Miguel Rebollo

Ya ha terminado el Congreso Open Innovation: Competitivity and Development, organizado por la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Han sido dos días en los que por aquí han pasado figuras realmente importantes del mundo de la universidad y de la empresa para tratar de acercarse unas a otras. Innovación, transferencia, tecnología, intermediación, spin-off son palabras que aparecían sin cesar en todas las ponencias. Sin embargo, he echado de menos que se hablara un poco más de apertura. A excepción de la primera charla a cargo de Henry Chesbrough, en las demás se hablaba más de transferencia tecnológica que de apertura.

Una mayor colaboración, el uso del potencial investigador de las universidades con el potencial de aplicación del mundo empresarial, participación en proyectos multidisciplinares, favorecer que los alumnos sean emprendedores… todo eso está muy bien, pero ¿qué pasa con los desarrollos? Todos siguen hablando de patentes, licencias, acuerdos de explotación. Francamente, no veo la apertura.

Uno de los problemas de la universidad española es que sólo se produce un 1% de patentes. Es decir, que la investigación no se aplica. En mi caso, tengo un problema grave, porque trabajo en el mundo del software y no existen las patentes (y espero que sigan sin existir) ¿soy un mal investigador por eso? Además, soy de los que piensan que si la investigación se financia con fondos públicos, sus resultados deben beneficiar a toda la sociedad sin ningún tipo de limitación. Claro, que si tenemos que hablar de autofinanciación las cosas cambian un poco.

A continuación os dejo mis impresiones de las sesiones a las que he asistido (no han podido ser a todas porque me coincidían con clases). Iba escribiendo sobre la marcha, así que disculpas anticipadas por errores y omisiones.

• Open Innovation
• Innovation University-Business
• Innovation from the University
• University and Competitiveness

Desde la web del congreso están disponibles los vídeos de las sesiones en inglés(originales) y en español (tradución simultánea). De momento no Ya está el vídeo de Henry Chesbrough, que creo que es el más interesante. Espero que lo suban.

Open Innovation: Henry Chesbrough from openinnovation2 on Vimeo.

Mr. Matti Pursula, Rector, Helsinki University of Technology

He begins talking about, of course, about Nokia. He continues showing us their campus, next to Nokia building and other companies and now figures and figures and figures. A lot of meaningless excel tables (at least for me).

The main difference with Finnish university is that all of them are financed by themselves (even the public ones). Maybe they work because of that. Noew they’re merging the 3 existing universities in a single one. Exactly as us: 3 universities in Valencia (UV, UPV and UCV) and we (they) have to create a new one :-(

Finally, a good speech talking about collaboration between university and

Dr. Hu Haiyan, President, Beijing Institute of Technology

An interesting viewpoint from China. Questioning what a university should be and how to retain the high quality of an university: large scale, huge number of disciplines, bigger, older? I guess that none of the previous. THe reforms a measures taken in the BIT are

1. to improve technological creativity
2. to cultivate modern intellectuals
3. to promote innovation in university system

Still waiting for openness.

Dr. André Oosterlinck, Honorary Rector and Chairman of the Catholic University of Leuven

Some figures: with the same number of students (33.000), 10 times more staff and twice the number of teachers and researchers. It was founded on 1425, so they have a lot to teach us. For example, all the research is done inside departments (as we did) instead of separated institutes, as we’re trying to do currently. Please, I need that some inportant in my university pay attention to that man.

How university and companies get in contact? Leuven Research & Development as intermediates, in charge of contracts, intellectual property, creation and supporting of spin-offs and finance, HR and administration. That means that researchers can research and forget about paperwork.

The factors for their success are

• a critical mass of high quality research
• legal context fro exploitation of academic research
• integrated approach in research valorisation: multidisciplinary teams and high value services
• clear incentives systems and policies to encourage research groups and to seek knowledge transfer opportunities

Well, he’s finishing and not even a word about openness.

“Strong and creative universities promote and support excellence in teaching, learning, research innovation and support of the community”

Dr. Juan Juliá Igual, Rector, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

En España vamos mejorando: 40% deacceso a la educación superior, aumento de la producción científica (3% del JCR), hace falta más gasto en ed. superior e I+D+I (1’2% del PIB, frente al 4% de los países escandinavos o incluso el 3% de Europa). Baja producción de patentes (1%), es decir, que no se aplica la investigación. Eso quiere decir una baja capacidad innovadora (0’24 en España, frente a una 0,73 en Finlandia). Hay pocos emprendedores (el 70% nunca ha pensado en crear una empresa) y poca relación universidad-empresa (el 53% de las empresas no tienen lazos con las universidades). Vamos, que está todo bastante negro.

El resto de la charla va sobre el Instituto IDEAS. Como es algo que ya me sé, os dejo en elnace y le echáis vosotros un vistazo.

La palabra mágica estos dos días es spin-off. Es una idea interesate, pero hoy es imposible que haya spin-offs asociadas a la universidad: deben ser entidades independientes y no se puede ser profesor y participar en una de ellas. Hasta que no cambie eso, hay poco que hacer. Las universidades pueden autofinanciarse, pero tienen que dejarlas.

Dr. Curtis R. Carlson, President and CEO, Stanford Research Institute (SRI International)

A non-profit organisation located in the Silicon Valley. What have they done? computer mouse, first internet logon, HDTV, artificial muscles, electronic banking… And they have a lot of partners with which sharing innovation and best practices.

Innovation is the only path to growth and prospeerity, environmental suistainability and security. And we can all innovate, because, after all, we all have customers. We live in a world of abundance: there are no limits to ideas and creativity in the Knowledge Age, but we have some challenges.

Fast (exponential) growing: computer power, www users, information generated… a lot of new opportunities and the power of social groups. Because, actually, the world is flat: anywhere is accessible. Examples of innovation and good practices in China: Biopolis.

Current situation: threading the needle (tunnel again) only 1 out of 100 ideas gets the end and are actual innovations. The rest are lost. Some myths:

• it’s all about creativity
• entrepreneurs are risk takers
• only a few people can innovate
• discipline destroys creativity
• shareholders come first
• it’s the employee’s fault

Innovation practices 3.0:

1. v1.0 Ford: cost, cost, cost
2. v2.o Deming: quality, quality, quality
3. v3.0 Knowledge-Age: value, value, value

How can we do that? Success is determined by innovation metrics. Five disciplines of innovations

1. Important customer & market needs
2. Value creation
3. Innovation champions: no champion, no project, no success
4. Innovation teams
5. Organisational aligment

And they are multiplicative. if one of them fail, all fails. It’s critical to detect and cover unset user’s needs faster than the competence (to transform ideas into products). Again: speed is the key for innovation. But it’s not only about the approach, is NABC (need, approach, benefit/cost and competition) And this is an iterative process.

… and open innovation is a good example.

Well. I have to go and I can’t attend the second part, I’m sorry. Anyway: no one is talking about open innovation, so I think that they haven’t chosen properly the name of the conference :-( Innovation, yes, but open?… I don’t think so.

This is a session about how university and companies can collaborate to innovate.

Dr. Jan-Anders Manson, Ecole Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne (EPFL)

A very big difference in the investment in US and Europe. Our (european) partners usually are big companies, but the majority of companies are SME. 80% of manufacturing industry in EU is traditional, focused on conversion via raw material, labor and energy. There’s a big difference in market capital and No of employees in Hi-Tech companies, so there is in their creation time.

What universities can do to inprove innovation and contribute to the creation of new companies? One key concept from universities is support to their best entrepreneurs, by (i) encouraging the enterpreneurial mindset, (ii) offering a network of competences and (iii) providing financial grants to develop an idea.

Explaining a lt of examples of tech transfer with companies that show that this approach works. Anway, it doesn’t seems a very “open” approach. A good example of collaboration, implication of students in project development and solving real-world problems, promoting innovation inside university. But I consider it is a closed and ‘traditional’ approach.

Dr. Andreu Mas-Colell, Professor of the Universitat Pompeu Fabchecked in indexra.

The European Paradox: Europe does not innovate enough in spite of its first-rate science. Why? not enough expenditure in R&D (proposed 3% PIB, don’t reached) and transmision rigidities from the ‘knowledge’ sector. But the diagnostic is not complete: Europe is not the first, but the secondUSA is the first).

The challenge in Europe: The VII Framework Program. The difference with previous one is that this is a diversification exercise: 15% in the European Research Council. But compared with NSF and NIH is very (too?) small. Its emerging doctrine: the three R’s: Retain, Repatriate and Recruit

Mr. Tom Hockaday, Managing Director, Isis Innovation Ltd.: Technology Transfer from the University of Oxford.

Technology is a cost; you don’t make money from technology. So Universities need business to comercialise its research. But they are very different (a chalk is not a cheese).

Again, as in the first case, I guess that is a closed innovation (transfer) model, based on licenses to finance the research. I am a bit dissapointed. I was waiting for an innovative viewpoint for innovation.

At the end, is just a list on nunbers and a description of how Isis works. Nothing specially important. To conclude, univ and business exists for different reasons but they can benefit from working together. This is not easy, so skilled intermediaries are needed.

Henry Chresbrough, the father of all of this. talking about Open Innovation at the Open Innovation & University Conference.

Current paradign: a closed innovation system: a lot of ideas and knowledge that have to be transformed, ‘standarised’ for current production models to reach the market, loosing a lot o possibilities. The process is an one-way-in and one-way-out process: from science -> development -> market.

Which sources of information have we nowadays? Public repositories, as Google or the Public LIbrary of Science. Faculties are anpother good source of infromation and knowledge. Kowledge monolopies are over: industry, the Academia, Journals, USPTO (patents) recipients and, of course, the WWW.

Internal R&D is still needed: it helps to recognised external sources of knowledge, it identifies gaps and holes (they can be sourced outside-outsourcing-) and it enables integration os individual pieces (service?) into a larger whole (it sounds to me gvery close to agent-based systems).

Smallest companies are investing more and more in R&D in the last five years, while largest ones keeps their investent at the same levels. What changed? Five things:

• increasing mobile trained workers
• more capable universities
• dimished US hegemony: Finland, Taiwan…
• erosion of oligopoly market positions
• enormous venture in venture capital (3 orders of magnitude y barely 30 years)

What’s new? An Open Innovation Paradigm: many inputs: internal and external technology bases, tech. insoircing… and meny outputs: licensing, spin-offs.. It’s a tunnel (embudo) with many holes. Each in-way can fill different gaps in the process (some kind of spin-ins). And new information arrrives to new markets or even the market of other firms.

The example of IBM: besides its internal tech base, they used Java and LInux (external tech. base) for their products. And they reach other markets with its licensing OEM and ODM program. Other samples: Procter&Gamble.

How can companies gain access to these ideas?: (1) cultivating relationships with academic researchers and institutions (I like this one ;-): odd and funny critters to manage, with different motivations (money is not the most important thing) (2) knowledge discovery processes: tech scouting, idea “hunts”, innovation prizes (as Google Android Developer Chalenge or the Lunar X Prize), internal tech fairs and innovation communities. Very “wikinomical”.

A couple of good questions: Can you depend on a continued supply of good external ideas? Can competitors get to those ideas as well as you?

Just to finish, the logic of Open Innovation:

1. Good ideas are widely distributed today. No one has a monopoly on useful knowledge anymore
2. Financial managers must play poker, as well as ches, to capture the values in false negatives
3. Not all of the smart people in the word work for us

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Tags: openinnovation, wikinomic, google, ibm, science, unviersity

El próximo mes de junio se celebra en Barcelona el workshop internacional Science and Technology of Agreement. Son los días 19 y 20, así que me coincide con el congreso de Ibiza sobre Metaversos.  Lástima que la superposición cuántica no funcione para personas ni para gatos. Esta vez me toca elegir, aunque trataré de estar al menos el primer día en Barcelona. Más información:

• Participantes en el Workshop
• Programa
• Web de Agreement Technologies

En esta sesión toca revisar qué es la web semántica, para qué sirve, las bases teóricas (descriptive logics) y lso lenguajes más usados: RDF y OWL. Comenzamos con un vídeo que explica de forma muy sencilla qué es eso de la web semántica:

Como de costumbre, os dejo las transparencias de este tema

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y los enlaces a las lecturas recomendadas.

• F. van Harmelen; D. Fensel: Practical Knowledge Representation for the Web. En Proc. of the IJCAI Workshop on Intelligent Information Integration, 1999. (PDF)
• Lassila, O.; van Harmelen, F.; Horrocks, I.; Hendler, J.;McGuinness, D.L.: The semantic Web and its languages. En IEEE Intelligent Systems 15(6):67-73, Nov/Dec 2000. (PDF)
• D.L. McGuinness, R. Fikes, J. Hendler; L.A. Stein: DAML+OIL: An Ontology Language for the Semantic Web. En IEEE Intelligent Systems, 17(5):72-80, September/October 2002. (PDF)

En esta ocasión, además de los artículos sugeridos, es recomendable echar un vistazo a los estándares de RDF y de OWL, disponibles desde las páginas de la W3C.

Tags: semanticweb, microformats, dublin core, description logic, rdf, owl, tbox, abox, sparql, swrl, reasoning

Hoy vamos a hablar de las ontologías. Se trata de una breve introducción, porque la parte interesante la veremos con ejemplos concretos de lenguajes para la web semántica, principalmente RDF y OWL, asi que seguid atentos. De momento, las transparencias de este tema están disponibles, como siempre, a través de slideshare.

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Tags: ontology, taxonomy, tesaurus, semantics

La semana pasada vimos en clase el vídeo “Apple’s Knowledge Navigator”: un vídeo un tanto “visionario” de Apple en el que se trataba de imaginar cómo serían las interfaces del futuro. Es un gran ejemplo de lo que debe ser un agente de información. Si lo analizas con detalle, verás muchas de las características que hemos ido viendo en clase en cuanto a la comunación, la recuperación (muy inteligente) de información y posiblemente coordinación con otros agentes: es difícil que una sola entidad sea capaz hacerlo todo y es probable que realmente se trate de un sistema multiagente (MAS) plagado de intermediación de servicios.

El vídeo está disponible en YouTube, así que lo pongo a continuación (duración: 5.55 min.)

También puedes descargarte los vídeos en formato mov y mpeg (tienen mejor calidad) si lo prefieres o te lo quieres guardar.

Tags: apple, interface, middleagente, video

Es el título de un ensayo de James Hendler que suelo emplear para empezar este tema. Se publicó en el 2007, depués de más de una década de trabajo agentes inteligentes y sistemas multiagente. Hoy estamos hablando de cosas más complejas, como intercambio de ontologías y argumentación para alcanzar acuerdos entre los agentes. Pero parece ser que los agentes siguen sin aparecer.

J. HENDLER: Where Are All the Intelligent Agents?. IEEE Intelligent Systems 22, 3 (May. 2007), 2-3.

En él se cuestiona el desarrollo del área de los agentes innteligentes, que se han dejado adelantar por los web services, con una mayor aceptación en la industria ¿tal vez por su simplicidad?

De momento, os dejo aquí las transparencias del primer tema, Introducción a los agentes de información, para ver qué son exatamente, sus funcionalidades básicas y sus componentes esenciales.

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Tags: Agentes, Transparenicas