I have borrowed this African proverb from Al Gore. It seems relevant to my eco-innovation experience last week, when I participated with some 20 key stakeholders in Philips's Sustainability Innovation Day in Eindhoven, Holland. The purpose was spelled out in the invitation letter: “Let's listen to each other and start an ongoing dialogue to envision innovative solutions. Our goal for this event is to share knowledge and further the process of co-creating a future that will truly make a difference for the generations to come.”
We discussed sustainability and Philips's latest innovations on its High Tech Campus. The campus itself has a very interesting concept of “open innovation”. I found a concept description by Rick Harwig, CTO of Philips Electronics: “It is better to build an ecosystem in which companies find one another. Open innovation makes companies less susceptible to market fluctuations. It allows them to focus on core competencies and substantially reduce time-to-market when industrializing technology into products. This is a major advantage in a market driven by the slogan: first, fastest and fittest. And this is exactly what happens on the High Tech Campus Eindhoven.”
The Campus left me with a very good impression of Philips compared to many companies' closed and often very secretive research centers.
Continue reading "If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." »



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