Jon Thomas
Organization:
University of Fraser Valley
Title:
Director, Esposito Family Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Dr. Jon Thomas is the Director of the Esposito Family Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (EFCIE), and the BC Regional Innovation Chair in Canada-India Partnership Development at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). He is an Associate Professor (Innovation & Entrepreneurship) at the UFV School of Business. Prior to joining UFV, Jon was a post-doctoral researcher and taught in the Technology MBA program at Simon Fraser University. He also held a Mitacs Elevate Post-doctoral fellowship funded by SFU Beedie and CDRD Ventures Inc. (UBC). Jon holds a PhD in Technology Management and Strategy from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, along with an MBA, and an undergraduate degree in Statistics. He received an AICTE National Doctoral Fellowship for his doctoral research on innovation in the biotechnology sector in India.
Jon has provided innovation and entrepreneurship mentoring to students, post-doctoral fellows, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs for two decades in Canada and India. His interdisciplinary research has been published in Nature Nanotechnology, Technovation, Journal of Engineering & Technology Management, Scientometrics, and the Journal of Cleaner Production, among others. His research on science-based venture emergence is part of the curriculum used to develop the entrepreneurial capabilities of academic scientists across Canada.
He is regularly invited to speak on innovation and entrepreneurship topics, and he is keenly interested in the pre-formation and early post-formation stages of venture emergence, particularly from university settings.
