Plenary Speakers

Meet Leading Minds

K. Barry Sharpless, Ph.D.
W.M. Keck Professor of Chemistry
The Scripps Research Institute

K. Barry Sharpless has always looked for useful new chemical methods. He regards the oxidation of olefins as the single most versatile, powerful and reliable class of transformations in organic synthesis, so improving existing oxidative reactions and discovering new ones is a priority. He is best known for discovering general reactions for catalytic asymmetric epoxidation, dihydroxylation, and aminohydroxylation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 2001.

Sharpless is currently focusing on click chemistry, his new synthetic stratagem for the rapid discovery of chemical function. A Coppercatalyzed fusion of azides and alkynes developed at Scripps is a near-universal best reaction for click chemistry, functioning under essentially all conditions (even in living cells) and proving to be a route to highly diverse chemical products of all types, whether polyolefins, smart materials or drugs.

Click here for a copy of K. Barry Sharpless Presentation: "Recent Applications of Click Chemistry"

Henry Chesbrough, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Open Innovation
Haas School of Business
University of California Berkeley

In his book Open Innovation, Henry Chesbrough demonstrated that because useful knowledge is no longer concentrated in a small number of large organizations, business leaders must adopt a new, "open" model of innovation. Using this model, companies look outside their boundaries for ideas and intellectual property (IP) they can bring in, as well as license their unutilized home-grown IP to other organizations. In Open Business Models, Chesbrough takes readers to the next step­ explaining how to make money in an open innovation landscape. Chesbrough also introduces a new set of players: "innovation intermediaries" who facilitate companies’ access to external technologies. He explores the impact of stronger IP protection on intermediate markets for innovation, and profiles firms such as Intellectual Ventures, UTEK and Qualcomm, who focus their entire business model around innovation and IP.

Click here for a copy of Henry Chesbrough's Presentation: "Open Innovation and Business Models: Innovating the Economics of Innovation".

Paul R. Gudonis
President, FIRST
(For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)

Paul Gudonis brings 25 years of experience as a technology industry executive to his role at FIRST, an organization of 60,000 passionate engineers and scientists who want to make it "cool to be smart." He earned a BSEE at Northwestern University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.