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