Email
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
Youtube
Article from Javier González Sabater
Javier González Sabater (Alicante, 1971) is founder and director of González & Sabater | Technology Transfer Consultants, a company dedicated to connect science and society since 2007 and specialized in marketing and promotion of research. He holds an industrial engineer degree, as well as a master in business administration and Ph.D. in applied economics.
He has worked for several universities and technology centres as well as a consultant for the Foundation INVATE (Valencia Institute of Technology), Chambers of Commerce of Valencia Region and in the evaluation of projects for the Administration.
Previously he worked as Technology Transfer Technician at the University of Alicante and at the European IRC Network.
23rd June 2009 - Few months ago, Zaryn Dentel, co-founder and CEO of Tuenti, the first social networking website in Spain with more than 3 million users, declared in an interview for the magazine Emprendedores that their company needed to be reinvented because the Internet was changing really fast despite its 2 years business life . Any company trying to connect science and society might have a similar feeling when facing Innoget a pioneer company in Spain in that field. The advantages of Innoget’s website are easily appreciated but one might feel the uncertainty of a new tool and your own capacity to use it.
If your company belongs to the highly competitive world of functional ingredients, biotechnology or three-dimensional view you will have to learn how to manage the feeling of uncertainty but you will also have to use the power of the ideas as the basis for moving ahead (unless you have a legally authorized monopoly or any of your close relatives runs a bank).
Today things change so fast that we can hardly notice it. Innovative companies have to focus on the continuous search of knowledge sources within and out of the company. This is an attitude known as Open Innovation. Amalio Rey, CEO of the consulting company Emotools, described, in a recent article, major reasons why companies are going into Open Innovation as follows: extremely wide geographical and multidisciplinary distribution of the knowledge, the tremendous innovation challenges to be faced by the market and the amazingly open access to information via the Internet.
An open attitude
The main requirement for a company to adopt the Open Innovation model is its attitude towards the source of the ideas they need. Their origin is not important, they can come from their own employees or from people that are not within their payroll.
Under those circumstances, the supplier of technology or innovative knowledge gets more and more relevant. Universities, research organizations, technological institutions all fully or partly public as well as private companies can supply the knowledge required to create revolutionary innovations. The only requirement is for them to be experts in a certain scientific field. Language or residence location is not an obstacle.Afinitty a multinational company devoted to the production of food for pets is a clear example of an organization open to receive innovation proposals for pet’s food, nutrition or functional ingredients via Innoget’s IBox-in service.
Many companies, specially the small size ones, were already using external R&D collaborators since most of them do not have their own R&D department. But Open Innovation concept means a change since companies became active by posting their innovation needs and by considering the experts providing the innovative technology as associates more than simple suppliers.
On the other hand, Open Innovation involves the revolutionary fact that any company might become a knowledge supplier itself. The company can put on the market the inventions they develop but do not use for the improvement of products or services they offer to the market. Patents, know-how or expertise become valuable and a source of additional benefits as soon as they enter the fund of innovation resources for other companies. This was clearly understood by Bioingenium, a Spanish company devoted to the development of microorganisms for biomedical applications, who is now making available to third companies their knowledge on proteins, fermentation or bacteria by using Innogets’s so called IBox-out.
Innovation markets
The above combination of ideas and suppliers outline an innovation marketplace similar to any financial, real estate or qualified personnel market. Maybe it is not so visible or structured but no doubt it is a real innovation market where intermediary companies play a significant role.
Intermediaries, in the innovation market, will identify suppliers and convey their offer to the market in a structured way, creating committed, clear and durable relationships between producers and consumers of knowledge, science and technology. According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Public Organization for Statistics) in Spain, in 2007, there were 200.000 potential research suppliers (experts) and 3,5 million users (companies) both clearly needed external stirring for their progress because their limited investment on R&D would hardly make it possible. Innovation intermediaries will become like traffic police agents putting order among vehicles and pedestrians in a busy avenue, with no traffic lights or signs available.
In this sense, the Internet has become a natural space to create innovation meeting points as in the case of Innoget. We refer to those user minded websites (web 2.0 type) which allow the free exchange of information among its members under the same conditions. Online platforms or innomediaries are virtual innovation intermediaries who act as channel linking science and society, making talent available to companies and erasing geographical and cross-cultural barriers. Aqsense, a Catalan user specialized in 3D image technologies that via Innoget’s Challenge service is able to search for engineers and scientists all over the world to solve a certain technical question from just one internet platform. That would not have been possible few years ago.
The silent revolution
The present situation demands an agreement among all the public and private parties involved. Local and national governments, organizations for transfer of technology or standard innovation consulting companies have to adapt to the changes and share synergies with virtual intermediaries to achieve a higher than ever level of cooperation with companies.
There will still be situations at which companies will buy knowledge by following traditional systems, such as personal contacts or marketing campaigns, but innovation platforms will have a massive impact in the future. The tandem Open Innovation – web-based platform web is inevitable, a silent revolution, a radical change in the market, that is a real disruptive innovation. Simply have a look out of Spain and you will see a reality shaped by the establishment of innomediaries, the evolution of consulting companies for technology transfer, the strategies of certain universities and the involvement of the main consulting companies.
In few years time we will be celebrating the independence achieved by the scientist in relation to their organizations. Experts will be able to interact with those companies capable to use their expertise, clearly overcoming the present science commercialization channels. All and all, communication is a key word in any market. Suppliers and users will have a complete range of systems to communicate, most of them based on the Internet, and those giving the best value will survive. If you think the Internet walks fast, open your company and enter the innovation market, Open24.
Comments are closed