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Prith Banerjee is not a man who likes to waste time. At 47, the new director of HP Labs has already founded two companies, published hundreds of papers, received several patents and has been honoured by three of the IT industry's most prestigious technical societies.
So it wasn't surprising when, just days after he joined HP in August, he plunged into an ambitious project involving 120 people worldwide to develop a new strategic plan for the lab. That plan began rolling out in November.
In the interview below, the former dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago talks about tackling the challenges faced by HP Labs, and why he believes open innovation is essential for the future.
What big challenges and opportunities do you see ahead?
HP Labs, as an organisation, has not been as successful with technology transfer as it should be within the context of a corporate research lab. I want the lab to do more research that impacts people and society, and I want to see this transferred to HP businesses.
One challenge I'm facing is finding the right balance between short-term and long-term research. That doesn't mean I want to swing the pendulum way towards short term, because then you run the risk of not being able to create really new business opportunities in the future.
Fortunately, we have a true breadth of experience in researchers. As a company, HP is in a wide range of products and services – you name an area – and there is an expert in HP Labs who knows a lot about it. So the opportunity is that talent exists, and the challenge is how do you get all the right talent to work together on larger collaborative projects, so that you can do high-impact research.
You've talked a lot about open innovation. What do you mean by that?
Open innovation recognises that there are people outside your own organisation who are as smart as you, or perhaps even smarter. In the past, research labs focused on closed innovation – they did the work on their own and then tried to funnel it to the businesses inside their own companies.
The idea behind open innovation is that by working with others – PhD students at universities, entrepreneurs, start-ups, etc. – you can tap into their ideas. But with open innovation comes open output as well. I'd like to bring some startup DNA into HP Labs, so if there isn't a place in an HP business for an innovation, researchers can start a company or HP can license the technology.
It's better to do that than keep technologies hidden inside HP Labs. As long as the research done within HP Labs ultimately benefits society, you have done something, right? Society benefits and HP as a company would get some licensing revenue or some equity share in a company.
Then how would you measure your return on investment?
I'd start with making sure that when a research project begins there's a reason why – not just a scientific reason, but a market reason, why this work should proceed. People will need to explain in their research proposal what the possible impact could be – some rough estimate of the size of the market, how much they think HP will have to invest to bring that research to market, and what the predicted return on investment might be.
So one way we'll decide whether to fund projects is to determine if they can have a big impact. I want HP Labs to work on big-time, risky projects. Not all of these will succeed, but if there are a few home runs, that would create enormous value for HP.
Learn more:
Read the full-length interview
Introducing Prith Banerjee
Prith Banerjee’s biography
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