Find out what our Guest Speakers have to say about innovation:
Soumodip Sarkar
Associate Professor of University of Évora and Worldwide Specialist in Innovation
“For long, innovation has been considered the privilege of the few- those with resources to invest in traditional R&D. However there are two important trends that should be pointed out. First is that the erstwhile “poor giants” of China and India, are no longer content with producing goods and services low down the value chain, but are increasingly turning out to be innovation giants. What can we learn? How should EU firms react to this trend? The other factor is the increasing trend of smart companies to tap into the wisdom of the crowds. This trend towards open innovation is crucial to understand and adopt. What are the advantages? What are the risks? What should be the strategy that we should employ to pursue an “intelligent open strategy”?”
Petra Püchner
Managing Director of Steinbeis-Europe-Zentrum and Specialist in Technology Transfer Mechanisms
"Innovation is often connected with technology. Women sometimes cannot refer to this term, it is male dominated. Innovation first of all means to open up for new ideas and new solutions. Women with their natural curiosity are predestined for innovation. Certainly, we have to encourage a fearless handling of technology issues. Knowledge about technology is essential to be able to exploit it for my business. A Swedish woman with physical handicap uses her expertise to create office furniture for handicapped people. A Bulgarian woman psychologist supports the technology company of her husband by creating an internal culture for innovation."See more in her interview at EWMD Website: Interview
Alexandra Fezer
Project Manager Security of Steinbeis-Europe-Zentrum
"Organisations need an open culture to reach new ideas and get new knowledge. Also innovation as to be implemented into the strategic orientation of the organisation and therefore needs strategic partnership and knowhow about trends and scenarios of their markets."
Cláudia Goya
Business and Marketing Officer of Microsoft Portugal
"Innovation is above all a mind set. It is a challenge for leaders to adopt an innovative approach to the everyday business problems and opportunities and to slowly but consistently establish innovation as a cultural value within organizations."
Fernanda Pargana Ilhéu
Assistant Professor at ISEG, Secretary-General of Portuguese – Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Vice- President of EU-China Business Association.
“With globalization, classic solutions don’t resolve our problems, in almost all the issues, which are concerning us like: employment, security, retirement…, so we have to look for different ways, different political solutions, different economic systems, different ways of living, we have to innovate in basic things on life.”
Maria Calvo
Director Ashoka Spain
“Ashoka envisions a world where “everyone is a changemaker”; to achieve this goal, the citizen sector must grow in size, competitiveness, and quality. What we see as the single most important indicator of quality is Innovation. The way we define social innovation is: a replicable new idea for changing the pattern by which society deals with an important area of human need.”
Rui Campos Guimarães
CEO of COTEC
“Before anything else, the concept of innovation has to be clarified. Secondly, it should be recognized that the generation of knowledge and entrepreneurship (including intrapreneurship) are necessary but not sufficient conditions for innovation. Finally, for innovation to be carried out by companies in a systematic and sustained way several conditions must be satisfied: (i) a adequate model for company innovation should be adopted, (ii) Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) activities should be properly classified; (iii) a satisfactory Innovation Scoring System should be adopted by companies in order to allow the respective organizations to self assess the intensity and the quality of their innovation processes, and (iv) a proper Management System for the RDI activities should be built, certified, and regularly improved and monitored.”
Isabel Cantista
Teacher of Innovation & Technology at AESE
“The most important trend in the management of innovation is the mindset. Many politicians and managers talk about innovation, but by the end of the day, they are not really committed. Innovation means risk, hard work, with no returns guaranteed. It is important to show successful innovation stories and to empower managers with the tools that will help them to draw an innovation strategy.”
Ana Paula Reis
CEO & Founder SelPlus
“Innovation is a way of being and facing life. Permanently challenging the status quo with the main goal of being and doing better and more is, for me, the meaning and living of innovation. It goes much beyond technology and further than the professional scope. It is really so fundamental and central to my way of acting that it is on the basis of my company’s mission. Is there any other way of being meaningfully successful today?”
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| Message from the Speakers about Innovation.pdf | 408.29 KB |
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