We are glad to present to you a special edition of our business of collaboration podcast. During three podcasts we will interview 3 keynote speakers of the ISPIM conference in Ottawa, Canada on April.
ISPIM is the International Society for Professional Innovation Management. Its members represent many sectors, including the research, industrial, consulting and public sectors. The conference in Ottawa addresses three critical challenges that are also of global importance:
- Scaling start-ups
- Adopting AI and Analytics
- Innovating with Government
This is our third Business of Collaboration podcast
We will talk about how to scale up start-ups, what is the right equation for funding new businesses, how to leverage a regional ecosystem that includes start-ups, corporates and university collaborations. And in personal life, Jeremy is a coffee person and always get a good and healthy breakfast, and he is a musician to play drums!
We recorded an online podcast between Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and Toronto, Canada by using Webex meetings to ensure a good audio quality.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subcribe to our podcast Business of Collaboration on Stitcher, iTunes, Android or via RSS
In this section, we want to highlight the main lessons learned from our podcast conversation and create a snapshot of these interesting conversations with bright minds by providing easy key points and categories.
“As entrepreneurs, you need to learn, that your very first customer might not be from your backyard”
ABOUT START-UPS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- As entrepreneurs you need to learn, that your very first customer might not be from your backyard and what does this mean from a customer perspective or from an infrastructure perspective.
- You cannot solely be a domestic entrepreneur, you have to be born global.
- Learn from your mistakes.
- Being an entrepreneur and lecture, gave me an opportunity to lecture on location, come out and speak with students about entrepreneurship & innovation in general.
- Take the right marriage of public and private partners in any restriction area to validate the project and get mixed investment.
- Understand the differences between public and private interests help them with the conversation so all parties get what needs to get out of the conversation.
- Being a lecture hopefully will provide value to the students I interact with on-campus speaking. We hired students to work with us. But It did not occur to use, that we could benefit from academic collaborations back in early 2000. It was until years later that I came to understand that it is valuable.
“Smaller countries do very good job help entrepreneurs to understand scaling up and be sustainable for the long term.”
“Building a footprint in the town where business was founded in partnership with the academic institution that there, not only helps drive talent acquisition but also to help do the collaborative research necessary to put though leaders around your ideas and your concept, to give you different perspectives, different alternatives to consider.”
ABOUT INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
- When you build a footprint in the community and want to build a scalable long-term success business, include your headcounts and talent pool.
- Building a footprint in the town where business was founded in partnership with the academic institution that there, not only helps drive talent acquisition but also to help do the collaborative research necessary to put though leaders around your ideas and your concept, to give you different perspectives, different alternatives to consider.
- If you ask 50 different people about Innovation, you will receive 50 different answers.
- It is about diffusion, it is about taking a concept or an opportunity in the market space to finding a proper matching set and making it easier for somebody to be able to consume that innovation.
- Think about the industrial revolution, first everybody was fine with a horse and a buggy now we have cars. Those transformations without it, we would not have the internet.
- Now we have AI to make peoples life’s better.
- Coming from small geographic countries you need to understand scaling up. Canada is a very large country in terms of land, but a very small country in term of population.
- Smaller countries do very good job help entrepreneurs to understand scaling up and be sustainable for the long term.
- Be based in the community, understand the unique assets of your community.
“Helping companies with their scaleup challenges and help those companies connect with academics researchers.”
ABOUT ONTARIO ONTARIO CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE
- One of the ways we add value in that conversation is when we meet an entrepreneur, because we have a certain strategy and approach: we work with any academic institution in the province of Ontario.
- We can listen to the needs of the entrepreneur and we can do very important matchmaking, based on a proper needs assessment.
- Brokering is a really important part of what the Ontario Centers of Excellence does.
- Our team is spread out all over the province and has reached into each of the acids.
- The institution is of great value for an entrepreneur. We can often connect them to the best possible researcher, regardless of the geographic anywhere in Ontario.
- Everything we do in OCE is about commercialization and economic prosperity.
- It requires commercialization road maps. We work on the industry side by helping companies with their scale-up challenges and help those companies connect with academics researchers.
- We are looking for commercial outcomes that create prosperity for the company and community and the province.
“You cannot solely be a domestic entrepreneur, you have to be born global”
Jeremy Laurin
VP Business Development & Commercialization at Ontario Centres of Excellence
Adjuct Professor at York University Faculty of Health
Former President & CEO VentureLAB
