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Industrial Technology and Venture Services

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(The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California - Jeff M. Wang)
 

Building Human Bridges of Cooperation

Together Everybody Achieves More

 

 

- Basic vs. Applied Research

Basic research is curiosity driven. It is motivated by a desire to expand knowledge and involves the acquisition of knowledge for knowledge's sake. It is intended to answer why, what or how questions and increase understanding of fundamental principles. Basic research does not have immediate commercial objectives and although it certainly could, it may not necessarily result in an invention or a solution to a practical problem. 

Applied research is a methodology used to solve a specific, practical issue affecting an individual or group. New knowledge acquired from applied research has specific commercial objectives in the form of products, procedures or services. This scientific method of study and research is used in business, medicine, computing and communications, sciences, and engineering in order to find solutions that may improve health, solve scientific problems or develop new technology. 

Fundamental research answers the initial question of how things work. This fundamental knowledge is then used by applied scientists and engineers, for example, to make improvements on existing products, technologies and processes. Likewise, basic researchers take advantage of improved technologies to answer new fundamental questions. It is an important cycle for advancement.

 

- Bridging and Networking

The “valley of death” is a common term in the start-up world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a start-up, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers.

"Many breakthrough technologies originate in R&D and academic laboratories, but many perish there as well. As scientists and entrepreneurs try to move nascent technologies from the research phase to large scale commercialization, they face high capital costs, intense competition from deeply entrenched incumbents, and a dizzying array of contractual and financing hurdles." -- [MIT]

The EITA Venture Teams explore key scale-up challenges and provide possible solutions and resources.  In addition, the EITA organizes a variety of conferences, workshops, events, and coffee meetings suited to networking with scientists, start-up founders, angel investors, corporate venture leaders and emerging global leaders in venture capital. This fast-paced knowledge sharing is a key part of what makes the EITA a world leading hotbed of innovation in the 21st century.

A true venture partner provides more than money, but mentorship, counseling and strategic advice that can elevate start-up firms and small businesses to new heights.

 

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[Stanford University]

- Invention, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship

One of the key requirements for entrepreneurial success is your ability to develop and deliver something unique to the market. Entrepreneurship is associated with creativity over time, the ability to develop something original, especially an idea or a representation of an idea. Innovation requires creativity, but innovation is more specifically the application of creativity. 

Innovation is the expression of creativity into usable products or services. In an entrepreneurial context, innovation is any new idea, process, or product, or change to an existing product or process, to add value to an existing product or service. 

All inventions contain innovations, but not every innovation rises to the level of unique inventions. For us, an invention is a truly novel product, service or process. It will be based on previous ideas and products, but it's a leap forward, it's not seen as a complement or variation on an existing product, but something unique.

 

 - Trends Reshaping the Future of IT and Business

It's easy to become desensitized to the new technologies hitting the market, each with its own promise of changing (more often, "revolutionizing") the business world. Collectively, these technology trends are accelerating the key features that define the digital age: granularity, speed, and scale. But it is the magnitude of these changes (computing power, bandwidth, and analytical complexity) that opens the door to new innovations, businesses, and business models. 

For example, the advent of the cloud and 5G has exponentially increased computing power and network speeds, enabling greater innovation. The development of augmented and virtual reality metaverses opens the door to virtual R&D through means such as digital twins and immersive learning. Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Software 2.0 (machines writing code) are bringing a host of new services and products within reach, from self-driving cars to connected homes. 

As government intervention in the economy becomes more prevalent, the struggle for dominance in industrial technology is intensifying. Investors once enamored of asset-light companies and high returns had better be prepared to spend billions on them or risk being squeezed out. 

This is not just a reaction to the Russia-Ukraine war and geopolitical tensions between the US and China. Commodity shortages and labor shocks over the past two years have exposed the fragility and unwieldyness of global supply chains. To ensure we don't find ourselves in this situation again, governments in the West and elsewhere are stepping up their multibillion-dollar industrial policies to incubate the next generation of hardware, including chips, 5G base stations, electric vehicles, batteries, and high-tech machinery and systems.

 

[More to come ...]

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