks,” Carter said. “The hope is from Iowa that we might be able to make some connections with people from the investment community that we might not otherwise have had, or to convince a regional venture fund to consider looking at Iowa.”

ISU’s vice president for research and economic development, John Brighton, whose office coordinated the university’s participation, will attend the conference, along with Ken Kirkland, director of the Iowa State University Research Foundation, and Wendy Winterstein, dean of the College of Agriculture.

Three faculty members chosen to present at the conference are Jim Oliver, director of the university’s Virtual Reality Applications Center; Robert Brown, director of the Office of Biorenewables Programs; and Anumantha Kanthasamy, director of the Iowa Center for Advanced Neurotoxicology.

“We endeavored to find three scientists involved in active research areas,” Carter said, “where we have seen and believe there is future opportunity for applied technologies; that is, things that will find their way to the marketplace over time.”

Stephen Ringlee, whose venture capital firm, Cimarron Capital Partners, manages the Iowa Fund of Funds, said he and a few members of his firm plan to attend the conference. The Iowa Fund of Funds, created by the Legislature two years ago, seeks to build a $100 million portfolio of venture capital funds that may consider investments in Iowa start-up companies.

“It’s really a meritorious effort, and it’s an example of what’s happening across the country as universities realize they can participate in this entrepreneurial economy,” Ringlee said. “That’s a new path for many universities. Traditionally we’ve seen the MITs and Stanfords take the lead. Now, I think our land-grant universities are seeing that opportunity as well.”

Kessler said he believes the Big 12 initiative is the first such effort in the country that’s based on existing athletic conference relationships.

“Technology transfer is a very complex process on the university campus,” he said. “We’re trying to remove some of those complexities. As a scientist, you will know those product variables, but you may not know all the application variables.” For instance, a pharmaceutical company’s expertise may lead a university to study an application for a new drug that it wouldn’t otherwise have pursued, he said. “It’s our hope that this will add a lot of value to this process of technology commercialization.”