HP Innovation Journal Issue 04: Fall 2016 | Page 27
UNIVERSITY OUTREACH
HP University relations
for the 21 st century
A
lmost 80 years ago, encouraged by their
professor, Frederick Terman, and bene-
fiting from one of the earliest exemplars
of university-motivated “tech transfer” — Bill
Hewlett and Dave Packard started what later
became HP in a Palo Alto garage close to the
campus of Stanford University.
As the company grew, HP strategically de-
veloped centers of engineering excellence in
communities with a great “quality of life”, were
welcoming of HP, and were also near universi-
ties and flight hubs. Examples of HP sites with
strong university community relationships in the
US include: Corvallis, Oregon State; Ft Collins,
Colorado State; San Diego, UCSD and SDSU; and
Boise, Boise State.
As Baghai et.al. described in their book
“The Alchemy of Growth” 1 innovation may
be partitioned into three horizons of: <18
months (H1), 18-36 months (H2); and > 18
months (H3). In the context of university
partnerships, H1 may be viewed as extend-
ing R&D capability (e.g. through sponsored
research); H2 as exploration of new technol-
ogies (e.g. through membership in research
consortia); while H3 is more about open inno-
vation and imagining the future (e.g. through
gift funded research).
HP University community relationships
are strengthened by staff alma mater net-
works, input to curriculum, student project
mentorships, internships, research collabo-
rations, and business connections. Strategic
HP-university relations boosts:
• R&D capability
• Talent acquisition
• Exploration of the future
1 Mehrdad Baghai, Steve Coley and David White (2000).
The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building
the Enduring Enterprise. Basic Books.
Stanford University — Alma Mater of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard
Around the world, HP technical experts
connect with university scholars to research
problems of mutual interest. Collaborative
research projects provide a fertile landscape
for recruiting and complements internal
R&D. University research labs complement
HP resources and brings increased diversity
to thought leadership. University ecosys-
tems also provide an insightful view of the
future through academic research and the
early adoption and adaption of emergent
technologies, processes, and applications
by the student body.
In future issues of the Innovation Journal
we plan to outline HP’s University strategy to:
• Leverage an internal “university relations”
community to share best practices and
results
In the interim, for HP staff we welcome
your participation in our internal “University
Relations Social Network” on Yammer, and
for both external and internal audiences, we
draw your attention to our recently published
paper 2 at IEEE’s ICSE workshop on compa-
ny-university collaborations.
Steven Fraser joined HP as Lead, Global University
Programs in February 2016 and was previously
the Director of the Cisco Research Center, a senior
member of staff at Qualcomm’s Learning Center,
and a senior manager of Nortel’s Global External
Research Program. In addition to a year as a Visiting
Scientist at CMU’s Software Engineering Institute
(SEI) he has organized over 80 software engineer-
ing conferences, panels, workshops, and tutorials.
Steven holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering
from McGill University in Montréal, Canada and is
a senior member of both the ACM and the IEEE.
• Complement internal R&D capability
through university research partnerships
• Recruit the best university talent
worldwide
• Learn more about future trends and
emerging technologies
2 Steven Fraser and Denis Mancl (2016). Strategies for
Building Successful Company-University Research
Collaborations. SER&IP’16 @ ICSE May 2016: pp.
10-15.
Issue 4 · Fall 2016 · Innovation Journal 27