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Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Verwaayen canvasses open innovation

The Chief Executive Officer of Alcatel-Lucent, Mr. Ben Verwaayen, has said that the world needs open innovation to persevere growth, prosperity and sustain global economies, mostly in the emerging world.

This is coming as Alcatel-Lucent joined the group of international organizations to launch the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2011 edition.

Verwaayen made this known in his foreword contribution to the latest edition of the Global Innovation Index 2011 launched at the weekend, entitled ‘The World Needs Open Innovation.’

He observed that GII report is a sweeping country-by-country analysis of the role innovation as foundation for a global conversation on the role of innovation.

According to the Head of Communications, Africa, Sherine Aziez, said that the CEO, Mr. Verwaayen wrote a chapter in the report as well as other material contributions from the company helping to define key research criteria.

The report, Aziez said, provides a wealth of data that social policy researchers, companies, governments and non-governmental organizations could use to evaluate and help make recommendations and drive policies that could foster innovation.

“As importantly, it provides a powerful tool for exploring the benefits of deliberate efforts to promote innovation,” Aziez said.

Mr. Verwaayen was quoted in a press statement also made available to Daily Champion, as saying that by bringing together diverse parties to explore how innovation is being applied around the world, and what conditions make for successful innovation, it is making an essential contribution to the promotion of open innovation as a basic operating principal for the global community.

Alcatel-Lucent, Aziez noted is participating in the GII report as a knowledge partner along with other leading groups including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, the Confederation of Indian Industry and Booz and Company.

Pointing out that as an active partner in the development of the report, Alcatel-Lucent helped to define key research criteria.

Equally, the spokesperson for Alcatel-Lucent Africa said the company also contributed a research chapter entitled Making Cities Smart and Sustainable, which explores how open innovation could be applied to the challenge of rapid urbanization underway around the globe, and help realize the potential of a connected world.

The chapter, Aziez said, discussed how innovation, in terms of both ideas and technologies, is essential to making cities more environmentally and economically sustainable, to increasing digital inclusion in both cities and rural areas, and to better support the health and welfare of city residents.

In addition, Aziez said, the chapter also concluded that strong collaborations between governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities and other institution are needed to address large-scale societal challenges of this kind.

In association with the report, Alcatel-Lucent also has conducted an analysis of data included in the GII and found that one particular “foundation” for innovation -- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) -- is clearly correlated with most dimensions of well-being.

This analysis reveals that countries that have higher levels of ICT penetration tend toward political stability and lower levels of violence, had more effective governments, and benefited from more robust educational, business and research and development environments.

Remmy Nweke

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