How Corporate Innovation Ecosystems Really Work Today
3 Aug 2026
Nobody innovates alone.
That is the whole idea behind innovation ecosystems. It is also why we keep running #OpenDoorInnovation.
Our in-person meetup is back. 19 August, Zürich.
This time we are joined by Heather Pace Clark, speaking about Innovation Ecosystem Engagement and Crisis as a Catalyst.
With Heather, we will explore questions like:
→ How can ecosystems help organizations scale AI and other emerging technologies?
→ What partnerships between corporates, start-ups and clients actually work?
→ Which technologies beyond AI are worth watching, based on the latest WEF Innovation Report?
She will also share practical insights from her work across AI, energy, agriculture and the Swiss innovation ecosystem. Including advice for anyone considering a move into innovation or the start-up world.
(New here? #OpenDoorInnovation is a non-profit platform founded by Dr. Gitanjali Ponnappa Andreea Stanescu and me to connect corporate innovators.)
The formula stays the same: a small group, real conversations, no networking theater.
📅 19 August, 18:00
📍 Implement, Gutenbergstrasse 9, Zürich Enge
🎫 Registration link: https://luma.com/bb7y01nn
We would love to see many of you there.
Who is joining us?
More about me, the ventures I have built, and why I built The Change Republic here.
What I have learned building a community instead of a company
OpenDoorInnovation is not a business line. It does not send an invoice. I keep running it because the pattern I see inside it is the same one I coach for: the leaders who move fastest on AI are rarely the ones with the biggest budget. They are the ones with the widest circle of people who will tell them the truth before they commit.
→ One honest conversation with someone outside your organisation beats a dozen internal steering committee slides
→ The technologies worth watching are usually named by someone who already tried and failed with them
→ A small group that actually talks beats a large room that only networks
That question, what senior leaders actually need from AI, comes up in almost every ecosystem conversation we run. The answer is rarely a bigger tool. It is a smaller, more honest room.