Changing the World through Innovation and Engineering - Judy Estrin, CEO JLabs LLC

COPYRIGHT © JLABS, LLC 2011 Copyright © Judy Estrin 2008 1

Judy Estrin CEO, JLabs, LLC

COPYRIGHT © JLABS, LLC 2011

Changing the World Through Innovation and Engineering

• One engineer’s path •  Innovation • Opportunities and challenges


•  Academic/scientific family - strong role models

•  Fell in love with computer science - appealed to my problem solving skills

•  Involved in early development of TCP/IP and the Internet with Vint Cerf

•  First job with a small company: early move into management – interacting with people, applying technology

•  Never imagined I would become an entrepreneur or write a book on innovation

•  My most important and fullfilling ‘achievement’ is my 21 year old son

Shaping My Career (and Attitudes)


Range of Experiences

Copyright © Judy Estrin 2008

Computer science • UCLA • Stanford • Early networking research Advisory Boards

• Bridge Communications • NCD • Precept • Packet Design, LLC

• Mother!

• CTO Cisco Board member of: • Disney (current) •  FedEx • Rockwell • Sun Microsystems

Author - Closing the Innovation Gap, McGraw-Hill, 2008 Over 100 interviews with innovators, leaders, educators

Academic Entrepreneurial Corporate


Entrepreneurship is a State of Mind •  Many types of entrepreneurship - VC funded start-up,

small business, within large company, academic, social

•  Entrepreneurship does not require any special degree - however engineering education does provide a good foundation for entrepreneurship

•  Entrepreneurship = passion, flexibility, intelligent risk, operating lean, identifying needs and disruptive approaches, discipline and drive

•  Entrepreneurs are: •  Willing to tackle seemingly impossible problems •  Able to balance a strong vision and persistence

with assessment and flexibility •  Comfortable with ambiguity - often need to make

decisions without hard data


Advances in healthcare

New materials for bikes, clothes, packaging

The Internet, web, facebook, twitter…..

Mobile devices or GPS

Safe buildings or bridges

Imagine Our World Without……

Dustbuster, HDTV, home gyms, video games……

New forms of clean energy and transportation


All Brought to You by Engineering and Other Types of Innovation


•  Engineering: “practical application of the knowledge of pure science” or building things that solve problems. Engineers truly can change the world

•  Innovation: “something new or different” – in science, engineering, arts, social sciences, business....or all of the above


Once is Not Enough


•  Sustainable innovation drives economic growth, quality of life and is the only hope of addressing the major challenges that we face – energy/environment, healthcare, security, education….

•  It is also very personal, impacting our lives at home, school and work

•  Innovation is about identifying human needs – sometimes before people realize they have them

•  Innovation is messy - you need to be willing to invest without knowing the outcome. It doesn’t just happen, but needs to be nurtured like a garden


Core Values = Capacity for Change

Values need to be in balance.

Questioning Curiosity, self-assessment, non-judgmental, free flowing

Risk Vulnerability, attitude toward failure, fail early, learn from failure

Trust In oneself, in others, safety net (bankruptcy, healthcare, education)

Tenacity, patient capital Patience

To imagine, new data, sharing, surprise, change Openness


Fear Works Against Change •  Fear comes in many forms: safety, failure, not fitting

in, criticism, funding, litigation, political agendas….

•  It is a hard time to trust: •  Ability to get a good education, affordable

healthcare, a job •  Banks, government, business leaders doing the

right thing

•  Need to rebuild foundation one step at a time through innovation and leadership at individual, organizational, national and global level

•  Key is to turn threats into challenges that inspire, engage and motivate action


Many Opportunities for Innovation

Creation of new industries

Disruption of existing mature industries (edu, commerce,

food, health, transportation,

entertainment…) Technology:

Focus on affordability, security, mobility Intersection of

disciplines: bio, nano, IT, social sciences,

design

Energy independence and

sustainable environment

Healthcare: Expanding to include

wellness, delivery of care to sick, elderly or

disabled and additional focus on affordability

Infrastructure upgrade

requirements: Physical and Digital

US and Globally Changing demographics: Age, ethnicity, economic


Inevitable Unintended Consequences


•  Cars – accidents, Oil refineries – climate change, High fructose corn syrup – obesity/diabetes, email – spam/phishing

•  Powerful and positive advances in information technology are molding our culture but with unknown and unintended social consequences

•  The world is flat but…. •  It is uneven – increasing income gaps •  It is increasingly shallow and impatient – depth of

thought and depth connections decreasing (quantity over quality, number of vs substance of interactions)

•  The online world only involves sight and sound – impact on our emotional development if smell, touch and taste are “under-developed”?

•  Awareness and balance vs denial or rejection •  Consequences = problems that drive new innovation


21st Century Talent


•  Education system and popular culture are currently working against innovation – undermining core values

•  Create the right soil and plant seeds for the future: •  Adaptive - ability to learn, capacity for change •  Framing questions, not just answering them •  Playfulness, exploration, experimentation •  Active patience •  Collaborative •  Interdisciplinary: deep and wide foundation •  Scientific and technologic literacy

•  America needs more engineers, scientists, innovators – we have fallen behind


•  Money - Enough to be comfortable? Always more? •  Impact - On the world? On a community? On

individuals? •  Power - Over others? To effect change? •  Happiness - Challenged? Pleasure? Personal/career

balance? Service to others? Service to oneself? •  Recognition - Among peers? As the best - celebrity? •  Realizing your potential - Measurement? Never

enough? •  Always moving up? Always taking the next step? •  ???

Many different measures of success Wants and needs may differ at

various stages of your career and life


What Does Success Mean For You? •  Think about your definitions of success -

don’t automatically subscribe to what you think is “expected”

•  If you have the interest – engineering provides a great foundation for many different paths

•  Balance your focus on making things happen and being open to serendipity

•  Not everyone wants to, or can be, a leader of other people, but each of us is our own leader - responsible for our path


[email protected]

www.theinnovationgap.com

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