Empathy and Innovation

Thought this piece by Dev Patnaik is an interesting development of the idea of empathy in design. How do we build a limbic system for innovation in a university world dominated by process-bound technology administration? One way is to allocate management based on who cares and has capability to act. Often, that’s the inventors. Sometimes, it’s the principal investigator. Other times, it might be a tech transfer officer or a department chair or an entrepreneur in the community. What process can sort out who cares and has capability vs whether a technology has “commercial potential” in the abstract?