ticNEWS - 18thOctober 2007

Speakers from Intel and Proctor and Gamble help TIC launch ‘innovation leadership’ role and network to UK Industry

Research led by Birmingham City University’s Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) has brought the need for business to have ‘champions of innovation’ to the top of UK-industry’s agenda. This has resulted in the TIC-led launch of a new innovation network at the 2007 Lord Stafford Awards’ Festival of Innovation at the NEC’s Hall 12, on Thursday 15th November.

An open invitation is offered to company executives and managers across the Midlands to a series of free talks, seminars and workshops focusing on the need to develop ‘innovation culture’ in UK companies of every size and type. Key speakers include global-giant Proctor and Gamble’s US-based Chief Innovation Officer, Craig Wynett, the Intel Corporation’s former manager of personal leadership development, Michael R. Perrault, and international Systematic Innovation expert, Darrell Mann.

Actively supported by Advantage West Midlands, the day’s activities commence with an executive breakfast when attendees will be introduced to the idea of participating in the new Innovation Owners’ Network (ION). The newly emerging role of Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) will also be identified at the event as key to UK manufacturing’s future success.

ION is a partnership involving government, industry and academia, and is a response to recently completed UK-wide research into industrial product design by one of Birmingham City University’s TIC-professors, Adrian Cole. His soon-to-be published Royal Academy of Engineering-sponsored report, identifies means by which the UK’s leading, international, innovative role can be revived.

In the meantime the ION launch forum will address industry’s increasing need for innovation across all sectors of business. Most UK companies equate innovation with risk, because innovation – technical or business – is an unpredictable art rather than a science. In the past ten years, statistics suggest that companies get it wrong ten times more than they get it right!
 
To receive more information about the ION launch, phone 0121 331 5400 or e-mail for the attention of Prof Adrian Cole through [email protected]                                                                                    

For further editorial information contact:   Andrew Hemmings (t) 0121 331 7550 or Barry Green,  (t)0121 202 2409 (m)07974 150 350 or…
e-mail: [email protected]  or [email protected]
website: www.tic.ac.uk

ABOUT TIC:
Birmingham City University’s Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) is a national centre of excellence for technology-based Lifelong Learning and Business Solutions, with Specialist Technologies, for individuals and for businesses. TIC provides cutting-edge resources and specialised knowledge structures to meet the needs of a rapidly developing technology-based society. Its activities come under four main categories:
• Interactive Media
• Design Technology
• Information & Communications Technology
• Advanced Engineering
It is also a prominent education centre in the fields of logistics, the environment and quality. tic is a significant initiative in the UK through which business development services and advanced technologies are made both accessible and affordable to companies of every size and type, whilst benefiting from and being rooted in a lifelong learning organisation - Birmingham City University.
The tic is a member of the Birmingham City University group.