Innovation Ecosystems Professor Simon Kaplan Director, NICTA Queensland

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact Overview What are innovation ecosystems? What is innovation? What is NICTA? NICTA as an example of building an innovation ecosystem 2

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact Innovation Ecosystems Economies and complex networks of technologies all form ecosystems It’s helpful to understand them from this viewpoint Then we can get a better grasp on how to encourage innovation 3

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact Ecosystems are complex systems Characteristics: –Network structure –Self-organisation –Swarm behaviours –Temporal shear –Co-evolution –Emergent behaviour 4

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact A high-level example: the ‘product space’ 5

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact What is innovation? All innovations are ‘evolutionary moves’, which means they are: –Incremental from existing capabilities –Governed by time shear –Dependent on underlying network structure to shape possibilities –A consequence of the ‘swarm behaviours’ of the players in the innovation ecosystem Once the move is made, the ecosystem is changed, which opens up fresh possibilities 6

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact NICTA Australia’s National ICT Centre of Excellence 5 locations: –Sydney (2), Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane University and State Government Partnerships –Key high-quality researchers. ~$80m (RMB 550 million) budget per year 7

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact NICTA focuses on ICT Research Strengths –Computer Vision –Software Systems –Networks –Control Systems –Optimisation –Machine Learning Strategic Business Areas: –Infrastructure, Transport and Logistics –Broadband & Digital Economy –Health –Safety & Security 8

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact Goals Research Excellence –Top 10 worldwide in ICT Wealth Creation for Australia –Including productivity improvements, new business creation new economic niches 9

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact NICTA = Innovation Ecosystem? Build network of best capability around Australia Understands time shear – long-term and short-term investments Self-organising & ‘swarming’ – significant group independence to explore –Leads to emergent outcomes rather than top- down planned activities We understand our niche target areas 10

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact Impact 3 bn mobile phones worldwide run NICTA technologies Many airports use our people tracking capabilities We are participating in the Australian Bionic Eye project We are building a system to support organisational innovation and growth in Queensland (then all of Australia) 11

NICTA Copyright 2010From imagination to impact 12