Innovation Training created outward facing, customer-oriented employees
The Innovation Agent Program was presented in a WAITRO training, which was held in Putrajaya, Malaysia from September 11-14, 2017. This training was co-organized by WAITRO and the Danish Technological Institute (DTI), Denmark. The Innovation Agent Program trains employees of Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) to successfully interact with Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In this workshop, RTO employees’ – in their role as agents -learned to introduce innovative services and partnership models to smaller companies. SMEs benefit from shorter decision-making paths and less bureaucracy, meaning less obstacles to innovation. Because of this, the Innovation Agent Program is important to bring newly developed solutions into the industry. The program has been introduced in New Zealand (2012), Trinidad Tobago (2016), and Austria (2016). The Innovation Agent workshop was facilitated by Mr. Knud Erik Hilding-Hamann, Director of Centre for Ideas and Innovation from DTI and Dr. Kirstie Yvette Wild, Director of International Centre of DTI.