Labs Podcast

Silicon Foundry is a corporate innovation accelerator that brings together VCs, their portfolio and corporates looking into making the best of the talent pools in Silicon Valley. Carolyn Liikala, one of the Partners at Silicon Foundry is helping some of the very biggest companies in the world find their way towards new ideas. In this episode, we'll discuss how corporates can make the best of collaborating with startups.

Tuğberk heads the innovation of Futurice and is an expert in biometrics and advocates for zero UI (i.e. frictionless interfaces). How can corporates use consultants effectively to find and drive innovation? This interview outlines some best practices.

B-Hive connects startups and incumbents in various of different domains. What is the secret for enabling successful outcomes? General Manager of B-Hive Wim De Waele explains how they have been able to accelerate innovation by connecting the right people together via events, seminars and joint proof of concept -projects.

Avanto Ventures is a company that has been helping out many Finnish corporates come up with innovation acceleration programs and hackathons, while they also have hands deep in the vivid startup scene of Finland. In this interview, we go through the best practices on how big corporates can utilize outside help in fueling innovation.

Silicon Valley is the place where most companies around the world come to find innovations. Within Silicon Valley, one of the most important sources for insights and ideas is Stanford University campus. In this episode we're discussing with Ryan MacArthur of StartX - the incubator that helps Stanford alumni to accelerate the startups in their early stages. StartX uniquely helps corporates access and tap into this talent pool. As Ryan has history on being on both sides of the startup-corporate collaboration, he is able to provide a lot of great insights on how to make the best of the collaboration projects and deliver true Horizon 2 innovation.

Miikka Nevansalo is a professional in running Hackathons. UltraHack has been providing services related to innovation acceleration to many corporates around the world, including Nasa and other prestigious household brands. In this episode we'll discuss how Hackathons can be used with success to produce tangible results and to attract talent otherwise not accessible to the corporate.

Topi Järvinen is one of the Finnish pioneers of startup corporate partnership building. This episode focuses on diving a bit deeper on how corporates can make the best of the collaboration with startups and other companies to make innovation happen. Topi works now for PwC, one the *big four* companies that help their customers in actively helping them enhance their business.

Plug and Play is one of the (if not THE) biggest global innovation accelerator for Corporates at the moment. Residing across globe and serving big co's like Adidas and Daimler, Plug and Play is making a difference introducing one startup to a corporate at the time. Gabrielle Inzirillo is working on the Fintech innovators and sees how startups with more mature founders may actually understand the incumbent problems better. In the episode, Gabrielle shares a concrete example of a success story in France.

Nordic Innovation House connects startups and corporate across the globe, operating in Silicon Valley, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course - Nordics. Sami Jääskeläinen explains how Nordic Innovation House and Open Innovation platforms like them can help making collaboration run smoother for corporations.

Welcome to the Season 2 of Labs podcast. This season focuses on companies that are helping corporates innovate. We'll be kicking off with an interview with David Simoes-Brown, the CEO of 100%Open. As innovation is more than just about ideas, it is true that "successful innovations require that innovations are actually adopted by an internal customers" as David argues.

In the final interview of Season 1 of the Labs we circle back to a finance company that has setup innovation outpost to the center of gravity for innovation - Silicon Valley. In an interview with Raphael Bord and Jonathan Cottrell we understand how corporates need to get close and pay effort to build successful prototypes together with startups.

In episode 8 we have the great honor of interviewing someone from the lab that has brought as many of the most impressive innovations of recent years. Actually, Bell Labs itself is an institution with a history exceeding 100 years and currently employs more than 1000 PhDs actively doing research. It was a great honor to interview Alessandra Sala about how this remarkable innovation lab works.

In the 7th episode of the Labs podcast we go back to financial institutions working their way across the seas of transformation. Banco do Brasil is a market leading bank in Brasil that has set up camp in Silicon Valley to be able to accelerate transformation. Hear the story from Vilma Gruttner who is running strategy, innovation and the Silicon Valley collaboration from Sunnyvale.

In the sixth episode of the Labs podcast we have a chat with Sammeli who has been innovating in pharmacy throughout his career. Now he is running the X Lab, which covers anything Orion does that doesn't exist yet. Pharmacy is changing, like everything else going from blockbusters medicine to precision medication. Understanding customers and technology (e.g. genomics and AI) matters more than ever as this transformation takes place.

This is the episode 5 of the Labs podcast. Transformation from physical to digital is real, even in industries that seem to be unlikely to go digital. Stora Enso sees the changes as an opportunity to improve the business and is making great progress. Join us for a discussion with Antti Vuolli with Stora Enso.

To be relevant, innovation needs to solve real problems and deliver concrete results. In this episode with Juan Martin from RBC, we dig a bit deeper on their journey in building innovative products like Nomi.

How do the world leading advertising agencies benefit from doing innovation at an arms length? In this episode we're getting to know how someone who spent her early career working with and for startups uses her skills for the benefit of an incumbent in advertising.

In this episode we're discussing with Janne Lautanala who works in Wärtsilä's Digital Foundry in Singapore. How can a company dating back to 1834 renew itself? Let's find out.

During a conversation with Stefan Jeker from RAI LAB we learn that one of the reasons for having an innovation lab is to inspire the rest of the organization to think differently.

This is the prologue to Labs Podcast season 1 (maybe *the best* and last season for this podcast, who knows).