May 2008
Focusing on the value-add
ORION welcomes Koa to head new partnerships unit
David Koa recently joined ORION as Senior Director, Partnerships and Strategic Alliances. Leading this new unit is a key position in helping the organization move to the next level as critical innovation infrastructure for Ontario.
The new team will focus on working with customers and building strategic alliances with key organizations. Among David's priorities in the next few months are meeting with the connected users and learning about their projects and key challenges, as well as recruiting staff to help with this process.
The ORION Research and Education News sat down with David to talk about the new group and his vision for it.
What are your plans for the new unit?
The group will focus on two goals: first, increasing the number of institutions and organizations connected to the network to increase knowledge sharing and collaboration; and second, creating unique value for ORION members. This second goal is really key in distinguishing ORION from other networks. I want to offer our members value-added services that are relevant to their needs and that are exclusive to ORION. These may include certain applications or tools. For example, one of our initiatives is to build a directory of services where researchers and educators can connect with one another, share their expertise, find research and collaboration partners, find information on resources such as funding, software tools etc. The idea is to encourage collaboration and knowledge transfer within the R&E community, so that users can learn from each other.
What experience do you bring to the position?
I come from the private sector where my specific experience is in building businesses and developing strategies of adding value. I think this is an advantage to this next phase of ORANO's vision of creating more value for its members, now that the network infrastructure is in place. In addition, my past experience includes building a consortium approach to exploring opportunities. For example, I have worked closely with the Law Society of Upper Canada in delivering new services to their member lawyers and have done something similar with a group of financial services companies. Our team will work closely with members of the research and education communities to deliver more value for them.
What particular projects are you excited about tackling?
There is no one specific project - it's the overarching goal of contributing to the improvement of research and education in Ontario that motivates me. ORION is part of the process of making research successful and innovative, and I'm motivated about the challenge to get more researchers and educators make use of the network and its services to collaborate and innovate more frequently.
How do you envision growth one or two years from now?
In the next 12 to 24 months, I'd like to see more institutions connected to the network, first of all. I hope that one or two of our value-added services will have been implemented and that members are actually using and benefiting from these services.
What organizations would you like to see connect to ORION?
Currently, there are only 15 of Ontario's 72 district school boards that are connected to ORION, so I certainly would like to see more schools connected and using the network. We are also going to focus on connecting research parks, libraries, more medical research facilities and teaching hospitals, as well as commercial R&D labs to partner on specific research projects. Generally, I'd like to see a greater cross-section of institutions using ORION, which would make the research and education community in Ontario that much stronger and more successful.
How could the private sector see value in developing partnerships with ORION?
By partnering with ORION, private sector companies could easily connect with the research and education community - they could more easily identify researchers and educators working on projects of interest to companies, and work hand-in-hand with them to identify and commercialize the next best thing in research. Basically, partnering with us can make it easier for them to work collaboratively with connected institutions.
Read the news release.
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