ABCtech #21 18AUG14 Innovation Explored

ABCtech #21 18AUG14 Innovation Explored

QuikTech Notes

18-AUGUST-14

Special Edition

… thank you Peter Kelly for your contributions

Editorial – Innovation Explored

Innovation is about generating new ideas, methods or devices. It’s about continuous improvement and constantly thinking outside of the box. It’s about responding to rapidly changing environment in a creative way. In his book A Short History of Progress  Ronald Wright writes that humans have no fangs, claws, claws or venom build into our bodies. Instead we developed tools, weapons, warm clothing and simple watercraft that allowed us to overrun the planet. The key to our success is culture, which can adapt far more quickly than genes to changing threats and needs.

Culture and technology are cumulative as early hunters and gatherers discussed the best way to kill their prey and how planting seeds would allow them to stay in one place making it possible for villages, towns and cities to emerge. Cities allowed culture to flourish and technology to grow exponentially by increasing the number of serendipitous encounters of people with diverse knowledge. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, innovation happens at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. As a result humans now live a lifestyle unimagined even a century ago.

Today we find ourselves in a situation where our wasteful use of resources has outpaced the Earth’s ability to regenerate them. CO₂ emissions are changing the climate quicker than nature can adapt and threatens the lifestyle we have become accustomed to. At the same time this threat provides opportunities for developing innovative solutions that will benefit the planet, people and profits and ensure our activities remain sustainable.

Alberta finds itself at the centre of the climate change debate. Alberta’s oil sands developments provide both environmental challenges and the resources to explore innovative solutions. To diversify their economic base many municipalities are setting up innovation clusters where private companies, governments and non-government agencies work together to find innovative solutions that will solve environmental problems, create niche markets and grow their economic base. By adopting a SMART City approach municipalities can reduce their costs of providing services while strategic procurement of high tech knowledge and products can provide markets for start-up companies. These markets are large enough to provide a revenue stream, yet small enough to refine innovative products and services so they can be scaled for a global market.

The model for a successful innovation cluster should focus on the creation of an ecosystem for sharing knowledge, ideas and opportunities combined with the discipline to commercialize and grow them. This means understanding the importance of people, culture and connections. To grow quickly an innovation cluster can partner with other like-minded organizations throughout Alberta such as Calgary MakerSpace, that provides equipment such as 3D printers to develop rapid prototypes and even real world components, the  Kinnear Centre for Creativity & Innovation that focuses on the liberal arts skills needed to make ideas truly innovative and the proposed Alberta Fusion Energy Directorate focused on leapfrogging Alberta into a leading position in laser fusion and global investments and technology spin-offs that come with it. Beyond Alberta there are a number of global innovation clusters willing to partner with Alberta such as Brainport in the Netherlands and Route de Laser in France.

 – Klaas Rodenburg, Director

Alberta Council of Technologies Society

Innovation – A Competitive Advantage

“Fostering innovation is widely accepted as the key to competitiveness and better quality of life, especially in Europe where we cannot compete on costs,” said Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.  FOR MORE

Innovation isn’t just for professionals anymore. Charles Leadbetter argues that passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can’t.  FOR MORE

Innovation provides a competitive edge argues Alex Tabarrok, professor of economics at George Mason University.  He has come up with a plan to launch a new “Innovation Renaissance,” powered by such diverse elements as patent reform and an educational overhaul. FOR MORE

Setting the standard for innovations – 2014, Alberta’s most innovative organizations.  FOR MORE

Calgary Makerspace is a consortium of organizations and individuals brought together with the goal of improving our local economy and culture by providing access to technology development facilities and entrepreneurial support networks. FOR MORE

Are institutions of advanced education and research adapting to the call for relevance –  are they compromising their independence.  MIT has conferred with its stake-holders and posed a series of recommendations for “reinventing MIT education together as a community”.  FOR MORE

Brainport builds on the resources of Phillips, which is always looking for innovative ideas.  FOR MORE   AND MORE

The Merit of Clusters

Clusters are a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, including product producers, service providers, suppliers, universities, and trade associations.  FOR MORE

A review of policies and practices for clustering innovation and entrepreneurs in the United States concludes that the best path forward involves experimentation and evaluation. Without advances in evaluation, there is little confidence that anything but broad policies will have their intended impact.  FOR MORE

The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a global review of innovation clusters identifying keys to their success: Government has a crucial role to play; so does the market. Clusters are about collaboration, not just locating firms in the same place. Talent is the single most important factor in developing successful clusters. Attracting a star name in a given field can be a crucial catalyst. Governments need to work to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship – culture matters. Clusters work best when they are focused and can compete. Governments can do much to create an attractive business environment—and a good place to live. A strong local market will help attract R&D investment, but is not crucial for global success.  FOR MORE

The Merit of Collaboration

Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It’s not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is. FOR MORE

The European Commission Smart Specialisation (S3) Platform aims at assisting regions and Member States to develop, implement and review regional smart specialisation strategies, helping to concentrate limited human and financial resources on the most promising areas of comparative advantage.  FOR MORE

ELAt, the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen triangle, is a geographical area of high-tech collaboration in the Dutch, Belgian and German cross-border region.  FOR MORE

Interesting and innovative methods of participation and new approaches to responsible entrepreneurship emerge out of social economy activities. However, these methods would be far more effective and spread, if they were taken up and supported by other local actors such as the local authority.  FOR MORE

Innovation – A Strategic Urban and National Focus

The Creative City Index is a method for assessing cities holistically. The Index helps assess a city’s creative abilities and potential, a precondition for downstream innovations and economic and cultural vigour.  FOR MORE

By boosting the economic and social well-being of communities, broadband can reduce the incentives for their young people to move away in search of opportunity and a better quality of life.  Paradoxically, it can play a key role in giving communities a sustainable future in our ever-more-connected world.  FOR MORE

Valkenswaard is working on becoming a Smart City using technology as a way of engineering the future.  FOR MORE

Intelligent Community Forum studies and promotes the best practices of the world’s Intelligent Communities as they adapt to the demands and seize the opportunities presented by information and communications technology (ICT). To help communities build prosperous economies, solve social problems and enrich local cultures, the Intelligent Community Forum conducts research, hosts events, publishes and produces its high-profile international awards program.  FOR MORE

How can public policy work to unleash creativity in the Canadian labour force across all sectors? To build economic strength and resiliency, Canada should develop a bold strategy to incubate creative minds and the places and processes in which they can thrive.  FOR MORE   AND MORE

Resources

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is bringing real and lasting change to the European Union’s innovation landscape, by creating new environments where higher education, research, public administrations and business work together to produce disruptive innovation. FOR MORE

The Harvard Business School’s Forum for Growth and Innovation is a research project guided by  experts on business growth and innovation. The goal of the Forum is to discover, develop, and disseminate robust, accessible theory in the areas of innovation and general management. FOR MORE

While people have talked about collective intelligence for decades, new communication technologies—especially the Internet, now allow huge numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways. The successes of systems like Google and Wikipedia suggest that the time is now ripe for many more such systems, and the goal of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence is to understand how to take advantage of these possibilities. FOR MORE

“Creativity is an essential tool for both artists and scientists,” says Jeff Melanson, former President of The Banff Centre – exploring possibilities for incubating new areas of inquiry across the disciplines of arts and science.  FOR MORE  Leadership challenges AND MORE

   ABCtech’s activities in 2015 will be dedicated to development of a model Innovation Zone in Alberta.  The project is to involve collaborative economic development among several  municipalities and counties in Alberta.  The area selected shares a common need to establish a robust commercial/ industrial base in keeping with their cultural aspirations and environmental limitations. Primary is to establish the receptive infra-structure for retaining and attracting enterprises developing and deploying innovative solutions to big problems – such as have been the focus of ABCtech’s themes over the last 10 years.  For more contact  info@ABCtech.ca

Topical – Empowering Data Explorers

ABCtech Sponsored EVENTS

SMART City Symposium

St. Albert 

September 18th

Cities need to become smarter.  Join industry experts from the public and private sector for a discussion on possibilities, best practices and future innovations.

FOR MORE

Register   HERE

Business Development Mission

Dallas – Fort Worth

October 4-7th

Join Edmonton and region business leaders to develop and strengthen personal business-to-business relationships in your sectors of interest and meet directly with businesses seeking partnership opportunities.

FOR MORE

Entrepreneur Training Camp

Edmonton

September 11th

Learn to plan, fund, manage and market your own business.

FOR MORE

Small Business On-site Consultations

St. Paul – September 17th

Edmonton – September 18th

St. Albert – September 23rd

Fort McMurray – October 2nd

Why do small businesses in Alberta fail to grow and do they exit too early? Is there merit in  mergers? ABCtech wants to hear from you.

FOR MORE

PENDING

Grande Prairie

Red Deer

Calgary

NOW COMPLETE

Drayton Valley – April 25th

Edmonton – May 6th

Medicine Hat – May 7th  

Lethbridge – May 8th

Canada 3.0

Calgary

October 28-30th

Building the technology supply chain for the energy industry

FOR MORE   or   CHAT

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What inspires your innovation: WIRED Magazine, Instagram, Pinterest, or ???

Visit   www.ABCtech.ca

For a status update on developments in public education and advocacy re emerging technologies and impediments to their commercialization:

Fusion Energy

Data Analytics

Cell Therapies & Genomics

CleanTech

Maglev

Innovation & Enterprise

Inspiring Innovation

Visit – “Quotes”

Feature – ISRAEL

Israel, one of the world’s smallest countries, produces more startup companies than many of the world’s most developed nations. With a population of slightly more than seven million people, Israel leads the world per capita in technology startup companies. Israel is credited with developing technologies like the cell phone, voice technology, and even the Intel Pentium chip. Israel also puts a premium on research and development, with many more people per capita in this field than any other country in the world.

ABCtech’s 2015 Theme –

Convergence & Creativity 

Innovation Explored