Innovation in Context

Innovation in Context

The word "innovation" is everywhere. It refers to everything from technology to services to economic growth - but is innovation just about goods and services, or does it depend on who we are? To highlight the social context of innovation, you are invited to attend this interdisciplinary workshop on November 19, 2016.

Panels over the course of the day will examine how innovation is as much a social phenomenon as a technological one. The bias towards technology ignores the reality that many of the most significant innovators are either not related to technology or are only peripherally so. Great technologies that do not meet social needs will fail; important social changes can have substantial impact even without technologies.

This workshop is designed to explore what conditions in society lead people not only to create, but to turn those creations into innovation. Idea-drive goods and services pose new challenges for growing societies. As they disrupt conventional economic, political, and social structures, they create tremendous uncertainty. How can countries maximize the benefits of innovation? How should society adapt technology to its needs? How do innovations transform us and our social interactions? In all these questions, we cannot forget the importance of the social to the success or failure of innovation and the relationship between people and their innovations.

Convened by CIGI, hosted by the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy (CIPP) in association with McGill University's Innovation Week, McGill Office of Innovation.

This event is open to students, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, and community leaders.

Timeline:

• 8:30am - 9:00am: Registration
• 9:00am - 9:15am: Introduction
• 9:15am - 10:30am: Social Context of Innovation
• 11:00am - 12:15pm: Paying for Innovation
• 1:30pm - 1:45pm: Entrepreneurship and Prosperity
• 1:45pm - 3:00pm: The Innovator and the Firm
• 3:30pm - 4:45pm: Innovation Policy
• 4:45pm - 5:00pm: Final Remarks