Networking from research to marketing
Innovation Network INAM has important partners
Patent agents, a fabulous laboratory, and Pilotfish: The Innovation Network for Advanced Materials (INAM) is constantly focused on the knowledge leading to and from knowledge. And this is provided by a lot of competent partners.
In the world’s oceans, pilot fish are the useful escorts of large sea dwellers with which they live in a kind of symbiosis. So the Innovation Network for Advanced Materials is the right place for the role adopted by the company Pilotfish.
“We have a good nose,” explained Marc Nagel when asked to reveal how he understands technological progress and networking, “and we like to take a look in many kitchens.” He is the founding partner of Pilotfish, a 2YK setup specialising in strategic design and the development of intelligent products. He explained that the starting points are generally the ideas of customers who commission Pilotfish to “translate their ideas into a product”.
In addition to a wide portfolio of interdisciplinary methods, the key driving force is the different angle of view and the freedom to think differently than possible within the customer’s own island. As a matter of course, Pilotfish traverses many different market segments, including mobility, medical engineering, and communication: “Our assignments cover the whole range of drafts, prototyping, and marketing.”
In the meantime, there are many advanced materials at the beginning of innovative product development, and the question of what can be done with them. “We’ve been busying ourselves with material sciences for years,” explained Nagel, naming as examples “intelligent materials in sports and everyday clothing that can serve as more than just a covering for the user”. To prepare its course along the path from product research to implementation to marketability, specifically with respect to advanced materials in electronics, optics, and photonics, Pilotfish collaborated in the setup of the innovation network INAM in June 2016 in Adlershof.
Also the FabLab in Berlin Mitte is a member of the INAM network. This is an open development workshop that, following the example of the Boston MIT, provides young developers and students with free access to high tech tools. Here, creative minds also find support in industrial partners like Otto Bock or Makea Industries, and easier entry into the use of innovative technologies. For the Pilotfish office in Berlin, the collaboration with FabLab, e.g. in prototyping, is a matter of course on the network.
Yet INAM not only links science and business, research and development. Its partners also include the Weitnauer Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaftsgesellschaft that contributes its knowledge of legal aspects involved in intellectual property. “It makes sense to discuss the legal conditions in advance,” said Sven Schilf, Director of the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Weitnauer. “Ideally as early as the project’s conception phase.” This alone safeguards the protection and successful utilisation of ideas, industrial property rights, and the companies’ intellectual works.
By Klaus Oberzig for Adlershof Special