For the first time in the history of mankind, people in any corner of the world can engage in globally competitive new product development. By the same token, operating within the confines of a nationally protected local market is a receding option. Intended for engineers and technologists considering developing products and bringing them to market, the New Product Development Initiative will, through a series of webinars, provide guidance on the many disciplines required to succeed. Along with the webinar series, to put the guidance to practical use, a competition will be held to develop a product.
Most value creation these days is being driven by innovation in new products and in the new technologies that often underpin them. Globalization of supply chains, capital mobility, educated talent availability, web-based marketing and sales have all been enablers. Leveraged individually and collectively, these forces have enabled companies and national economies to chart a new path to a modern way of innovating, productizing innovation, and bringing the resulting products to market. Indeed, so great is the pace of innovation that even new entire industries have begun to emerge. While harnessing this value is challenging for established companies in advanced countries, it is even more so for developing, often agrarian economies.
But the good news for these emerging economies is that the very innovation that might simply enlarge the divide between rich and poor is also creating opportunity. For the first time, less developed economies are able to rise to the level of better-developed ones, often without the baggage of having to deal with legacy eco-systems and infrastructure. What remains then, is the task of operationalizing the changes necessary to fully harness these opportunities.
Availability of good STEM education, venture capital and business friendly policies go a long way toward setting the stage, but they’re not sufficient. In major developed economies, it isn’t unusual for fresh university graduates to spend half a dozen years or so before they can start seeing their own personal impact on any major new product. In well-run companies, surrounded by more knowledgeable, experienced peers, these graduates can, through immersion and osmosis, work through the ranks and grow. Unfortunately, elsewhere in the world, such opportunities do not exist for the vast majority of graduates.
Immersion itself is a great educator, but it has been shown that many of the key skills in new product and technology development can in fact also be taught more directly. By so doing, we can jump-start a cadre of technical graduates onto a path of becoming tomorrow’s senior managers and entrepreneurs. But for the most part, “New Product and Technology Development” is not taught as a subject in educational institutions and this is leaving a serious gap in expertise that has been left largely to the private sector to fill.
Conceived and launched in Boston in 1997, OPEN was founded on the premise that entrepreneurship has to be fostered for it to take hold. As one of the largest organizations of its kind, it is uniquely positioned to leverage the tremendous depth and breadth of its members’ talent and resources and further channel these toward filling the “productization” gap. Accordingly, OPEN is undertaking an initiative to deliver a holistic and practical approach to learning about New Product and Technology Development (NPATD).
In this program, participants will learn best practices, and the tools and techniques to help them achieve their goals. The program will broaden their horizons to look beyond a siloed, technical perspective into a real-world, interconnected way of conceiving, developing, and deploying products and technologies that are valued and consumed by the global marketplace.
OPEN’s first steps in this direction will consist of a rich, and highly informative webinar series covering the A-To-Z of new product and technology development. Two of OPEN’s original founders will be delivering much of the content through these webinars and make them available to anyone interested in viewing them. The webinar series will be further complemented by a real-world exercise to productize a robotic kit and to enter the package into a closed contest for college seniors. It is our intention that this program should help ingrain best practices into participants thinking about new product and technology development and challenge them to use this knowledge to accelerate their career growth.
Productizing a robotic kit (aimed at the education market for high school students) will involve a majority of the aspects of new product development that are being taught, without making it excessively challenging from an engineering perspective. This should prove to be a new and exciting way for universities and colleges to complement the specialized education they deliver with an engaging model for thinking about productization and commercialization. We believe this will assist graduates to make tangible, direct contributions to their respective countries’ economic development almost immediately after graduating.
This OPEN Global initiative also offers a unique opportunity for companies, venture firms and universities to come together to form a truly effective ecosystem that survives long after participants have moved on in their lives.
As President of OPEN Boston, I look forward to working with you to help make this happen.