Linking experiences from Academia and Industry: How to build an Innovation Culture?

This podcast is all about open innovation, particularly the people involved in this process. We want to zoom in and understand what Open Innovation means for the people being involved. With this podcast, we bridge the gap between theory and practice and hence invite practitioners to speak about their practical experiences with open innovation and sometimes researchers, who share their scientific understanding of this phenomenon.

Our guest today: Mehdi Namazi
Mehdi is an engineer by background and did his Master’s in Artificial Intelligence but since this was not enough he also added a Master’s in Technology Management and enrolled in a PhD afterwards. In 2020 he defended his thesis.

Today, Mehdi is the Research and Innovation Director at Informatics Services Corporation, a software company based in Tehran.

In this episode, we speak about what academia can learn from practice and the other way around. Mehdi shares his experiences that brought him from industry to academia and then back to industry. Mehdi's journey was not only a one-way knowledge transfer, he learned a lot from academia but also experienced that academia can learn a lot from industry. The experience he made is that no single innovation framework he learned in university is suitable for his company nowadays. It is crucial to adapt these frameworks to the needs of the company. What works in one company does not necessarily work in another.

The adaptability is crucial.

Mehdi shared insights into what his daily job as a Research Innovation Director looks like and what his main challenges are. The main challenge he encounters in his position is the aspect of culture. Inhale and exhale a culture as we innovate to maintain and create a culture that nurtures research and innovation. This means fostering an environment where every team member feels encouraged to explore ideas and take risks.
In this view, it is really hard to change a culture but gradual shifts are possible.

"You can't change the culture by giving speeches, you can only change a culture by action."

Mehdi is a role model who is leading the change by action.

In this episode, Mehdi shares a success story from his company as well as some lessons learned.

His advice "Be bold but be considerate"

The key to success is that the whole team feels dedicated to the new idea.

Mehdi learned a big lesson: Diversity can both be an advantage but also a challenge.

On the one hand, diversity of thoughts and perspectives can lead us to a rich area of ideas and innovation but on the other hand it underscores the critical importance of ensuring that everyone in the organization shares an aligned understanding of the innovation strategy.

Lesson learned is clear: Fostering a culture of innovation requires not only celebrating diverse viewpoints but also establish common understanding and language of innovation.

In Mehdi's view, people play a big part in making things happen - they are the engine of the company's innovation efforts. However, there are rules and policies in a company that can either help or hinder the speed of innovation.
Companies often neglect that the internal openness of the people is a pre-condition before partnering with external partners.

First establishing openness internally before expanding activities, reducing psychological barriers, and empowering people is crucial.

To find out more about how Mehdi empowers his people for innovation and how he compensates his time for the invested time, tune in!