Archive for Innovation In The News
Amyris: A Partner in Open Innovation for Sustainable Consumer Products and Biofuels
In our ongoing work on analyzing the intellectual property landscape in biofuels, one interesting company we’ve encountered is Amyris, an integrated renewable products company. Amyris was founded in 2003 by Kinkead Reiling, Neil Renninger, and Jack D. Newman who met at Berkeley. The company is now located in Emeryville, California. With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they first developed their technology under a non-profit initiative to provide a reliable and affordable source of artemisinin, an anti-malarial therapeutic. It was viewed as a long-shot, but they found success that led to growth into other areas. They are now developing new microbial strains that can produce other molecules from renewable feedstocks. This industrial synthetic biology platform is providing alternatives to a broad range of petroleum-sourced products. he extremely useful molecule farnesene is an important part of their business. It provides a compound that can be used to produce flavors, perfumes, detergents, cosmetics, biodiesel, and other products.
This week Amyris announced a record number of deals and partnerships for a single week (a record among bioenergy companies, according to Biofuels Digest). These partnerships include P&G, Total, Soliance, Cosan, M&G Finanziaria, and Shell:
Amyris has taken it up a notch with a series of stunners surrounding its synthetic farsenene, which it has named Biofene – the first product that Amyris is seeking to produce at commercial scale.
Beyond its success this week with Biofene announcements, which are the basis for the P&G, M&G and Soliance partnerships — there are the broader arrangements with Cosan to develop a platform in renewable chemicals, and the equity agreement with Total that will provide needed capital as well as a broader platform for Amyris’s expansion into hydrocarbon fuels.
The mysterious agreement with Shell, regarding diesel, is one to watch. The decidedly vague disclosure was buried in Amyris’ amended S-1A registration statement, but not otherwise mentioned in a flurry of press releases from the company as it promotes its expansion in this pre-IPO environment. Shell Western Trading & Supply is one of 17 Shell trading companies that buy and sell to customers within and outside of Shell.
This news shows an interesting example of companies forming partnerships with an innovative start-up with great technology and apparently highly valuable IP. According to my Patbase search, Amyris has 21 patent families, quite a large number for such a young company. They clearly have been active and aggressive in pursuing patent protection, and those patents are critical for the meaningful partnerships they are now forming. It’s a great unfolding story of open innovation and technology transfer.
The story extends beyond the US. They have operations in Brazil, for example, which is one of the world’s hotbeds for bioenergy, bioproducts, and collaborative innovation.
Why trend-watchers may want to take note of Foursquare
I’ve been looking into the Foursquare application lately, noting that some of my staff seem to love checking in to venues they visit.
At first you might think it is easy to dismiss the mobile social-gaming phenom that awards the most frequent patron the title of mayor. (Then you hear that some dirty politics may be developing around Foursquare mayorship, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported.)
BusinessWeek recognizes Foursquare’s co-founder Naveen Selvadurai as one of the best young technology entrepreneurs.
Check out this video on his take about why so many people are checking in everywhere they go:
Is Foursquare a fad or a phenomenon? That’s what the folks over at Mindshare.com asked a few weeks ago. Mindshare says that if 2009 was the year of Twitter, then 2010 most certainly must be all about Foursquare. And with more than one million users, they might be right!
Those who want to understand how technology and social trends impact the face of their business might want to pay attention to Foursquare.
The Future of Innovation
Perkins contributed an excerpt titled, “Future of Innovation… Personal Passion and Strategic Collaboration” in The Future of Innovation, edited by Bettina von Stamm and Anna Trifilova.
Audio waves will soon turn your cell into a hotel key
On this Memorial weekend, many people are traveling and spending time in hotels. Here is a Friday fun technology trend to kick off the holiday weekend: Some hotels are now allowing customers to use their cell phones as hotel room keys.
The customers are test marketing the idea in two Holiday Inn locations in Chicago and Houston.
According to reports I’m reading, the system is called OpenWays, which sends a unique and encrypted audio code to a customer’s phone before arrival and check-in. He or she also gets a text message with the room number, allowing that weary traveler to skip the hotel registration desk.
The designers say it is safe as a hotel keycard to use, and will be tested in more hotels in June—just a few days away!
OpenWays is available to users on iPhone, BlackBerry and “Droid” phones, and will soon be usable on other platforms as well. I haven’t downloaded the app yet, but I may have to check this out!
Google partnership prepares to lauch “smart TV”
Can Web surfing unite with channel surfing on televisions? Google thinks so, and it is partnering with Sony, Intel and Logitech to explore what it calls a “smart” TV. Imagine speaking into a remote and seeing your page or show pop up onto your screen!
The vision is to turn televisions into computer monitors for surfing the internet. About 5,000 people gathered at a news conference today so Google could demonstrate, and you can read about it here. In fact this new technology is already slated for sale in the fall, but the question remains on how much you would expect to pay.
Sony will make the TVs using microprocessors from Intel, while Google will provide the software and Logitech the special remote and wireless keyboard.
Check out the Google TV video the company launched today to promote their product, and you’ll get a good idea about how the companies are aligning expectations:
Oil disaster needs innovative solutions
The oil spill disaster off the Gulf Coast is truly tragic. The numbers–from the billions of dollars in damage to the environmental toll–are barely fathomable to most of us.
Here is a look at a chart that ties the disaster together with amazing clarity. Another site is hosting some incredible photographs of the disaster including some from NASA that you might want to check out.
One blogger out there is calling for the most innovative minds to suggest possible solutions, and is promising to share those solutions with government authorities.
“One amazing idea could slow the Oil Leak modestly or even stop it, slow the spread, or minimize effects, then every day wasted is measured in real environmental, human, and economic toll,” says blogger Dwayne Spradlin of Perspectives on Innovation.
I do agree that there needs to be a formalized system in place when these unexpected disasters happen. But just as important: preventive safety measures. Like that $500,000 safety valve BP could have used to prevent the now-estimated 60,000 barrels a day from spilling into the ocean.
Clean Energy Technology: Where are companies investing?
There is a lot of buzz these days about clean energy technology and where U.S. companies are putting their money.
A few hours ago Google Inc. announced that for the first time it is making a sizable investment in renewable power as a way to accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to the search engine giant. (Read about it here.)
Google’s $38.8 million investment in an incredible wind energy project in the North Dakota plains involves two wind farms owned by NextEra Energy Resources that generate 169.5 megawatts of energy, or enough to power more than 55,000 homes.
Not every company is investing locally. One trend we are noticing is that clean energy technology has globalized and innovation has followed suit.
One nation in particular continues to reap the benefits of this trend. Companies like GM, Dow and and Intel have constructed high-tech research labs in China. In fact the Chinese have 750 foreign-funded R&D centers in China—up from 50 just 13 years ago. Meanwhile the number of R&D sites in the United States dropped from 60 percent to 52 percent in the past decade.
You can read more about this phenomenon in a new Business Week article titled America’s Green Innovation Problem. The report does a good job explaining the numbers, and showing that as many companies are becoming truly global in their R&D, manufacturing and marketing, they’ve been collaborating even more with foreign companies and governments.
Social Entrepreneurship in Africa: Innovation that Serves Others
In Conquering Innovation Fatigue, we begin with an examination of some of the reasons that people pursue innovation. Not all innovation is driven by a desire for wealth. In fact, a large number of innovators are more interested in seeing their work make a difference in the world than in becoming rich (many want both, but the desire to see real results from one’s work is often essential). Social entrepreneurship and humanitarian innovation provide evidence of this. In the book, we highlight Empower Playgrounds (EmpowerPlaygrounds.org), the non-profit innovation engine that is bringing educational success to thousands of African children by creating playground equipment that generates power for LED lamps that children can take home so they can study and do homework after the finish their chores at home. Something as simple as a portable electric lamp, charged by innovative playground power generators, makes the difference between educational failure and graduating with opportunities for college. Many thanks to Ben Markham, the CEO of Empower Playgrounds, for recognizing the need and driving so much collaborative innovation to bring hope to western Africa.
Another great story out of Africa is the Forbes article, “Can This Bicycle Save Lives In Africa?” by Stephanie Finch. After achieving international success with his bicycle innovations, Frederick K.W. Day noticed that many streets in Africa were lined with abandoned, broken down bikes that quickly fell apart on the rough streets of Africa. He also saw that the huge diversity of bikes being sent to Africa made it very difficult for mechanics to repair due to lack of proper parts and tools for the diverse designs. He is now working to bring rugged, low-cost, easy-to-repair bikes to Africa:
Through his World Bicycle Relief charity the ponytailed entrepreneur hopes to put millions of sub-Saharan Africans aboard special heavy-duty bikes designed to withstand the continent’s rugged roads while carrying 200 pounds of cargo–enough for a weaver to bring his rugs, or a farmer to tote his produce, to market. Moreover, he aims to promote a self-sustaining bicycle economy with regional operations assembling the bikes and area mechanics trained to repair them.
Frederick is making many changes in the bike as well as crafting a business model for distribution and maintenance that will meet the needs of many parts of Africa. It’s not about getting rich, but about truly making a difference in the world for thousands of people. That’s inspiring innovation!
What are your favorite examples of altruistic innovation or social entrepreneurship helping Africa?
Top 50 Innovators: Is a new world order emerging?
Aside from being a taxing week in the U.S., mid-April is also when BusinessWeek Magazine publishes its top 50 list of the most innovative companies all over the world. This year’s rankings are definitely pointing to a trend I’ve talked about before: That a majority of companies recognized as top innovators are based outside the U.S. Check out this video for some insights:
In the 2010 Bloomberg/BusinessWeek annual rankings of Most Innovative Companies, 15 of the Top 50 are Asian—up from just five in 2006.
The list is dominated by companies from Europe, Asia, and for the first time, South America.
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek’s Most Innovative Companies report has been published each April since 2005, although in the beginning it was the Top 20 list. The results are based on a 21-question poll to senior executives around the globe. The 1,590 respondents, who answered anonymously, were asked to name the most innovative companies from outside their own industry in 2009.
What many will find surprising, I think, is that when Bloomberg/Businessweek started ranking innovators in 2005, only six of the Top 20 were headquartered outside the U.S. A third of 2005′s American champs (3M, Starbuck, eBay, etc.), no longer make the Top 50.
Check out the article & the Top 50 list here.
Got Invention Radio dials up innovation
One of my good friends Brian Fried, host of Got Invention Radio, invited me to come on his show for a four-part series, which aired late last week. You can listen online or download it here. Got Invention Radio is a wonderful show where inventors can call into the program and discuss their innovation ideas with experts. My colleague Jeff Lindsay has also been on Brian’s program before along with a number of other business leaders. (Check out the archive here.)
Our company does a lot of work with inventors who have fantastic innovative ideas for game-changing products, but need a little guidance taking their idea to market. I always tell them Step One is to get a clear definition of idea or invention before you can lay out the path to bring it to market.
People often get stuck in this stage because they haven’t thought through the time, processes and resources needed to make it happen. For instance, has the inventor mapped out what people and skills are crucial? One idea is to explore open innovation–those strategic partnerships that can take your ideas beyond your own brick and mortar walls.
My favorite part of the program was taking calls from inventors who had questions about licensing preparation and prototypes.
We want to help people with projects that will make a significant difference in the lives or habits of people. There are many inventions that are incremental–a little bit better and a little bit cheaper–but the true innovators are making that difference for consumers.