UM6P Organizes Panel On Innovation To Unleash Start-Ups’ Potentials

Ben Guerir – As part of the “Voice of Africa’s” five-day event which is currently taking place at the Mohamed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Ben Guerir, a panel discussion revolved around the topic of innovation to help start-ups ignite their innovative power.

The conference hall attracted a sizable group of students from Africa who came to learn something practical and meaningful about innovation.

The panel also cited a number of key constituents of the “complex process” of innovation, including creativity, research development, and entrepreneurship.

During the panel discussion, Chief Technology Officer at Infosys Bippin Makoond said that the most creative people in the world are children because their journey starts by learning rather than surviving.

“There is only one superpower that you can trust will help you to face the future – it’s creativity,” said Makoond, stressing that this characteristic dwells inside every human being and it only needs to be ignited by the most precious element found in the human body: the brain.

Creativity can result in innovation, be argued, noting that it can be used in each and every activity, as it is also a problem-solving strategy.

“Creativity is like fire. You can use it to cook food or you can use it to destroy worlds,” he stated.

The conference hall

Speaking about innovation from a different perspective, Senior Performance Manager at Master Black Belt, Habib Attaoui, introduced attendees to the notion of Operational Innovation.

“Operational innovation is totally inspired by those who work within the field,” Attaoui defined the term, emphasizing that “the difficulty lies in the fact that one has to know what is happening within the field to be able to talk about operational innovation.”

To illustrate his point, he gave as an example the Toyota car brand, which, according to him, has never produced cars. Instead, they innovated on the production tools using the Toyota Production System (TPS), which has placed them on top of the list in their industry.

The idea of operational innovation is about obtaining the same product in a completely different version.

Targeting the field of entrepreneurship to define innovation, Managing Partner and Co-founder at Akmazo Capital, Imad Mouline, linked innovation to how one does pricing, applies the go-to-market strategy, or what the business model looks like.

Mouline said that innovation does not necessarily imply starting a business with an already innovative concept. An entrepreneur can still innovate to apply modifications to their business.

Speaking from personal experience, Mouline revealed that it took him fifteen years to use turnarounds to locate his “sweet spot.”

“You’re an entrepreneur, you can innovate … Find a way to go in and affect change,” stated Mouline, stressing that “that can help unleash creativity and take a risk that may end in failure, which there is no shame about it.”

He concluded: “Shame is when you don’t learn from your failure.”