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!