Usually prototyping new ideas takes several steps within a company: From approving initial sketches to accessing budgets and then finally starting the early development – this comes with a lot of time passing until there is even a first development. This is where incubation programs come into play and simplify things – making these first steps as easy as possible. The campus at the NOKIA Paris-Saclay site offers exactly this in form of an open innovation site called “Le Garage”.
From enabling all NOKIA employees who want to dabble in fast prototyping and experimenting on early-stage projects to hosting external partners such as startups, supplier teams or students for co-innovation projects – “Le Garage” is a living and breathing innovative space. We interviewed the OpEN community leader of “Le Garage” from NOKA Paris-Saclay, Bertrand Marquet, on his experience with the open innovation space.
Bertrand, thanks for taking the time for this interview! Innovation starts out as a mindset rather than something that can be ordered – would you agree here?
Yes, it comes from a way of thinking that includes different attitudes, the most important of which is to be curious and wanting to solve problems. Innovation is ironically usually presented as "making the world a better place", but that means solving problems for people, too.
What do you think makes “Le Garage” an “innovative space”? What’s the recipe for innovation here?
The recipe for innovation is that from the very beginning when we founded Le Garage four years ago, we defined its mission to be "the space for all employees to innovate". The recipe is to turn ideas into something concrete like a first prototype. Ideas have no value, but the prototype of these ideas has a high value.
In regard to Le Garage’s incubation part – how well accepted is it among NOKIA employees? What’s your “day to day clientele” at Le Garage?
We have more than 120 employees who have applied for access to work on their projects. The daily clientele (even if I don't like the word ?) is divided into three: Employees who work on their project alone or in groups, as well as internal and external start-ups. We want to concentrate on making this space an innovation ecosystem.
Do you think having such an on-campus project such as “Le Garage” gives employees an extra push towards innovative thinking – even when they are not attending it physically?
Le Garage is today more than a project, it is a structured place for innovation and the promotion of the start-up spirit. It is a strong signal that Nokia wants its employees to be part of innovative thinking and even more: to be the drivers of innovation.
“Le Garage” is also open to external teams such as startups for co-innovation. What is the best thing that people from “outside” can bring to NOKIA?
They bring a lot of the best things with ? First their way of thinking: They are entrepreneurs. They work in a way that is different from us. They either bring us new technologies or bring us new applications for our technologies. This is the case with our 5G live networks, where they can develop new use cases.
Let’s move on to a more hands-on approach: What is the most stand-out project you have seen coming so far from Le Garage?
All projects are valuable, but recently we had a project that was presented at the CES 2019 in Las Vegas on the booth of one of our partners in the innovation ecosystem: Engie. In one year, we managed to accelerate the project from an idea in a PowerPoint to a first prototype presented at the most visible innovation show.
And what would be something you would like to develop yourself? Or are you even working on something right now?
My role is to animate the structure and help others develop their project, I don't have time to develop my own projects internally. But outside of Nokia, I recently co-founded two companies that you will learn more about soon ?
Bertrand, one final question: If external teams – e.g. startups – are interested in joining one of the NOKIA Garage projects, where should they go first?
The Open Ecosystem Platform of course or they can contact me at Le.Garage@nokia.com