Inaugural Roundtable and Learning Event - "Amazing"

The Open European Network for ENTerprise InnOVation in High Value Manufacturing - ENTOV-HVM (www.innovation-web.eu) held its Inaugural Roundtable and Initial Training Day on Wednesday January 22^nd and Thursday January 23^rd, 2020 at the Hochschule Kaiserslautern in Zweibrücken, Germany. The event was hosted jointly by the Competency Center "OPINNOMETH" (Operational Excellence and Innovation Methods) at the Hochschule Kaiserslautern and the ed-Media e.V. Institute for Innovation in Education and Business Processes. Over 20 innovation professionals joined us from around the world, nine months after launch of the network, to align around efforts, share stories and set the foundation for new proposals to co-create. The event was sponsored by the Hochschule Kaiserslautern (https://www.hs-kl.de/en/betriebswirtschaft/aktivitaeten/kompetenzzentrum-opinnometh) and ed-Media (https://ed-media.org/), Entovation International (www.entovation.com),  Eurofocus International (www.innovation-web.eu), Tuke University (www.tuke.sk), Chin Hoon Lau and GB Innovation (www.gbinnovation.ie).

The Inaugural Roundtable created a space for exploring the acceleration of innovation from ideation to market saturation by uncovering the true game changers through living systems based research methods. A multidisciplinary network of experienced diffusion of innovation stakeholders collaborating with early career researchers and young innovators laid the foundation for finalizing a current Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance proposal to be submitted by the end of February, 2020 and a new proposal (working title “Kardinal”) which will be tackled starting March, 2020 under the mentorship of the University of Padua. The stage play “The Innovation Journey” will also be explored for a potential world premiere performance at the Galileo Science and Innovation Week in Padua in May, 2020 (https://www.unipd.it/news/galileo-science-and-innovation-week and https://www.galileofestival.it/) – sponsorship opportunities are available.

The Inaugural Learning Workshop explored the structure and contents of a one-day workshop bringing to life the diffusion of innovation from ideation to market with the aim for participants to experience the look, feel, hear, smell and taste of the innovation journey as well as the emotions associated with these.  Designed for manufacturing team leaders, innovation managers, quality / continuous improvement managers, early career researchers and manufacturing technology start-ups the workshop allows participants to deeply comprehend the complete journey of innovation from ideation to market saturation in order to accelerate that process in personal and professional contexts. This sets the stage for the capability of “instant innovation”. Integral to the learning experience was the “Play in a Day” approach that enables participants to re-create, innovate and experience the journey of innovation in a stage play drama setting. Both the learning workshop and the embedded “Play in a Day” are available as follow on stand-alone opportunities for engagement.

The experience may perhaps be best summarized in the words of a participant “I do not even know where to start. When I go back and think about last couple hours, I have only 2  words to say. AMAZING and THANK YOU (actually 3). <…> Last 2 days were about: showing the respect to others, giving everyone enough space, making the group comfortable, trying to find solutions, being honest with everybody, included me (which I am very thankful for), ...and so many other things which I saw...”

As we launch in 2020 the key milestones aspired to are the submission of our Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance proposal by end of February, news on whether our COST proposal was successful in April, a potential world stage premiere of the “Innovation Journey” in May in Padua, news on whether the Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance proposal was successful in August 2020 and the creation and submission of a new and significantly larger proposal by the end of the year. The next roundtable will occur either in Padua Italy, Lisbon Portugal or Maynooth Ireland early 2021.

Image participants left to right: Chin Hoon Lau (Malaysia), Dr. Pinar Bilge (Technical University of Berlin, Germany), Prof. Christian Thurnes (Hochschule Kaiserslautern, Germany), Dr. Anna Nagyova (Tuke University, Slovakia), Prof. Hanna Paciaova (Tuke University, Slovakia), Prof. Bettina Reuter (Hochschule Kaiserslautern, Germany), Jessica Weyer (Hochschule Kaiserslautern, Germany), Prof. Peter Plapper (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg), Prof. Fabrizio Dughiero (University of Padova, Italy), Giovanni Baldassarri (University of Padova, Italy), Prof. Piero Formica (National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland), Dr. Oliver Schwabe (ENTOV-HVM), Robert Ribicki (Germany), Lynne Schneider (Entovation International, USA), Prof. Brian Donnellan (National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland), Daniel Wendel (ed-Media, Germany), Dr. Fiona Sammler (GB Innovation).

If you are interested in learning more please visit us at www.innovation-web.eu, our LinkedIn Group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8779542/, our blog at https://www.innovation-web.eu/entov-hvm-blog, our Researchgate project page at https://www.researchgate.net/project/Open-European-Network-for-Enterprise-Innovation-in-High-Value-Manufacturing-ENTOV-HVM, and our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2014779865300180/. You can also follow us via Twitter: @owschwabe (#innovationweb) and the LinkedIn Group page https://www.linkedin.com/company/entov.