InJo Seminar on Intellectual Property Nov 13 in Maastricht, Netherlands

The Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford, IIIJ and EJC - the European Journalism Centre are arranging a seminar on intellectual property on Nov 13 at EJC in Maastricht, Netherlands. Here is the press release by EJC:

Maastricht - October 16, 2008

To share or not to share: this is a question which has already been answered. Now a group of thinkers will gather in the Netherlands to discuss the more complicated quandary: How?

Innovation thinkers like David Nordfors of Stanford University and Richard Allan Horning, a Silicon Valley insider, will join intellectual property experts like Anthony Falzone, a lecturer/litigator for a free conference at the European Journalism Centre.

They will analyse the moving intersection of copyright and innovation from several sides. Innovation in the realm of intellectual property is ongoing; it is perhaps most visible in the proliferation of Creative Commons licensing.

The conference, titled Innovation Journalism: Copyright and the Use of Creative Commons, will be held Thursday, 13 November, at the main office of the European Journalism Centre. The EJC is located in the heart of Maastricht, a picturesque southernmost city in the Netherlands.

To register, please e-mail Bianca Lemmens or Anniek Reintjens.

The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science will sponsor this one-day event.

This is the second in an EJC series of innovation seminars held in Maastricht. Last year’s event focused on Innovation Journalism at large.

During that conference, Nordfors, who is originally from Sweden, stressed the benefit of innovation in a democratic society and the need to understand innovative processes and ecosystems through Innovation Journalism. InJo treats innovation as a topic and follows its development in technology, business, politics, etc.

If innovation could be covered as a distinct topic within the mainstream media, society would be better able to understand the processes which are behind it and contribute to its development, Nordfors said.

This year’s event will concern itself with the role of copyright within the innovation sphere. This free seminar has limited space, so please contact the EJC as soon as possible in order to guarantee your spot.

How to Report on Environmental Innovation / Cleantech

Only a few years ago almost nobody was thinking of cleantech journalism. There was business journalism and there was environmental journalism. Environmentalists were rejecting the market forces, and the commercial players were not charmed. Business journalism would not cover environmentalists, and environmental journalism would not engage in market analysis. Back in 2005, before most people ever heard of cleantech, the Innovation Journalism program looked into how to bridge these worlds.

Injo Fellow Birgitta Forsberg hosted by the SF Chronicle blended her expertise in business journalism with her passion for environmental issues in a project we branded 'environmental innovation journalism', not far from cleantech journalism today. She did a number of successful cover stories for SF Chronicle and summarized her tips for others to use in the essay 'How to do environmental innovation journalism'. It is a very nice mix of analysis, thumb rules and examples of real stories. Reading it now makes me realize how pioneering and timely her work was.

There are so many business and tech journalists today who are interested in getting into the cleantech field, it makes sense to post her essay again.

PS. Birgitta is presently working with Swedish business weekly Affärsvärlden.

Mexico Interested in Injo Initiative

I have had a three day tour in Mexico, with fifteen conferences and meetings on Innovation Journalism, all inspiring. The meetings crossed the 'triple helix', involving news organisations, universities, industries and government.

I gave a keynote in the parliament, the Congreso de la Union, for journalists, PR-people and politicians. It was hosted by Jesus Vicente Flores Morfin, member of parliament and secretary of the Commission of Science and Technology. He also participated in the panel discussion after my talk. You can read the coverage of the event here (html) (pdf) in Spanish and here in Google-translated English).

I also keynoted a journalism conference at the Tecnologico de Monterrey university campus in Mexico City. Coverage here (html) & here (pdf) in Spanish and here in Google-English.

The man who brought the idea of Injo to Mexico is Jorge Zavala, Mexican entrepreneur and founder of the Mexican TechBA accelerator in Silicon Valley, which is connected to FUMEC - the United States-Mexico Foundation for Science. Jorge pretty much grew up in a newsroom. His father was a well known journalist, who often brought his boy along to work. People like Jorge, who work with entrepreneurship and public innovation policy, and also have strong personal ties to journalism culture, often immediately grasp the concept of innovation journalism and the potential for it in the innovation economy.

Jorge and Fumec brought a sizeable Mexican delegation of journalists and funders to IJ-5 at Stanford in May, and they now followed up by arranging this visit with funding from Conacyt - the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology.

FUMEC is headed by CEO Guillermo Fernandez and chairman Leopoldo Rodriguez. The visit program was put together by Madai Quiroz Uria. Together with Jorge they form an entrepreneurial team, bridging Mexico and Silicon Valley, who want to drive an innovation journalism initiative.

Mexico is very well positioned for it. There are well connected people in journalism, universities, industry and government who get the Injo concept, that the Fumec/TechBA team can include or leverage on.

A Mexican Injo initiative has a great potential for both Mexico and Silicon Valley. Here in Silicon Valley there is a large Mexican population, but most of them are not in the innovation ecosystem. There is cultural separation between the Hispanic workers and the hightech workers in the Valley which is not constructive. If high quality Mexican journalists will be Injo Fellows working with Silicon Valley newsrooms, it will create networks between journalists in both countries enabling them to bridge subconcious cultural divides, and connect the dots between Mexico and Silicon Valley in the innovation economy. Given the large constituency of Mexicans in the Valley, this can be huge.

InJo Fellowships 2009

A more detailed description of the InJo Fellowship Program 2009 is available here.

We are planning the sixth round of the Innovation Journalism Fellowship Program at Stanford, starting Feb 2 2009. Innovation journalism fellows will go through an orientation at Stanford before beginning their work off campus with hosting US newsrooms. Potential hosts this year: AlwaysOn-Network, Bloomberg, CBS CNET News.com, Fortune Magazine (New York), GreenTechMedia, San Francisco Chronicle, Seed Magazine, Technologizer, Time Magazine (New York) and VentureBeat

Fellows based in Silicon Valley will meet regularly at Stanford for lectures and discussions. Past lecturers have included among others Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse and Vint Cerf, father of the Internet, Dan Maydan, who built up Applied Materials, and Curtis Carlson, President of SRI International. All Fellows will take active part in arranging IJ-6, the Sixth Conference on Innovation Journalism, which will take place May 18-20 2009 at Stanford. Fellows will also participate in two seminars held together with The World Economic Forum Media & Entertainment Industry Partnership and the US National Academies.

So far, four countries are participating in nominating fellows to the program: Sweden, Finland, Pakistan and Slovenia. If you are a journalist/editor who wants to apply for a fellowship, please check with your national contact (check the program description).

The call for the Swedish program is here - the call closes on November 3; the call for Pakistan is here; The Finnish call closes on Oct 17 - contact Turo Uskali for more information (Tel: +358-40-534-0249).

The Innovation Journalism Fellowship Program is funded by VINNOVA, Competitiveness Support Fund, Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, SITRA and the Scholarship Agency of Slovenia.

To set up a program for nominating fellows or to start any type of innovation-journalism program, contact me. Note that the program at Stanford does not fund other programs. External funding must be arranged before nominating fellows.