We believe:

… that creating innovation ecosystems should never be the goal.

… ecosystems claim to solve a pain for multiple parties, which is often just not true.

… that the focus should lie on solving real pains with good solutions, and that partners can help with that.

… that ecosystems can be a great result – if they solve pains/generate value for everybody involved

Markus and Bernd from mantro will lead an open discussion about innovation ecosystems and their perceived value versus real value.

It is widely acknowledged that business ecosystems offer great potential. However, there is a hidden and inconvenient truth: most business ecosystems fail. Research by the BCG Henderson Institute found that fewer than 15% were sustainable in the long run.

Based on an analysis of more than 100 failed ecosystem, this session will address the most prevalent reasons for ecosystem failure, identify early-warning indicators and explain how to improve the design and governance of an ecosystem in order to increase the odds of success.

Ulrich Pidun is a partner and director in the Frankfurt office of Boston Consulting Group. He is an expert for corporate development and European topic leader for corporate strategy, with 24 years of experience in this field.

As a fellow at the BCG Henderson Institute, Ulrich investigates business ecosystems with a focus on ecosystem design, governance, and strategies. In addition to his work at BCG, Ulrich Pidun serves as professor for corporate strategy at Technical University of Berlin, Germany.

In this session, learn more about Trend-Driven Innovation - a simple, counterintuitive yet powerful methodology to understand where consumers are heading next and how you can move from trend insights to innovation. Then hear a few key global consumer trends in 2021 and best-in-class innovations from around the world that you can take inspiration from.

Nathania Christy is one of TrendWatching’s key speakers, who has delivered 90+ consumer trend keynotes and innovation workshops in major cities across 4 continents from Stockholm to Singapore to Sydney. An Indonesian based in Singapore, She currently leads the Academy team globally and is responsible for the conceptualisation and delivery of TrendWatching’s workshops and courses for clients across a range of industries.

Innovation with startups often means that in order to succeed you need to fail. No-one knows what will work with certainty. In a corporate world where failure is often unacceptable, taking the right risks and making the right decision is hard. Investors approach this by creating a portfolio and through “making lots of small bets”.

In this session, we'll discuss the challenges that corporations face in collaboration with startups and approaches they can learn from VC’s and investors in order to manage risk, create an innovation pipeline, embrace failure and achieve success in innovation at volume and speed.

You will learn:
- How to construct and build an innovation pipeline
- How to overcome the obstacles to creating repeatable innovation success
- How to calculate the ratio of success to failure for your innovation pipeline

Andrew & Tom are the co-founders of The Bakery. Since 2013 they have been responsible for delivering on the vision of building a unique innovation business, bringing together the world’s biggest corporates with the most talented entrepreneurs and startups from around the world. The Bakery’s past and current clients include AXA, BMW, Centrica, Deloitte, GSK, HSBC, Kier, Lloyds, LV, Sanofi, Mondelez, P&G, RBS, Rolls-Royce, RS Components, UCB Pharma, Vale and J&J.

Andrew has a long and successful history in both the corporate world, with Siemens, and as a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits – most notably with Adeptra, a Fintech Startup, raising $43million and exiting to FICO in 2013 for $135M.

Tom is FCA Approved, an angel investor, and has extensive experience in working with Startups and accelerators – most notably Entrepreneur First, Ignite and The Difference Engine (now part of Techstars in the UK), as well as the founder of Traffic Digital and co-founder of a coding school for women – 23 Code Street.

Ecosystems are crucial. They can be immense value drivers, but also quickly turn into competitive threats. Their interconnected nature is putting up new challenges for companies.

What then should businesses do about ecosystems? In this session we will work through the basics of ecosystem strategy, how it differs from traditional approaches to strategy, and how companies can best engage in or create their ecosystems. What is your role in those ecosystems, is your business model fit for your ecosystems or does it need adjustment? Who are the partners you should work with?

After this session, you will be equipped to shape ecosystem strategies and drive the ecosystem-conversation at your business.

As Principal at hy, Martin Spindler supports clients in strategic questions of digitalization. He has extensive start-up experience, most recently as Founder of a strategy consulting network focused on how the Internet of Things impacts business models, product architectures, and business strategy. Martin understands how to identify scope for change and structural market changes. He studied Political Science, Economics, and Islamic Studies at the University of Heidelberg.

Companies now and then run a hackathon or a so-called challenge. All good intentions aside, it's often lip service. So, after a couple of times, company leaders start asking for business impact. How to get from window shopping and one-off pilots to return on collaboration?

The crux is Startup Opportunity Management.

- Get organized for the fuzzy front-end of startup collaboration.
- Learn how to get stakeholder support?
- How to do engagement planning?

In this session, you'll learn how to grow (more) returns from startup collaboration.

Sander heads Scoutely; A Startup Opportunity & Relationship Management platform.

He has two decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur, having started his career in marketing and innovation in the biotech and software industries.
He is also an angel investor, plug-in digital innovation, and co-innovation specialist.

Unless there's a clear existential threat, it's often hard for us innovation teams to involve the core business in our innovation efforts.

To address this, John Suh (Vice President & Founding Director of New Horizons Studio at Hyundai Motor Group) is trying the stone soup approach to innovation. He doesn't try or ask the core to come along. Instead he appeals to their strengths by asking if they'd be willing to spare some of their strengths whether it be a carrot, a turnip, potato, cabbage, really just any skill. It almost doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter if you have all the ingredients you need. Because the point is get participation and willingness.

There are two things that he thinks make this work. First is a kind of "ridiculous" premise. The stone soup story has as it's ridiculous premise soup whose main ingredient is stone. The second needed thing is good administration, which brings it all together. One of the cons of stone soup innovation is that you get, well, stone soup, and not steak, chicken, or fish. But hey, if plant-based protein is good/better for your health, then maybe stone soup can be just as good/better for corporate innovation.

Join this Enlightening Exchange to hear from and talk with John about this approach and how you could start cooking this recipe to better align with your core business stakeholders.

John Suh is vice president and founding director of New Horizons Studio, which is focused on the development of Ultimate Mobility Vehicles (UMVs), including the concept vehicle Hyundai Elevate. New Horizons Studio is expected to push the extreme limits of vehicle development, building vehicles to traverse off-road terrains with unprecedented mobility, through a combination of robotics and wheeled locomotion technology.

John has held several leadership roles at Hyundai Motor Group since 2011. He served as founding director of Hyundai Ventures, and then led Hyundai CRADLE (Center for Robotic-Augmented Design in Living Experiences) as its founding director based in Silicon Valley. He brings over 35 years of expertise in the automotive and emerging technology sectors, including roles at Stanford University, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC; formerly, Xerox PARC), and General Motors Company.

John has a BS degree in electrical engineering from Kettering University and an MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. John has numerous technical publications and has six patents and patents pending in the fields of robotics, artificial nose technology, and location based services.

In PepsiCo we are driven to create more smiles with every sip and every bite- to help us achieve this vision, we’ve defined a new set of aspirations: to become Faster, Stronger and Better.

In this space, we are partnering with startups, to bring their agility and entrepreneurial mindset into our business- whilst at the same time we support their advancement through training and mentorship in the spaces where we can add value. In this session more will be shared about how we go about this within such a large organization, what has worked well, and what learnings have been gained. We have found a way to bring benefit to PepsiCo and the startups- and bridge the scale gap.

Tammy is a leading front end innovation ninja, with a huge sprinkling of futurist added for good measure. She spent over a decade delivering innovation expertise in the UK for large multinationals like Mars and PepsiCo as well as smaller localised companies like Britvic and Twinings. She has balanced a career across R&D and product development, alongside time in marketing and strategy.

More recently you will find her in the USA- Chicagoland more specifically- leading Early Stage Innovation and Foresighting for PepsiCo beverages. Driven by the knowledge that our food system needs to change to be fit for the future we are hurtling towards – she wants to create a positive legacy for the future- something that really delights consumers and makes the world a better place.

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 will share in this talk.

For roundabout 20 years, the media business has constantly being disrupted by digital-native attackers. Berlin-based publisher Axel Springer managed a very successful digital transformation through a very strategic ecosystem and investment strategy. Today, the company generates more than 87 percent of its EBITDA with pure-play digital business models from companies such as StepStone, Business Insider, idealo and others.

In his talk, Sebastian will present the key success factors of Axel Springer's ecosystem strategy.

Dr. Sebastian Voigt is Senior Vice President at hy and Managing Director of hy’s tech and software unit hy Technologies, which is developing the Ecosystem Manager. He studied Business Administration and Computer Science and completed his PhD at the TU Darmstadt on monetization strategies for digital marketplaces.

Sebastian has been developing profitable digital business models for more than 15 years. He worked as Director for Simon-Kucher & Partners, an international consultancy, and led the strategic project teams as well as the pricing unit at Axel Springer. He also held operative leadership positions at Bertelsmann and ProSiebenSat1.

Global innovation leaders invest heavily in foresight and innovation management in times of great uncertainty. But where to play, and where to place your bets?

Learn in this session how artificial intelligence techniques can help spot new opportunities for innovation and growth, as well as how it can help to stress test your innovation pipeline and innovation portfolio.

Since 2011, Christian supports global innovation leaders to identify early opportunities for sustainable growth and profitable investments.

By building one common digital platform for all foresight and innovation activities, friction and complexity are reduced, and collaboration as well as the likelihood for success are increased. In addition, applied artificial intelligence can help to gain additional efficiencies in foresight and innovation management in order to stay ahead of the competition.

Successful platform implementations include companies such as Audi, Bayer, Cisco, DZ Bank, Fletcher Building, Hyundai, INTEL, Johnson & Johnson, MTU, NIO, Porsche, SAP, Skoda, Siemens Healthineers, Toyota and VW, to name a few.

In addition to his PhD in statistics and artificial intelligence, he has published several scientific articles on the added value of artificial intelligence in foresight and innovation processes. Moreover, Chris is regularly on stage as a keynote speaker and member of the German Federal Association for Artificial Intelligence.

Innovation plays a critical role in reshaping society as we re-engineer how we work, learn and live. To move past 2020’s arduous challenges and thrive (not just adapt) in this new reality will require corporate innovation professionals and entrepreneurs to leverage new tools, new ways of working, and most importantly, an entirely different mindset.

Startgrid CEO Peter Gardner will lead a panel including Fred Schonenberg from VentureFuel and Cliff Justice from KPMG to discuss the acceleration of digital transformation during Covid-19 how this is creating widespread changes in the innovation function, including:

- The evolving role of corporate innovation in a digital world
- Scaling collaborative networks between enterprises and startup ecosystem partners
- How digitizing innovation is enabling access to strategic data

Peter Gardner has been involved in innovation for over 20 years, initially as a venture capital investor helping early stage entrepreneurs build market-leading businesses. More recently Peter founded Startgrid, a company connecting global startup ecosystems to accelerate and proliferate innovation. Startgrid’s software platform is used by some of the world’s largest enterprises to discover leading- edge technology in startup ecosystems and deliver it their internal product, R&D and strategy teams.

In addition to his work at Startgrid, Peter serves as an Executive Fellow at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University. He has a BS
from Tufts University and an MBA from UCLA.

Barça Innovation Hub is a key strategic project that aims to leverage FC Barcelona’s know-how to rethink the future of the sports industry. It promotes activities including research, innovation and education under an open and collaborative culture, working closely with leading brands, universities, research centres, and start-ups from around the world.

Albert Mundet is Barça Innovation Hub Director at FC Barcelona. He is a former physicist, with a multidisciplinary background and extensive experience in Innovation Management across different sectors: Sports, Life Science or Media / Entertainment.

He is a strong advocate for creating value through building innovation platforms across diverse entities. He holds a Masters in Science and Technology Studies for University of Salamanca and an MA Media Management at Parsons The New School (New York). He is also a La Caixa grantee and a Fulbright Fellow.

This session will be about how a financial institution, like ING, partners with Fintechs. ING has over 180 Fintech partnerships globally, and sees this as an important part of their innovation journey. The session will focus on how ING approaches these partnerships from understanding the business need/opportunity to signing up a Fintech and together reaching that common goal.

Along the way there will be challenges for the bank but also for the Fintech. The session will provide some insight into these and how one can prepare, anticipate and hopefully overcome them.

Toby leads of the Global Fintech team at ING. The team assists the ING businesses with scouting and advisory with regards to Fintech collaboration. Toby has been with ING since September 2016. Prior to this, Toby worked at a consultancy as a delivery lead and at various banks predominantly in the global equities and fixed income businesses side of the bank. He began his career at Accenture after completing his MSc at Technical University Delft.

In this session Alexa will outline how SAP is building an open ecosystem of innovation with startups thereby creating a win-win-win situation for SAP’s customers, startups and SAP. Alexa will share lessons learnt across the 9 SAP.iO innovation hubs around the world and how SAP’s approach to working with startups to drive innovation has evolved over the last few years.

Alexa is Senior Vice President and Head SAP.iO Foundries EMEA, responsible for SAP’s early stage startup acceleration and incubation in that region. In this role, Alexa leads the SAP.iO Foundries in Berlin, Munich, Paris and Tel Aviv. The SAP.iO Foundries are SAP’s global network of top-tier startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups to build innovative software that delivers value for SAP customers. Alexa has 20+ years of experience in business development and strategy in the tech industry.

Are you looking for a needle in a haystack trying to discover emerging technologies? Do you need subject matter experts to help you solve your challenges? From university research to startup and small businesses to patent-holding authorities, reach beyond google, and discover technology at each phase of commercial readiness. Join our discussion and learn how to find qualified solvers and potential partners.

Eric Haulotte, Head of Technology Scouting at Ezassi has 15 + years' experience in the technology arenas. His role requires an in-depth technology due-diligence analysis on potential solutions as well as a robust market assessment to identify areas of opportunity both on a technical and marketability scale. His work spans companies and business units at various stages of growth, and industries, including startup, established, and turnaround settings.

Eric is responsible for actively sourcing new technology partners, startups, universities, research labs, subject matter experts, and manufacturers and assessing their capabilities, making sure they in alignment with current and future technology roadmaps.

In this session, we'll explore how the continuous technology-driven unbundling of markets and the rising complexity and unpredictability of our socio-economic systems are pushing us to redesign a theory of organizing that works for the XXIst Century. Such a theory, we'll see, is based on transforming organizations into networks of loosely coupled micro-entrepreneurial units, powered by shared services and scalable contracting technologies. In a few words, the Ecosystemic Organization needs to be able to play the full spectrum of organizational models: from the modular to the vertically integrated, from the platform to the product-focused team.

Simone is an entrepreneur, facilitator, thinker, writer and host, with a focus on open business models, ecosystemic organizations and platforms: he worked on these topics in edge contexts such as emergent, self-managed organizations, and startups but also with large institutions, ranging from Fortune 500s to the UN, to explore and experiment a new theory of organizing for the XXIst century.

In 2013 as a result of his experience with open and systemic business models, Simone created the first fully open-source methodology for Platform and Ecosystems thinking - the Platform Design Toolkit - an approach that effectively contributed to kickstart a new design domain, and now accounts for more than 70 thousands practitioners all over the world. This and other works allowed him to be featured in Thinkers50 Radar class of 2020.

You'll typically start with analysing your corporate environment by scouting, assessing and acting on emerging trends and technologies as well as identifying relevant competitors, start-ups and partners. Combining this insight will lead you to a strategically aligned portfolio of opportunities that you should act upon. Aligning your existing and future innovation activities with those strategic opportunities, will future-proof your company's strategy for disruptive changes.