One key piece of the Mack Institute’s mission is to enable innovation across the Penn community. To that end, on November 7th the institute hosted the first of its Innovation Clinics, a workshop series aimed at the intersection of medicine, engineering, and business.…Read More
While much of the country was staying up late on the first Tuesday in November to watch election results roll in, for Mack Institute staffers the night after was the real nail-biter. This was the deadline for entries in the Y-Prize, and our anticipation was well rewarded.…Read More
The Y-Prize Competition asks students to take a fresh approach to the challenge of inventing new applications for Penn research. At last week’s Kick-Off, students from diverse corners of the Penn community gathered in the Singh Center for Nanotechnology.…Read More
The Mack Institute is proud to announce the opening of the third annual Y-Prize competition.…Read More
Finding the path that will allow established companies to take advantage of their strengths while also giving them the flexibility to innovate is one of the most pressing concerns of many executives. This was the theme of the Mack Institute’s Spring Conference, titled “Incubating Innovation in Established Firms.”…Read More
Chunka Mui wants you to know that the conventional narrative about start-ups versus large companies—the small and nimble Davids against the slow and clumsy Goliaths—doesn’t actually have much basis in reality.…Read More
How can an established firm foster innovation through its HR practices? Peggy Tayloe of Infosys shares how the company uses HR practices to stay flexible despite its size.…Read More
Intel’s Neil Blecherman shares how the company puts the mantra “innovation is everything” into action within its business ecosystem.…Read More
With the memories of a frigid East Coast winter still fresh in our minds, we at the Mack Institute are looking forward to our now-traditional foray out to sunny California for our West Coast conference on June 10, 2014. …Read More
“She was so passionate about the her goal—utilizing TRHex to get students interested in STEM subjects. Her enthusiasm was infectious! She utilized an existing technology in a creative way, and she did a great job of communicating her idea and bringing the business to life.” That’s how Michelle Proctor—Director of Innovation…Read More
A key goal of the Y-Prize Competition is to foster collaboration between various schools at Penn. Isabelle Park, an MBA candidate at the Wharton School, and Gavin Kenneally, a Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical Engineering, describe the joys and challenges of working on a cross-disciplinary team. What role did you play in shaping…Read More
The Y-Prize Competition is all about sparking innovation at Penn. Tom Fitzsimons, CEO of Kerathin LLC, discusses why the competition is unique and what made this year’s prizewinning idea stand out. What makes the Y-Prize competition interesting to you? The goal of the Y-Prize competition is to get a different perspective…Read More
The Mack Institute co-hosted its annual Wharton Technology and Innovation Conference on April 12 and 13, 2014. This guest post by Glenn Hoetker (W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University) summarizes one of the papers for which he was a discussant. In the global competition for innovative success, location matters.…Read More
The Mack Institute is thrilled to announce Emily Plumb, a Mechanical Engineering Masters student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), as the winner of the 2013-2014 Y-Prize Competition. Emily is a passionate advocate of STEM education for young children, and her enthusiasm showed clearly throughout her presentation at…Read More
The first round of the 2013-2014 Y-Prize saw a wide range of inventive submissions from student teams across the university. Now, four finalist teams are hard at work (with assistance from their GRASP Lab tech consultants and Wharton business consultants) to perfect their ideas for commercializing Penn robotics technology. As a testament to the…Read More
Our longtime corporate partners at Teradata are frequent and enthusiastic participants at our yearly conferences. One attendee, Monica Mullen, recently shared her key takeaways from our recent Fall Conference. Her post originally appeared in the company’s Industry Experts blog. I had the pleasure of talking with Mr. J. David Power…Read More
Mack Institute events don’t typically include references to farming techniques, but the Fall Conference 2013 was a rare exception. In this video summary of his presentation, Takeshi Yamaguchi describes how Nissan’s approach to advanced technical development resembles the cultivation of an orchard. Instead of a linear approach, Nissan achieves successful…Read More
What happens when two industries with fundamentally different clockspeeds converge within a single product? In a recent Knowledge@Wharton article, Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation Director John Paul MacDuffie discusses the challenges of integrating IT-based technology, such as computer-based collision avoidance systems, into automobiles. MacDuffie highlights the tight integration of…Read More
The Mack Institute is excited to host the Y-Prize Spring Kick-off on Monday, January 27 at 6:00 P.M. in Huntsman Hall 340. Attendees will hear from keynote speakers Elizabeth Beattie and Nick McGill, two members of the team that created the Titan Arm—an upper-body exoskeleton that increases the wearer’s ability…Read More
How J.D. Power III Transformed the Auto Industry Through the collection of consumer feedback on cars, J.D. “Dave” Power III revolutionized the automobile industry in 1968. In this Knowledge@Wharton interview conducted by PVMI director John Paul MacDuffie, Power discusses the founding and early years of his firm, J.D. Power and…Read More
