Dr. Ketaki Desai is the Vice President of Business Development at the Ontario Centre of Innovation. Before moving to Ontario, she was the Director of Strategy at UPMC Enterprises and an Adjunct Professor of Innovation and Commercialization at Chatham University. She was awarded the Business Women's First Award and is a Pittsburgh's 40 Under 40 Honoree. Ketaki was selected as a Graduate Fellow by the UN Council of Women World Leaders and volunteers with the United Way Women's Leadership Council. Ketaki has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University, and a Master of Science degree in Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Ketaki joins me today to discuss innovation centers and merging corporate and higher education needs. She shares how the Ontario Centre of Innovation helps connect researchers with SMEs or spin-off their own companies. Ketaki reveals how quantum computing is moving faster than expected and will radically change the trajectory of computation. She highlights how the Ontario Centre of Innovation decides which innovations to fund. She shares why researchers need to seek out the problems in their field and consider how solutions can be commercialized. Ketaki also shares her concerns for the future and highlights why we need to stop finding others to fix our problems.
"I think it is important to look at research with a lens of how applicable the research is to people or the world." - Ketaki Desai
This week on Innovation Talks:
- How the Ontario Centre of Innovation helps researchers and SMEs
- The role of innovation in economic development
- How quantum computing will be the next "big" technology and how it differs from traditional computing
- The innovation that is happening in the sustainability and clean technology space
- Why we need to change our view of research and view it from the perspective of its applicability to people or the world and make a long term community impact
- Why it is sometimes necessary to collaborate with your competitors to build something better
- Ketaki's concerns for the future, including the pace of climate change
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