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IT Pioneers boost innovation according to World Economic Forum

Read the CV (PDF: 213KB)

The World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers 2007
The World Economic Forum has announced 47 visionary companies selected as Technology Pioneers 2007. With 19 selections, IT continues to be the largest sector reflecting innovation. The final selection from 225 nominees was made by a panel of leading technology experts appointed by the WEF. To be selected as a Technology Pioneer, companies have to be at the absolute cutting edge of innovation and have the potential of impacting the society to a large extent. Read Innovation reinvented: a more open approach (PDF: 592KB).

Q1. Briefly, what is the history and the purpose of the Technology Programme? Where did the idea come from?

The World Economic Forum (WEF) membership comprises some 1’000 of the most important companies in the world commanding high revenues and global presence. The purpose of the Technology Pioneer Program is to look at some of the new technology companies to address some of the key challenges we have to face now. These companies are at the absolute cutting edge of innovation and have the potential of impacting the society to a large extent.

Q2. “Innovation reinvented: a more open approach”: explain the meaning of this phrase? What has fundamentally changed compared to the traditional vertical-innovation model”?

The nature of innovation is changing. Five, ten, twenty years ago, research was driven by large companies and their laboratories would often lock the doors. Today, innovation is being done everywhere. It is not only driven in-house; companies are increasingly collaborating with external parties for research. The research is being done by smaller companies that then tie up with larger companies. Some important companies have even totally abandoned R&D simply because the shorter economic life cycles make it very difficult for their large organizations to constantly be on the cutting edge of the transforming technologies.

Q3. On what bases are the pioneers selected (criteria, process, and evaluators)?

First and foremost, the company must be innovative. We’re looking for a company that is proposing a truly new technology and not an adaptation of an old technology. We then evaluate the potential impact it can have on society, at large. One of the best examples is a company like Google that was recognized as a Technology Pioneer back in 2002.

Additionally, the company must have sustainable bases and have proven its worth, in a specific way, depending on each company’s sector. IT companies, for instance, must prove the existence of a significant number of customers and they must, of course, have a sustainable platform of growth. They must not only have created something new but also have created a business around it. They must also be a very clear leader in the industry. Finally, Technology pioneers cannot be subsidiaries of existing large innovation centres (e.g. HP, IBM, etc) nor can they be subsidiaries of an existing member of the Forum. This is to ensure that we have the infusion of fresh blood.

Technology Pioneers are nominated by everybody. We turn to experts from business, academia, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. We run with a committee of more than twenty five external experts and each year we select between thirty and fifty Pioneers.

Q4. What are the main features of the Information Technology Pioneers 2007 (geographic localisation, type/size of entities, innovation sector, etc)?

This year, forty seven companies received awards. The level of applications is one of the highest we’ve ever had. This simply reflects that our global penetration and visibility is increasing. IT continues to be the largest sector reflecting innovation (19 selections) and we also see this year a larger presence of emerging economies.

Q5. Could this prefigure a trend in terms of the dynamics that lead innovation? What appears to be the fundamental enablers of innovation?

IT and clean technologies are growing tremendously. Moreover, we notice that IT has become itself a factor of innovation when combined with other technologies. For example, IT is used more and more to monitor and assess the use of energy and to optimize its distribution.

Q6. “As the old “own and protect” mentality towards intellectual property gives way to a new “share and expand model””: how would you interpret this phrase in the IT innovation space?

If you go back to historical IT leaders they have relied very much on in-house developed technologies and the ability to afford the copyright of these products. We’ve noted of course a trend towards open source software and open source platforms. Mozilla, for instance, is an open source platform that allows players in the market to use, improve and share the technologies.

Q7. How important to technology and innovation is the Internet, its openness and focus on User choice and control? Will technology and innovation suffer if the Internet was to become more closed and typically telecommunications network like?

The Internet is the ultimate source of information sharing. We are now seeing virtual R&D teams that sometimes involve hundreds of people distributed in the world, all kept in touch by the Internet. The key to this innovative process is keeping the Internet platform open.

Q8. What are the main challenges that need to be faced in order to embrace the new “open innovation model” in the IT sector (organisational, educational, economic, legal, etc)?

The foremost challenge is that the established players need to understand that innovation is distributed now. Key to survival is the innovative capability of an organization and therefore innovation network. This innovation network is not constituted of subsidiaries of the same company. It’s a way of tapping into resources, tapping into the most innovative people using alternative tools.

IT sector players need to clearly think about the role they wish to play: the inventor, the transformer, the financier or the broker. Many companies are sitting on multiple chairs, willing to be inventors of certain parts of software, to transform other companies’ innovations and to try and fit the various blocks of innovation together. Finally, many companies are outsourcing their research by financing start-up companies. Last year we noticed that eighty different search engines that are more or less in direct competition with Google were supported.

Finally, a shift in the attitudes is needed. First, the companies need to learn to share. Innovators need to have other people’s views on what they’re doing. Corporations also have to lose their non-invented-here attitude. A common problem you have when combining an external technology to a company is that people are unwilling to adapt to it. They’ve been working on a competing technology and they don’t want to abandon that work and integrate a technology developed in Bangalore, or elsewhere.

Q9. Has participation in the Programme increased in 2007 and when will the next call for Technology Pioneers be launched?

The class of 2007 was the product of a higher number of applications that we have ever received before. The reason for this is the direct and indirect benefits a company realize once selected a Technology Pioneer – benefits like investor interest, global recognition and improved ability to attract talents. It was notable that China, India and South East Asia played a bigger than role than ever before – something that speaks to the importance of the shifting power equation.

We have now started the process of accepting nominations for Technology Pioneers 2008. The process will be open until end-May 2007, and we expect to see a higher number of nominations from entrepreneurs, investors, technology experts and society at large. The list of Technology Pioneers 2008 will be published early December 2007.