Using basic science to boost innovation

Gone are the days of the blue sky think-tanks that eke out great ideas at will. Innovation is at a point where it must be treated seriously, and those who succeed will have to use a more disciplined approach to garnering new ideas, says Sam Kogan, president and chief operating officer of Gen3 Partners Inc., a product innovation consulting company based in Boston, Massachusetts and St. Petersburg, Russia.  

To do that Gen3 applies the disciplines of science to make the process of innovation more predictable, he says. The company takes a functional approach to look for solutions for corporations across scientific disciplines, meaning it looks for answers to the same basic problem. It does this using an extensive network of 7,000 research universities and institutions in Russia that it calls the Gen3 Global Knowledge Network.      

"The reason we went to Russia is the same reason IT companies went to India, for the value and labor arbitrage. The money invested lasts longer," says Kogan, who holds a PhD in polymer science from a Russian University.

Gen3 has been in business about 15 years, and operates in the United States, Russia, Israel and some European countries. Clients in Europe include the Schaeffler Group's INA brand of precision engine components in Germany, as well as Saipen of Milan, which provides engineering and construction services for the oil and gas industries. U.S.-based clients include Alcoa, Chiquita and Clorox.

In 2005, Gen3 launched an affiliated venture fund of $25 million that invests in early-stage companies and new product concepts, especially ones from Russia. Gen3 Capital I is based in San Francisco, and initially is focused on wireless communications, energy storage, and non-invasive medical devices.

Russia's broad approach

Kogan says the Russian researchers have a leg up on taking a broad approach to problem-solving because of the Russian education system, which emphasises knowing a wide array of disciplines from science and technology to ballet and poetry.

"It is easier for Russians to connect things that are not connected," says Kogan. Gen3 takes a functional view in its approach: it first identifies the underlying problem and then looks for a solution in any discipline that might not work, not just in the same or closely related industries.     

One example is fuel cell technology, Kogan says. Several years ago Honda Japan worked with Gen3 to improve its fuel cells. The basic problem was that the fuel cell didn't have a good combination of supercapacitors and a battery. A capacitor releases electrons fast, but doesn't store a lot of electrons, while batteries store a lot but don't release electrons quickly.     

Gen3 put its inhouse experts and network of scientists to work. Kogan says the company researched how to store a lot of electrons and release them fast so the fuel cell works in a steady state only when a car accelerates or brakes. "We found the key problem was the limits current materials have in terms of surface area, so we looked at how to increase the surface area of the materials that store electrons," he says. One answer was special polymers called reduction polymers. But those polymers added another problem: they aren't durable.

"So we posed the question to our network of how to decrease the size of the polymer to make it more durable," Kogan says. "The answer came from an expert within the network working with polymers for optical applications in self-structured polymers."

Gen3 helped Honda with its problem, and decided to take the technology further with seed funding from Gen3 Capital. It purchased the intellectual property from the Russian university professor, who now also works with Gen3 to help further develop the technology and prototype products. Gen3 plans to form a company in the next few months called Advanced Energy Storage Device, which will make a combination battery and capacitor. The R&D for Advanced Storage will be in Russia, the marketing and management and business development in the United States, and manufacturing in Asia.     

Connecting the disconnected

"We have the innovation discipline to connect things that look disconnected. We look at where else people have performed a similar function," says Kogan. "This is the future of science in business," says Kogan.

Other examples where Gen3 helped marry the "haves" and "have nots" across disciplines include a computer chip maker that had a problem with bubbles forming as the liquid portion of the microchip cooled into solid form. The answer came from the Gen3 network: a champagne industry specialist on bubbles in liquid was able to solve the problem.

Another is an aluminum wheel manufacturer that wanted to cut costs. A scientist in the Gen3 network recommended using graphite to make the dies into which the molten aluminum was poured. That would replace a brittle die coating that had been prone to pitting and defects. The solution came from similar dies in the medical industry in which the scientist worked.

Kogan said Gen3 plans to expand its network of scientists into other countries, and is looking for partners that already have established networks. "Our biggest strength is how to interact with the network," says Kogan.