Emily Lutzker
Creative Strategy and Project Management, USA
www.emilylutzker.com/about

Title: The Utopian Fantasies of Open Innovation

Abstract
The popular paradigm of open innovation, wherein companies utilize concepts and intellectual property from outside sources as well as generate original concepts internally, has promised great value for companies, as well as a utopian vision of validation and compensation for inventors. Organizations have taken on the challenge to build these systems in a variety of forms: from contest and challenge based models, crowdsourcing portals, to idea libraries, and electronic suggestion boxes. How much value has as the reality of open innovation generated thus far? Is it nearing the ideal, or are we standing at the shore and longing for the innovation horizon beyond our reach?

CV
Emily Lutzker, PhD is an Innovation Strategist for brands, products, and organizations. She is the former founder and CEO of culture-driven open innovation startup and consultancy, OpenInvo. With a background as an artist, Dr. Lutzker attributes her success to being able to apply the methods of artists’ processes to consumer product development and business models. As an academic, she taught at the New School’s Media Studies Program, and at Israel’s Beit Berl College/Ha Midrash School of Art where she also ran a New Media Colloquium, bridging the curriculum of the New Media, Information Studies, and Games Development programs. Currently, she is a frequent doctoral defense committee member for the EGS, and a board member of the Ligo Project.