Innovation Centers
Environments created to promote and give support for entrepreneurship innovative, helping to create and expand innovative businesses.
The Centers offer services that support the entrepreneur from the moment the business is just an idea until the moment he is ready to face the market, grow and climb.
The Centers also want encourage the insertion of a culture of innovation in companies in your region and connect startups and entrepreneurs with consolidated companies and other important actors.
To operationalize these objectives, have services like pre-incubation of companies, incubaçao, acceleration, coworking, maker space, space for events and training, space for P&D, Marketplace, One Stop Shop, connection with financial institutions and investors and so on. These services and activities are offered directly by the Center or through partners of the ecosystem.
The Centers are also there to strengthen the culture of innovation in local organizations and connect the actors of the regional ecosystem with each other and with the world.
All this to accelerate the necessary development of businesses and organizations towards the new economy and the new world that is unfolding before us.
See the position of innovation centers in the context of innovation habitats.
Source: VIA Knowledge Station - UFSC, 2020
Mission
Activate the innovation ecosystem
Innovation happens in the flow (of ideas, talent, capital). It hardly happens in standing water. This flow is created from the connection between people and organizations. E, the connection requires a trusting environment to flourish.
Social barriers, policies, cultural, emotional or institutional issues that keep people and organizations away, are weapons that kill innovation. By keeping people at a distance, these barriers raise transaction costs and leave opportunities for innovation to fade by the day (HWANG;HOROWIT, 2012).
To connect people and organizations it is necessary to break down these barriers and build territories with high levels of trust. Trust makes connection easier. Connection generates flow. Flow is where innovation happens.
How many interactions between individuals are necessary until the right people come together, with the right resources, just in time for innovation to happen, being a hub is very effective: how do you connect a lot of points, are more likely to make the right connections.
The Innovation Centers work to bring together the various local actors in your ecosystem e, still, connect the local ecosystem to other ecosystems in the state through the Santa Catarina Innovation Center Network. Besides that, work to connect the local ecosystem to strategic ecosystems around the world.
Generate and scale innovative businesses
The Innovation Centers are the regional reference point for entrepreneurs or potential entrepreneurs who want to turn their new idea into a business, incorporar open innovation, to train or seek connections for innovation.
From specialized services, ranging from the welcoming and guidance of the entrepreneur, undergoing mentoring, technical and managerial training, access to investors and new markets * Centers enable the birth and development of new innovative businesses with business mortality rates much lower than those practiced outside of innovation environments.
*The Centers are adding new services to their portfolio according to their capacity and maturity. See the menu “Units”What services are operating at each Center.
Here is some of my reflections from a decade immersed in Silicon Valley. First thing: culture is everything! People talk a lot about culture, but until you spend a lot of time in the trenches of an innovative environment, high speed and high risk as is Vale, it is very difficult to understand. […] When they say that Silicon Valley is not a place, but a state of mind, it is true. Talented people are everywhere in the world. But, the proper mental model is that it is precious (Victor W. Hwang, 2016).
Create an innovative and entrepreneurial culture
Andres Oppenheimer (2013), Argentine journalist and political analyst often says that Latin America needs to apply science, technology and innovation the same effort, passion and discipline dedicated to football. For him, the biggest obstacle to innovation is the absence of a culture of admiration for innovators and entrepreneurs and the lack of social tolerance for individual failure, which are key factors in the success of Silicon Valley, for example.
If, on the one hand, it is essential that the tough barriers be removed from the entrepreneur's path, like bureaucracy, heavy taxes and difficult access to scientific research, for another it is crucial that people's mentality is attuned to creativity and the willingness to create a world that does not yet exist.
It is decisive to consider that, trying to solve everyday problems of people and the community, we can create very profitable businesses, skilled jobs and income and even global companies.
For innovation to happen and proliferate business and significant opportunities for the region, she needs to become part of the culture, of the spirit of this place. This is where the work of the Centers begins.
The biggest challenge for Centers and innovation workers is SHORTEN DISTANCES between:
People with ideas
Talented people
People with capital
Creating connection, flow and, Finally, innovation. In this order.
Functions
To fulfill its mission of strengthening the innovation ecosystem and generating innovative business, the Centers operate from a Functions portfolio that is shared by the entire Santa Catarina Innovation Center Network. The Portfolio is a set of services and activities that the Center is offering or will offer.
The functions and sub-functions listed in the portfolio will be gradually implemented in each Center, according to maturity and demand level. Besides that, these activities can be offered directly by the Center or by qualified partners.
FUNCTIONS PORTFOLIO: INNOVATION CENTERS AND ECOSYSTEMS
Adapted from Josep M's metamodel. Pique (2015)
Governance Model
Each city has an Implementation Committee that is responsible for defining the operation and governance model of its Center. These Committees work based on the guidelines of the Guide to. The Santa Catarina Center Network has public initiative centers (most of them) and private initiative. We private centers, management is the group responsible for the initiative and the building. We public centers, the responsible is the city hall (with few exceptions), that can operate directly or delegate to the private entity through public call.
PUBLIC BUILDING: management is from the city hall, which can delegate to a private organization through public notice - management submitted to the Board of Directors formed by representatives of the triple helix * - Government of SC provides technical and financial support
PRIVATE BUILDING: management of the responsible private group - management submitted to the Board of Directors formed by representatives of the triple helix * - SC Government provides technical and financial support
*Triple helix: means joint action between Government, Academy and Companies. The use of the term became very common when Henry Etzkowitz maintained that innovation in an economy requires the integrated performance of these three sectors. The Centers' general management model is based on this standard. On here, the highest decision-making body is the Board of Directors.
The Centers' general management model is based on this standard. On here, the highest decision-making body is the Board of Directors.
Composition of the Boards of Directors of the Centers
The Board of Directors of the Centers, in its turn, has advisory and deliberative functions, tripartite format and president-elect 12 members. Members are appointed by recognized ecosystem bodies and appointed by the mayor. They are prevented from composing the Council, partner, rising, descendant or collateral or related to a holder of a company installed in the Center.
Composition of the Boards of Directors of the Centers
The Board of Directors of the Centers, in its turn, has advisory and deliberative functions, tripartite format and president-elect 12 members. Members are appointed by recognized ecosystem bodies and appointed by the mayor. They are prevented from composing the Council, partner, rising, descendant or collateral or related to a holder of a company installed in the Center.
Occupation Model Adaptability, Creativity and Connection
The Network Centers operate from the model below, which is customized according to the needs of each ecosystem. The Centers were built within a model that, while it is standardized, flexible in terms of occupation possibilities.
With light and adaptable furniture, movable partitions and open spaces, the Centers are prepared to adapt to the changing needs of the world of entrepreneurship and innovation.
The vibrant colors of the furniture, the external glass walls that create great communication with the external space, the good use of light and natural ventilation among other aspects create a comfortable and inspiring environment. Much more favorable to creativity.
But, the main hallmark of the Network Centers are the diverse collaborative work spaces, multifunctional and dating. Shared tables, meeting kiosks, video conference rooms, multipurpose spaces, event space, coffee and cups on all floors, guarantee the most important: that people can connect. It is from the connection that innovation is born.
Check here the Interior Design of Innovation Centers.
Ground floor:
• Reception;
• Self service;
• Show Room;
• Auditorium;
• Living space;
• Café / Restaurant;
• Bank Support / Vending Machine;
• Others.
Mezzanine:
• Administrative (Management of Center Functions);
• Meeting and Training Rooms (Open Innovation Programs, Acceleration, Formation, Orientation etc.);
• Room(s) for partners and support institutions;
• Project office, Intellectual Property and
Technology Transfer.
1º Floor:
• Pre-incubator;
• Project incubator;
• Business incubator;
• Accelerator (an acceleration program may or may not imply the assignment of physical space, and may only consist of training, trainings, support and mentoring at the Center, occupying the meeting and training rooms on time);
• Laboratories, Innovation Centers P&D and Design;
• Spin Offs of large companies;
• Companies with innovation projects.
Penthouse:
• Multipurpose and / or Coworking Space;
• Area for Events;
• Space for Coffee break;
• Terrace / Deck.
Ground floor:
• Reception;
• Self service;
• Show Room;
• Auditorium;
• Living space;
• Café / Restaurant;
• Bank Support / Vending Machine;
• Others.
Mezzanine:
• Administrative (Management of Center Functions);
• Meeting and Training Rooms (Programs of
Open Innovation, Acceleration, Formation, Orientation etc.);
• Room(s) for partners and support institutions;
• Project office, Intellectual Property and
Technology Transfer.
1º, 2And 3rd Floor:
(Combination, combination of the modalities indicated below in a flexible way and adapted to the studies, demand and characteristics of regions):
• Coworking;
• Pre-incubator;
• Project incubator;
• Business incubator;
• Accelerator (an acceleration program may or may not imply the assignment of physical space, and may only consist of training, trainings, support and mentoring at the Center, occupying the meeting and training rooms on time);
• Laboratories, Innovation Centers P&D and Design;
• Spin Offs of large companies;
• Companies with innovation projects.
Penthouse
• Multipurpose and / or Coworking Space;
• Area for Events;
• Space for Coffee break;
• Terrace / Deck.
