Yves Pigneur

invited to Take-off! by Luda Kopeikina and Prof. Hang Chang Chieh, director of the Institute of Engineering Leadership (IEL). Luda managed the TechLaunch program and the Frugal Innovation Lab, both initiatives having adopted the BM canvas in their program.

“TechLaunch aims at matching inventors, MBAs and PhD-level researchers into start-up teams. TechLaunch guides these teams though a process of validating the pre-selected NUS technologies’ market value and money-making potential (more).

Frugal Innovation Lab assembles cross-disciplinery teams of NUS students for 13 weeks to solve real world problems. Teams must design and prototype solutions for validated emerging market challenges. (more)

Nice talks by EcoBind (non-toxic battery binder), SeeRebro (portable monitoring device of hematoma), SKINetrate (skin-penetration testing device), VersaTile (robot for tiling floors), TransVerter (micro-inverter for solar panels), and NeumoSol (test kits for detecting pneumonia)

seminar at DS department and fruitful discussion with by Prof. Prakas Singh, University of Melbourne, on the “State of theory in SCM: a response to Williamson’s criticisms”. Prakas is also the co-author of the well-known text book “Operations Management: An Integrated Approach” (web)

“The Nobel Laureate Oliver Williamson has been highly critical of the state of theory in the supply chain management field. In essence, Williamson considers the state of theory to be poor and suggests that this has the potential to affect the field’s development into an academic discipline worthy of serious scholarship. In this seminar, I will outline the nature of each of his criticisms. I will then provide a response to these criticisms by drawing upon research, including my own, to accept or refute Williamson’s criticisms. I will also draw upon some frameworks from the philosophy of science discipline to place the state of theory in the supply chain management field in a broader philosophical context, and provide some thoughts on what should be done to rectify the problems that seem to exist. (more)

meeting with Khairu Rejal, Manager, Investment, at Majuven, previously with NTU, in charge of IdeasInc, big fan of BMGEN.

“Majuven is an early and growth stage VC fund … in Singapore, with a focus in Biomedical Sciences, Digital Convergence Technology and Services, and Sustainable Technologies (Energy, Water and Food) … (more)

“Empowering Innovation”, an event organised by swissnex Singapore (web). The opportunity to meet again Elmar Mock (Creaholic) and Kristine Oustrup, Business Innovation Culture (BIC).

“Elmar Mock will focus on product design with an emphasis on technology and sustainability, while Kristine Oustrup will centre on culture design and solving human-related business challenges by presenting SEEDtime, a new methodology for growing original ideas (more)

back to National University of Singapore (NUS) b-school, as visiting professor, invited by Prof. Thompson Teo (web) and Chung Piaw Teo, head of the DS department

Seminar and meetings at the i.school (web) of the University of Tokyo (Todai), invited by Prof. Hideyuki Horii and Yasuhiro Ishibashi. Fruitful discussion with i.School students and staff on design thinking, business model and innovation science.

Prof. Hideyuki Horii, i-School, at TEDxUTokyo on “Necessary condition for third miracle”

i.School organises the annual TODAI Innovation Summer Program (TISP).

“During the two-week TISP program, the students, both from outside Japan and The University of Tokyo, will intensively experience classes, workshops and field researches and hone their innovation skills, in Tokyo and the Tohoku region, disaster-struck areas in the north-east of the country. The entire program is built upon the two principal themes; Japanese cultures and Tohoku issues, which will lead to a wide variety of unique sub-themes (more)

rencontre avec Benoît Theveny, jeune entrepreneur français à Tokyo que nous avions déjà rencontré l’année passée. Benoît a lancé et gère un portfolio de business models, dont le principal est une boutique en ligne de friandises japonaises, un autre de figurines manga et autres objects japonais. Il tient un blog et un guide touristique mais offre également des cours de japonais en ligne. Il va prochainement ouvrir une “guest house” dans les faubourgs de Tokyo.

Another start-up created by gaijin (foreigners) in Tokyo, mentioned by Christos Makiyama (fb) I met for the first time during the Business Design Summit last year in Berlin, is the Gengo start-up (web), a people-powered translation platform. They had a nice article in TechInAsia (web) by Willis Wee, entitled “Why this startup is better off in Tokyo than in Silicon Valley” (web).

Several other major startup funding rounds in Tokyo this week: suvaco (web), translimit (web), tamecco (web), compathy (web), mespo (web) …

5th Topos Conference on “Imagining Japan’s Social Landscape: Phronetic Leadership Post Abenomics”, at the Fujitsu Research Institute, invited by Dr Noboru ’?’?’? Konno

“The books analyzing the rise and fall of countries, such as “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, ’The Great Degeneration’ by Niall Ferguson, and Francis Fukuyama’s new work ’The Origins of Political Order’, have become required reading for these leaders is evidence of this trend. Deciding on the path one’s country will take among the shifting world order, especially political and economic systems and making effective use of society’s capital, requires big-picture and practical discussion … (more)

Interesting meetings with Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka, Emmanuel Todd, Masami Yamamoto, President Fujitsu, …

Doctoral thesis committee for Anshuman Saxena’s thesis entitled ’A situated and embodied approach to service-oriented modelling’, supervised by Prof. Alain Wegmann, defended at EPFL.