imi-information

I could define myself as a Material Chemist. I combined a PhD in Material Chemistry and an Engineering Degree in Ceramics. After 20 years as a full time  researcher in France, I moved to Canada as a Professor in Chemistry and Nanotechnology.I have always been very "creative" in the discovery of new types of materials or new methods to synthesize them, which led to over 100 publications in International Journals. However, with time, and as the number of publications was exploding, I became more and more interested in using science to actually deliver solutions, so, not claiming about how innovative my research was, but actually trying to finally deliver some.And I discovered that there is a large gap between promises claimed by scientists in their publications, and actual development of innovative solutions, if we agree that there is a real innovation ONLY if this innovation is purchased or used by some people.Since I was not out of ideas, I decided to try to go further than validate them, publish the results, and expect that a Company would be interested in using them. I decided to move to the next step and see if I could actually apply the ideas or results I used to claim being "brillant" and able to "save the World". This led me to create successively two startup companies, the second one, Intelligence & Management of Information Inc. being currently hosting these courses. I helped also students who were working on technology projects, and also startup companies by providing scientific consulting during their launching phase.All these tasks helped me to identify what are the main challenges when you want to convert research into innovation... and why we, researchers or engineers, are not fully "equipped" for transforming our research into a real innovation. In parallel, Sciences & Technologies are really expanding, and, now we are running out of "simple solutions", it's time to explore "smart solutions" to address the many challenges we are facing, and especially helping many countries and individuals to access the knowledge and background required to explore and solve complex problems.From my experience as a researcher and my (numerous) mistakes as a "startuper", I began to identify what are the additional skills that a researchers should acquire to increase his/her chances to develop real innovation, or at least identify his/her good idea was not so good... before it's too late and too much time and money have been wasted.First, I discovered that scientists and engineers have usually a deep misunderstanding regarding what it takes to develop and showcase innovation able to interest industry or investors. We have also a wrong feeling about the skills and attitude required to develop such projects. There's a first BIG mistake that we all do: we believe that researchers and engineers must develop something, then pass it to business people who will commercialize it. We believe that innovation is the natural evolution of discovery!Of course, discovery and innovation are connected, but not naturally linked, and the path to success in innovation is to switch our research-ready mind into an innovation-ready mind.It means that beyond our scientific and technical skills as scientists or engineers, we must possess some additional ones, which are not the ability to write a business plan...This course has been designed from my own experience, and nourished by my numerous mistakes in developing innovation, to help you, especially if you are a scientist or an engineer (but not only), to build an innovative path from your initial idea (we'll see in this course what it actually means) to a project you can present to business people.Let's be clear: the different modules of this course will not help you to create and manage a startup (we don't describe the financial issues here), but they will help you to get the skills and tools to make your project realistic enough, and be in a better position if you choose to take the plunge and create a startup.So, if you think that you have an innovative mind, whatever this means, if you have an idea or have discovered something and want to be sure it's worth pursuing it, if you are tired of publishing papers that nobody will use or even read, I invite you to join me in this exciting trip, fed by curiosity, creativity, and willingness to deliver what we claim...I hope you'll enjoy the travel.Eric Prouzet, PhD