Large technology firms are finding business opportunities in organizing and analyzing scientific data in new ways. They are collaborating with external partners to generate ideas for innovative technologies. Microsoft is one company seeing the potential in partnerships with a diverse set of academic and medical institutions. They are bringing together scientific data from a variety of sources and using powerful analysis techniques to seek new breakthroughs. In one project, Microsoft is partnering with UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory to analyze satellite, geologic, and economic data in order to improve water supply management. In another project, they are looking at individual viral mutations in thousands of subjects to better understand HIV. According to Tony Hey of the Harvard Business Review, collaborations like these may not only not lead to the next scientific revolution, they may prove to be quite profitable for technology firms that are making breakthroughs possible. As covered in our discussion of the Innovation Value Chain, this will only be true if effective mechanisms for conversion and diffusion are in place.
Full article: http://hbr.org/2010/11/the-big-idea-the-next-scientific-revolution/ar/1
One reply on “Tech Firms Crunch Scientific Data to Fuel Innovation”
As I remember it, the collaboration module of the course focused mainly on how individuals and units within companies collaborate with one another. Thinking about collaboration more at the whole organizational level is interesting, though. I wonder to what extent the risks of collaboration do or don’t exist for inter-organizational collaboration?