Webinar on How Universities Put Open Innovation into Practice
This Friday, April 19th at 1pm EDT, I will be a panelist in a webinar called “Open Innovation Best Practices for University Tech Transfer.” Sponsored by Technology Transfer Tactics, this 1-hour webinar is designed to help universities be successful in open innovation partnerships.
A paradigm shift toward open innovation is underway among universities. This shift has been coming for a while, as R&D budgets have been cut year after year. Universities had to employ concepts like open innovation in order to streamline processes.
And it is happening. We see it across the U.S. — from Arizona’s Furnace accelerator out west to Georgia Tech’s ongoing focus on industry collaborations here in the east — and around the world.
Again and again, we hear from universities that they see the logic of participating with external parties earlier in the invention process to help ensure that the innovations have more relevance and value. The challenge is: turning that logic into practice. This is what we will be discussing on Friday.
In addition to me, the panel includes:
- Dr. Charles Johnson-Bey who, as manager of Lockheed Martin’s open innovation program, coordinates the firm’s collaborative research activities with national labs, industry partners, and others
- Kevin Wozniak of Georgia Tech Research Corporation’s Office of Industry Engagement, which is the hub for the university’s sponsored research, international research, licensing, and new venture agreements
The three of us will discuss the definitions of open innovation, which vary depending on whether the “beholder’s eye” is corporate, university, or government, and the various shapes open innovation can take. We’ll also talk about the risks associated with open innovation agreements and how to mitigate those risks.
So I hope you’ll join us this Friday and participate in the live Q&A portion of the program. And if you miss it, you can get a recording or PDF transcript. You can also see Fuentek’s contributions to what we prefer to call Symbiotic Innovation on this blog and in our in-depth insights as well as our own how-to webinar.
