Inventing Entrepreneurs: Technology Innovators and their Entrepreneurial Journey

Enterprise Ireland in collaboration with the Centre for Innovation and Structural Change invites you to the second of four talks from renowned thought leaders in the areas of innovation and management.

Gerard George is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and serves as the Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre at Imperial College London, and is an Advanced Institute of Management Innovation Fellow of the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The Advanced Institute of Management fellowship supports his research on entrepreneurship and technology commercialisation in the UK and elsewhere. Professor George is an award-winning teacher and scholar and has published several articles in leading scholarly journals on the topics of resource constraints in entrepreneurial firms, value creation, and innovation in large and small organisations. His book (with Adam Bock) titled Inventing Entrepreneurs: Technology Innovators and their Entrepreneurial Journey (Prentice Hall, 2008) addresses the human side of innovation and technology transfer. In October 2007, he completed a special report for the European Venture Capital Association titled Scaling Current Boundaries on the early stage venture capital and fundraising environment in Europe. He serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Venturing and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. He also serves on the boards of high technology companies and is actively engaged in guiding start-ups and large companies on technology venturing and entrepreneurship.

We live in age of entrepreneurship, a period when transformative social changes stem from fundamental inventions and innovations. Extensive research has measured the impact of entrepreneurship on industry growth and on the economy. We know that the majority of job creation comes from entrepreneurial firms. Despite the spotlight that has played on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs one group of innovators has remained relatively unknown and under studied: the scientific inventors, the researchers who solve fundamental problems and optimise technological solutions. Professor George’s talk will focus on scientific innovators and will deal with entrepreneurial purpose, cultivating an entrepreneurial identity, assembling the entrepreneurial tool kit, the managerial challenges and the common experiences of inventing entrepreneurs.

All Welcome