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In a global context where the frontiers of knowledge are advancing very rapidly, regions and organizations interested in sustaining high levels of competitiveness need to stay up-to-date with regards to technological advances and their impact on market trends. For that reason, LatIPnet organizes the Global Topical Videoconferences, an agile mechanism to link Latin organizations and regions with the actors producing leading edge knowledge worldwide.
Thanks to its extensive network of contacts with top-level research centers and leading companies, and taking advantage of current communication technologies, LatIPnet has been able to establish virtual links through which global experts in several scientific disciplines and industries have been able to interact in real time with audiences in Latin countries. Through these Global Topical Videoconferences LatIPnet initiates collective learning processes that have enabled Latin regions and organizations to align their objectives with global trends and to focus their efforts to generate new innovation projects with global reach. Below two recent cases are presented.
Canary Islands: Aligning the regional economy with global technological trends
The Canary Islands, a Spanish territory located off the west coast of Africa, were particularly affected by the global economic crisis. The economic downturn had a great impact in the regional economy which is heavily dependent on the 10 million European tourists that visit the Islands each year. Hence regional leaders decided to take advantage of this difficult situation to redefine the economic course of the islands and promote projects that would allow them to participate more actively in the knowledge economy. In the last few years the islands have acquired significant research and development capabilities in several fields. They house two universities, oceanographic institutes, agriculture research centers, and the most important astrophysics institute of the world thanks to the clarity of the Islands’ skies. In this context, the regional leaders decided to align their productive and research and development resources with the global technology and market trends, with the goal of promoting new knowledge intensive companies with products and services that can be easily scaled in global markets.
To support the efforts of the regional leaders, LatIPnet helped the La Laguna University and the local business chamber to organize a series of four videoconference sessions with global experts in several technological fields and industries. Around 200 people participated in each conference of these series –including researchers from local universities, local businessmen and the general public. The conferences covered the following topics:
1. R&D and regional economic development, the Silicon Valley case
2. Business Opportunities in Information and Communication Technologien
3. Business Opportunities in Biotechnology
4. Business Opportunities in Clean Tech
Presenters at these sessions included experts from several leading organizations in Silicon Valley, including researchers from Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and the prestigious research center SRI International, as well as top-level executives from global companies such as Dell, Intel, Linear Technologies, Core Security Technologies, Bay City Capital, and NavSemi among others. These experts presented the Canary Islands audience their most recent work, the commercial applications of the technologies currently developed and their perspectives about the future of their businesses. Likewise, the audience had the opportunity to interact in real time with these experts to discuss the opportunities that current global trends bring for the Canary Islands.
In this way, these videoconferences sustained a collective learning process among the academic, business and government sectors in the Canary Islands that helped raise awareness about the need to redirect the economic course of the islands and to define a shared strategic vision and actions.
This project has already produced tangible actions to redefine the course of the Canary Islands. These series of videoconferences triggered the organization of two trips to Silicon Valley, California, where LatIPnet introduced businessmen and entrepreneurs from the Canary Islands to the innovation ecosystem of this high-tech region as well as to the dynamics of technology-based businesses. Since then, LatIPnet has also guided businessmen and entrepreneurs about the different models to finance technology-based businesses. Currently some of these businessmen are forming a investment fund exclusively focused on technology-based companies. With this instrument they expect to foster the development of new projects that would allow the Canary Islands to participate more actively in the knowledge-based economy.
Guanajuato: Exploring opportunities in the field of nanotechnology with Dr. Meyya Meyyappan from NASA.
1. Nanotechnology, Opportunities and Challenges.
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2. Nanotechnology and the Energy Sector
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As part of its efforts to turn knowledge into value for the State of Guanajuato, Mexico, in February 2010 LatIPnet organized a videoconference where the community of academics, businessmen, and entrepreneurs in Guanajuato interacted with Dr. Meyya Meyyappan, researcher at NASA and a leading expert in nanotechnology worldwide. .
Dr. Meyya Meyyappan is the Director for the Nanotechnology Center at NASA-Ames, located in Mountain View, California. During the Clinton administration Dr. Meyyappan promoted the National Nanotechnology Initiative that was supported by both the president and the congress. This initiative secured funding to promote research in this broad and complex field of great relevance to the health, environment, energy, and economic prosperity sectors. Today, Dr. Meyya Meyyappan and his team are doing research on nanocarbon tubes, exploring their applications in diverse fields such as: nanoelectronics and computing, nanotechnolgy-based sensors and detectors, and nanotechnology for gene sequencing. The great number of discoveries and publications produced by the Nanotechnology Center leaded by Dr. Meyya Meyyappan make it one of the most prestigious worldwide.
LatIPnet made possible for Dr. Meyya Meyyappan to have a virtual encounter with an audience of more than 300 people in Guanajuato, including university and high-school students that traveled from different cities, and even remote towns, to listen to him. Dr. Meyya Meyyappan talked about what is nanotechnology and what applications are possible with it, encouraging students to continue their studies in any of the science, mathematics, and engineering fields. He also addressed the community of researchers, entrepreneurs and businessmen pointing that “you have to think of nanotechnology as a broad, enabling technology that will impact the entire economic spectrum.” His presentation showed current applications and future prospects of nanotechnology, like its role in the development of ubiquitous computing, personalized medicine, new advanced materials, intelligent appliances and solid state lighting with benefits in the health, energy, environment, transportation, manufacturing and national security sectors.
Thanks to this videoconference, local universities are exploring the possibility of conducting nanotechnology workshops in secondary and high-schools in Guanajuato. LatIPnet is also helping materialize research partnerships between NASA and other Silicon Valley key players and several research centers in Guanajuato such as CIO and CIMAT in order to conduct research in nanotechnology with applications in lithium batteries, solar energy and other clean technologies. In this way, the Global Topical Videoconferences organized by LatIPnet have opened opportunities for Guanajuato for the development of new projects in this area of great technological and economic potential.
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