Notes from IA's Open Innovation Discussion
Innovate Arkansas hosted an open innovation discussion that was moderated by IA adviser Jeff Amerine of Startup Junkie.
Here's coverage from Arkansas Business.
It was held Thursday over lunch from the Argenta Community Theater in downtown NLR.
And the invitation-only event represented a "who's who" of tech entrepreneurship, research, innovation and economic development in Arkansas.
Among the 30 or so attending were Tom Dalton and Ted Dickey of IA, mayors Mark Stodola (LR) and Joe Smith (NLR), Rep. Warwick Sabin of the Innovation Hub, Jerry Adams of the Arkansas Research Alliance, Arkansas tech pioneer and Venture Center chair James Hendren, Walter Burgess of IA client Power Technology, StartupDad and ARK Challenge mentor David Moody, LR Tech Park director Brent Birch, Nancy Gray of UAMS BioVentures, ASU's Brian Rogers, Eric Wilson and Chad Williamson of Noble Impact, and officials from UAMS and UALR.
That's just a handful. Here's a taste from AB:
Innovate Arkansas has worked to support the burgeoning tech startup ecosystem in central and northwest Arkansas. As that ecosystem continues to grow, it's time for the state's larger, more established companies "to figure out how to partner with small businesses, universities and smart people wherever you can find them," Amerine said...
...Amerine said innovation "as usual" doesn't work anymore because of the following factors:
- Increased global competition;
- Increasingly short product life cycles;
- Substantially reduced federal funding to universities, which forces university researchers to focus more on solving problems relevant to industry;
- Zero appetite for the "build it and they will come" mentality.
During open discussion following Amerine's presentation, Adams suggested that Arkansas innovation leaders need to "get it in the brains of CEOs" that solutions to their problems can be found right here in Arkansas.
"There are models in the state where we're persuading companies that university research in Arkansas can provide solutions to problems," he said.
Could open innovation require researchers and founders to give up their secret sauce? Amerine assured the audience that "open innovation" does not require such a sacrifice. And the open innovation model is transferrable between startups and large companies and institutions, he said, with each side benefitting from participation.
Hendren suggested that sharing best practices and ideas that don't contain that secret sauce can lead to open doors down the road.
Burgess, whose company is marketing a laser projection system for the movies called Illumina, said he was supportive of the open innovation and the Lean Canvas model.
"Large companies are inherently slow to adapt to change, and that change drives economic development and job creation," he said.
On a related note, here's a TED Talk from Catarina Mota on the open source model as it applies to makers. (You're welcome, Joel.)
Open source, open innovation. It's all about moving forward, right?