Great Opening To YPO Innovation Week
By Dean Lindal, Global Connector, Innovator on Linkedin
Just here in Australia for the opening of YPO Innovation Week. What a country and what a people! We started the day with an opening message from the Australian Prime Minister who talked about the need for risk takers and entrepreneurs and for innovators to be resilient to see their ideas through. It reminded me of Yoshito Hori's comments about having an Adversity Quotient and building this up in yourselves and even your kids. Allow your kids freedom to experiment, try and fail.
Bill Ferris, the father of Venture Capital and Private Equity in Australia spoke next. Bill obtained his MBA from Harvard in the 70's and his thesis was around building the VC industry in Australia. 45 years later Bill is going great guns and leading Australia's effort around innovation. There were some dynamic things shared by Bill in regards to the government's initiatives to help bridge the gap between academia research and industry to fast track and commercialize research more. He also talked about the need for developing mentorship programs in universities with young people.
Super Angel investor Daniel Petrie talked about the potential of singularity in the next 15-20 years and what that means for everyone. Jack Cowin, an amazing serial entrepreneur who built numerous enterprises, shared his experiences in value investing and spoke about Gen George and her quest to attract and bring back talent to Australia to help support entrepreneurship and growth. Special shout out to Elaine Steed for a great MC and moderation bring out some incredible insights into talent attraction, long term trends, encouraging innovation!
Mitch Presnick shared some incredible insights into building a brand in China as he was involved in the launch of Budweiser there and his own Super 8 Motel Chain. He stated that the demise of China that is being portrayed in the media is overblown and that entrepreneurs should be long on China as the GDP per person is going to go from 8,000 to 25,000 over the next 20 years and that huge opportunities abound.
Lyn Kraus from Ernst & Young shared some wonderful insights in how Ernst & Young is helping to support entrepreneurs with some amazing trade missions to see unique entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world and how Ernst & Young is investing in angel and accelerator groups.
The final workshop featured Kevin Fallon, CEO of Pivotal Innovation, who shared some enormous insights into making Innovation a Discipline in your company and the key was to have a transformational purpose at the CEO to guide the enterprise. He cited examples of Thomas Edison and how Edison had a transformational purpose to make products that the world wanted and shared his simple message "if there is a better way to do it...then find it. "
Top 5 insights:
- Have a transformational purpose that is pure and aligns the team
- Bet on China over the next 25 years
- Think contribution first. Contribution first to your community, employees, team... and innovation will follow
- Elevate innovation as a discipline the same as marketing
- Australia is on fire.There are more people that want to be entrepreneurs and innovators. Exciting.