The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology presents the Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring talks by leading professionals on essential business technology topics.
Innovation Through Corporate – Higher Education Partnerships: A Case Study
Dan Pantaleo
Vice President, Strategic Issues Group
SAP
October 12, 2004
About the event
In his book, “Open Innovation” Hank Chesbrough suggests that rather than relying entirely on internal ideas to advance the business, an “open” approach to innovation leverages internal and external sources of ideas. He makes the case that rather than restricting innovations to a single path to market, open innovation inspires companies to find the most appropriate business model to commercialize a new offering — whether that model exists within the firm or must be sought through external licensing, partnering, or venturing. In their article in the Harvard Business Review of August 2002, Meyer and Ruggles boldly explore the outsourcing of innovation. These are unusual ideas in light of the long standing mind set that innovation is secretly developed, uniquely owned, and closely held. Things are clearly changing.
In exploring the characteristics of corporate Idea Practitioners in his book, “What’s the Big Idea” Tom Davenport stats, “…Because academic and other external relationships are important sources of ideas for idea practitioners, these businesspeople are the most likely participants in … and multiclient research programs. Idea practitioners are also the mainstays of industry-sponsored research programs at business schools. At times they have university affiliations.”
These concepts build a strong case for corporations to work with university colleagues in a variety of collaborations. Dan Pantaleo will explore the evolution and development of SAP’s efforts in this collaborative innovation arena and will describe the present cooperative landscape with an eye toward future developments.
Biography
After a career of twenty-five years in higher education as a faculty member, Fulbright Scholar, dean, academic vice president, and provost, Dan Pantaleo spent four years as Vice President for Product Development with an interactive multimedia education and training developer. Dan left that post in 1997 to assume the responsibilities of Program Manager for SAP America’s University Alliance Program where he has been able to apply his knowledge of higher education and interactive learning to significantly develop the Program. Expanding his responsibilities, he was appointed Director of Higher Learning Initiatives for SAP America with responsibility for several higher learning projects including the University Alliance Program throughout the Americas.
Dan was appointed to lead the SAP Innovation Institute as its Vice President in October 2000. The SAP Innovation Institute was responsible for identifying and facilitating collaborative research projects with universities, an Executive Education program, the University Alliance program, and for identifying innovation strategies, methods, and best practices. In July, 2002, Dan became part of the SAP Global Communications organization with global responsibility for the University Alliances Program.
Recognizing the opportunity to expand the development of strategic content and research for SAP, the University Alliances research and innovation team was joined with the strategic analysis team of SAP Global Communications to form the SAP Strategic Issues Group. Dan heads the project development and management of this new team.
Dan holds a B.S. degree in chemistry from Manhattan College and the Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Emory University. He served as a Fulbright Scholar in Science Education in the Philippines, held a post-doctoral appointment in the chemistry department at Louisiana State University, and took post-doctoral coursework in astrophysics at Georgia State University. Dan is a published author and researcher and a member of several professional associations including the Innovation Council of the Conference Board and serves on several advisory boards and councils.
Attendance is free on a space available basis for qualified industry and academic professionals. For more information, please contact ibit@temple.edu.
