NB Executives Heading to Waterloo to Learn about Corporate Innovation
MONCTON – If you want to learn how to do something, one of the best ways is to learn from those doing it right.
That’s why a group of New Brunswick business people are heading to Waterloo, Ont. next week to learn about corporate innovation.
Executives from Medavie Blue Cross; TKS; National Bank; Deloitte; T4G; Propel ICT, Venn Centre and 3+ Corporation will be making the trip to the startup & innovation capital of Canada.
The group will be meeting with corporate residents at Communitech to gain insights on their work around corporate innovation and innovation labs. The whole trip was the idea of Roddy Awad, president of TKS and Venky Kulkarny, senior vice-president of operations, technology & digital innovation at Medavie Blue Cross.
“Often, you can’t truly understand something by reading it in a book or listening to a Podcast,” Awad said. “To gain true insights, you really need to spend time where the top players are and speak to them directly on their experiences and lessons learned. That’s why Venky [Kulkarny] and I decided to organize a trip. “
Though investing in innovation for its own sake is always a cool thing, the goal of the trip is to see how New Brunswick businesses, both large and small, can use innovation to help them get ahead in their markets and grow.
“If you invest in innovation to solve existing challenges with our existing staple organizations, develop learning within that industry, and apply that to a larger market, at minimum, we’re at least solving our own problems and increasing our competitive advantages within that industry,” said Awad. “The opportunity however, is that we can leverage this for greater economic development for our regions.”
Sounds like a neat trip. Huddle will be checking in when they’re back next week to see how it went.