China today is setting the pace for technologies and solutions which are driving the next wave of industrial and informational revolution. Industries should open up to allow new agile Start-Ups, new emerging market entrants together with international players from all kinds disciplines to form highly adaptable and smart ecosystem webs to ensure Innovation leadership and speed to market.
The current industry landscape in China gives us a great insight into maturing multi-industry ecosystems. These ecosystems in China have evolved through Open Innovation and Open Venturing principles that blur the lines of the traditional industry sectors. This development is mainly due to innovative Chinese companies being willing to look across industry borders, invest boldly and not being afraid to disrupt themselves.
Learning from the Chinese giants, Covestro has reshaped its Innovation approach and developed a tailor-made Open Innovation concept for China. Under the brand WIWU (We Innovate With U) Covestro is looking for partnerships to accelerate Innovation. The holistic Open Innovation concept supports experts and partners with an infrastructure to work on five important pillars, as Michael shared in this talk.
Dr. Michael Schmidt is the Covestro Innovation Head APAC & Head of the Polymer Research & Development Center (Shanghai), Covestro, China, based in Shanghai. Over the past 18 years Dr. Schmidt has held various leadership positions within Covestro and before that Bayer, from which Covestro was spun off in September 2015. Dr. Schmidt holds a Doctorate in Engineering PhD (Dr.-Ing.) in Polymer materials from the University of Erlangen–Nürnberg, Germany.
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