2021-Kendall-Innovation-Michael-Davies

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  What should you do to get the most bang for your buck from engaging with MIT and with the Kendall Square ecosystem? In this session Michael Davies will lay out an overall action plan, building on a couple of decades working as an educator, an expert advisor to leading global businesses, and a (serial) entrepreneur at MIT and in Kendall Square.   Leading global  firms (ILP members) come to MIT + KSq because the unique combination of world-leading R&D – radical innovation that relentlessly redefines what is technologically feasible – together with entrepreneurial energy – a vibrant venture ecosystem endlessly exploring how to build new businesses that are commercially viable.   That’s great, but most established enterprises, industrial incumbents rather than insurgents, are typically rather different places from MIT + KSq; so, what should they do to  engage most effectively with this very different – and somewhat strange – world to ensure that they get the most bang for their buck?   How do they focus their time, energy and resources? What does this require?   While visits to MIT and to KSq are vital and invaluable, they’re just one (albeit very important, perhaps the most important) part of the puzzle. Realizing the full value that can be created and captured from MIT + KSq demands that you do much more than just ‘innovation tourism’.   Critically it also requires building absorptive capacity, making consistent  investments in-house that are complementary to those made at MIT and the KSq venture ecosystem. This involves learning-by-doing, hands-on technical and business experiments, so that your company has the rich and deep understanding needed to create and capture the full potential value from these innovations, and from partnering with new ventures.   It also needs ambidexterity, organizing so that your firm can explore – finding and pursuing the breakthrough innovations that are the basis for building and growing significant new businesses, creating new value – while at the same time you continue to exploit resources built up over time in the current core.   And it involves continuously building acuity (clarity of thought and vision),  insight and foresight that anticipates the ways in which your environment will evolve d is changing. Here MIT + KSq can play a vita role in challenging conventional wisdom, and bring a fresh perspective to bear.

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