Tag: event

Mesopartner Engagement event on Meso Resilience

On Thursday, 23 February, Mesopartner will host an event to discuss our research and exploration on the theme of Improving Meso Resilience.

The Mesopartner Engagement series is about sharing progress on our research with practitioners also innovating in a specific topic. This will not be a training event but about research, method development, practice and searching for opportunities to collaborate or learn together. 

We will briefly explain the topic to set the scene, but we will quickly move to recent developments, challenges faced, or potential ideas we can explore together.

Background to the Meso Resilience event

Our research on Meso resilience is all about helping people working within networks of organisations to improve innovation and resilience within and beyond the organisations they work for or with. In our vocabulary, a meso organisation or programme was created to address a particular “failure” or pattern of underperformance in the economy. In our experience, we know that these organisations often struggle to adjust to changes in the production structure and the broader market conditions or are challenged increasingly by changes in the use of knowledge and technology. 

When doing economic development, we often work at two levels: 

  • the level of the meso space where there are many different organisations or programmes, or
  • the level of a particular meso organisation or programme. 

Mesopartner has published extensively on the topic of meso resilience, so here are some links to publications that will help you catch up with where we are:

The Meso Resilience research area was launched to look at the relations and dynamism between different organisations in the Meso Space. For this engagement meeting, two papers are most relevant for background reading. The first is  “A resilient meso space to enable an adaptive Systemic Competitiveness landscape” and a “case study about improving the resolution of the meso layer“. 

Some of you also know about our work on The Meso Assessment Framework (before COVID). This framework was developed to assess a specific meso organisation’s ability to innovate in relation to the changing technology & market requirements of the economy or a given sector. In the last few months, there has been an increased interest in the Meso Assessment Framework, so if time permits, we can discuss that. The article that goes with this framework can be found here. An example of the framework itself can be downloaded here. 

Event Details:

Topic: Mesopartner Engagement: Meso Resilience

Time: Feb 23, 2023 09:30 AM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna

You can still register to participate here.

Event Announcement: Diagnosing and strengthening local and regional innovation systems

On the 28th of August I will present a practical workshop in South Africa as part of the 5th Innovation Summit. Last year’s summit was one of the highlights of my year and I look forward to contributing to this event.

The workshop I will be presenting will concentrate on how to diagnose an innovation system, and then what to do about improving the innovation system. We will ONLY accept 20 participants, so early bookings are essential. The cost per participant is R3420 all costs included. For more information visit the workshop page here or click on the logo.

During the workshop we will cover the following content:

  • Main theoretical principles of innovation systems
  • distinguishing between national, local and regional and sector innovation systems
  • understanding the difference between innovation within firms, and innovation systems
  • The relationship between the region and innovative performance of industries
  • 4 lines of inquiry to diagnose the factors that affects the performance of a specific innovation system
  • Different analytical instruments that can be applied to understand elements of the innovation system
  • aligning public and private supporting institutions to the innovation needs of an industry
  • facilitating a process of incremental change within an innovation system

If you have already attended my workshop before, then take a look at some of the other great speakers that will be presenting pre-summit workshops before the Innovation Summit:

  • * Claire Janisch will take delegates through Biomimicry which is a totally new and different way to look for innovative solutions based on nature’s problem solving capabilities. Claire is back after feedback on her workshop was outstanding and “we want more”.
    * Dan Buchner from the Centre for Creative Leadership is coming from the US to share his knowledge and insight on innovative leadership skills – leading innovation teams and how to create a culture for innovation to thrive.
    * Prof Deon de Beer will have his very innovative Idea to Product Lab set up and fully functional. You will learn about the basics of design right through to producing your physical prototype during the workshop. If you have an invention waiting to be made into a physical product, this is the workshop for you.
    * Klaus Schnurr from the UK will take delegates through a process where he will teach you how to synthesis transferable best practice methods, tools and techniques and will explain the key steps that companies in Africa can use to explore trends and generate scenarios to identify innovation platforms for future growth.
    * Vasintha Pather’s workshop is ideal for anyone who facilitates thinking, workshops and sessions as a full time job or within an organisation. Using graphic facilitation methods enhances the learning and take aways for everyone

During the main event of the Innovation Summit I will present a paper about the importance of moving from business model to business model innovation.

I will also launch my book titled “The fundamentals of innovation system promotion for development practitioners” during the Innovation Summit.