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Imaginatik and the Oil and Gas Technology Centre to Co-Present During Poster Session at the World Open Innovation Conference

Imaginatik will be attending the 5th Annual World Open Innovation Conference (WOIC) in San Francisco, CA on December 13th and 14th. We’ve partnered with our valued customer, The Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) to develop and submit an open innovation paper describing our work together and the resulting economic impact. Our paper was selected to present during the Poster Session on December 13th. We hope you can join us.

This year’s WOIC theme is “Digital Transformation for Sustainability.” When we learned of the topic, we felt compelled to submit our collaborative effort with OGTC.

Our paper focuses on engaging new collaborators in new ways to drive sustainable outcomes. Imaginatik is digitally supporting and enabling the process. I think this highlights what is at the heart of Open Innovation – engaging the external world for the best results when dealing with particularly difficult problems such as capping underwater oil wells.

OGTC has identified a 1.3 trillion dollar economic opportunity within their industry. To maximize their potential growth, they knew they had to work differently. They put together a “Call for Ideas” program to power the project pipeline, open up cross-industry collaboration, and provide entrepreneurial catalysts. To date, 54% of their ideas have come from industries outside of oil and gas, 59% from companies of less than 50 employees.

Interestingly, many feel it’s risky to open up to the outside world, but we actually believe it’s a risk mitigation strategy when done well. In corporate innovation, we see a large number of companies establishing labs for a stronger focus on transformational innovation. These labs are often charged to explore external collaboration. As with all innovation, open innovation starts with strategy and business outcomes. To tackle this broad topic, OGTC started by finding specific issues around which to collaborate.

Other options for open innovation strategy include exploration and fact finding: technology scouting, co-creation of specific products and services, and better collaboration between your existing external relationships (e.g. supply chain or university relationships).

Because we are seeing growth in the number of open innovation efforts, we believe those who are proactive in their approach, who make an effort to understand the risks, and begin to experiment with open innovation will ultimately be at less risk for disruption. We’re looking forward to our time at the WOIC and hearing more about existing industry challenges, the creative solutions that are evolving, and how we all collaborate for a better future.

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