I debated 5 minutes on innovation last night at NDRC’s Inventorium Long Debate event. Innovation in its broadest definition means to renew. Ireland as a country needs strong renewal on all fronts. The economist Schumpeter defined innovation as ideas/invention applied successfully in practice. I manage www.createireland.ie since 2004 and I’ve been directly engaged in business development of digital media innnovation since 1999 at European level.
My pseudo-debate answered if 1) Ireland has a system where innovation flows, 2) How do you define an eco-system for innovation and 3) What initiatives would you take to develop the eco-system
My answers were:
1. somewhat but it’s been mainly driven by ad-hoc disconnected approaches developed in silos by semi-state agencies and government departments.
2. My ideal definition of an eco-system for innovation in Ireland would one that triggers the application of inventions and/or creativity on an incremental basis. A funnel where basic research, applied research, would be road mapped and informed by revised social and commercial requirements. Both academic and commercial research can be brought further into proof of concepts and prototypes in parallel to research phases. The funnel optimizes public and private grants/funding by shortening the end-to-end innovation process that would ‘glue’ people, technology, and business models. That funnel should be held by all stakeholders: academia, semi-state agencies, government dpts, multinationals, SMEs, interest groups, EU,… Let’s not reinvent the wheel and focus on informed execution, delivery, support, and services that can communicated with great user stories.
3. I had 4 points/initiatives to go about developing that eco-system:
a) Set-up cluster areas across the land. Identify leading MNCs and SMEs and brief them that they’ll be let go in the funnel to innovate - apply ideas/inventions that have incremental or disputive practical applications.
b) Increased SME capacities in relation to skills intake. We need to focus on existing SMEs that are sustainable over medium-term but are struggling in the short-term.
c) Increased relevance, awareness, and exposure of graduate skills to SME commercial requirements. Requirements should be revised on a yearly basis by a new groups of market leaders.
d) Public-funded IP should be made accessible to SMEs on the basis of sustainable relationships between IP owner(s) and SMEs.
Kevin Myers moderated the debate last night. He said something that really striked me in relation to the overwhelming consensus blanket comforting Irish society. It led me to think that a possible lack of consensus is an opportunity to innovate.
