BEST NGI EXPLORERS IMPACT

Serena Leka

 
 

RESEARCHER
 
 


Introduce yourself
to the reader

Your name

Serena Leka

Your professional background

Ph.D. Fellow / Innovation Lecturer

Your passion for what you do

In Albania, being an entrepreneur, until very recently, was considered as a survival “journey,” trying to secure a good living for your family. Since I was a teenager, I was lucky to experience the changes in the entrepreneur’s mission when I participated in decision-making for the family business and joined startup business plan competitions, as I could see how the projects had a significant societal impact. Ever since, besides working towards being a serial entrepreneur, I found my mission to educate students and companies in leveraging innovation and entrepreneurship to bring products and services that make a positive change to the market. This is following me in the Ph.D. project, where Rosetta, the idea management system at hand, will disrupt how companies conduct idea treatment across their stakeholders.

Did you apply as a Researcher or Innovator?

Researcher, Aarhus University, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Denmark

 

University/Research department you represent?
Why is your project important?

What is the problem you are trying to solve?

Nowadays, idea management systems present long waiting times for stakeholders f the company to receive feedback from the companies management or innovation teams. In addition, as idea management systems are supposed to handle many ideas of all sorts, though sometimes directed to
a company challenge, we see that individuals( (i.e., employees) participating in the ideation might only be providing early-stage inputs, not well-elaborated ideas. As a result, there is a need for the idea management systems and innovation teams to offer incentives to the individuals to improve the inputs or radically change them. Nevertheless, this is a “monster” task that can be automated, supported by data-driven innovation and AI/ML.

What is unique in your approach/ process/ methodology?

With Rosetta, besides the incremental ideas handled in the platform, we have designed its properties and the innovation process based on C-I-S: a Danish innovation model that empowers the generation of radical ideas. Furthermore, Rosetta has already been tested with +120 student teams and company cases, and the results of their projects show precise results are under advanced engineering technologies, compared to not using an idea management system at all. To conclude, Rosetta gives power to the ideators, providing them with new knowledge to further the development of their
ideas, using AI/ML according to companies’ innovation strategies.

What are the tangible results you have achieved?

Since the Ph.D. project started in February 2021, Rosetta has secured additional funding in projects of approx. 100.000 EUR to help support the development of the methodology and the platform. Also, we have entered conversations with two engineering companies to test Rosetta across their organization for sustainability or digital challenges.

 

Why was collaboration with the US your interest in the first place? Why did you apply to the NGI Explorers programme?

  • It was important for the project to visit the “crime scene” and assess the role of idea management systems in the US versus Europe. The results would guide how to approach US-based companies, or event how European companies collaborate with the US on innovation projects, working on new product development.

  • On the other hand, we have NGI Explorers bringing the opportunity for progress with our research while collaborating with elite Universities, in this case, UNC-Chapel Hill RENCI, and benefit from their network, resources, and classes. NGI Explorers is a community; it will keep supporting us for more extended periods than the research stay, as the partner in the program has presented many other projects from NGI; and the community has a sense of belonging to all participants being helpful and engaged beyond the project
    agreements.

 

In what way did your US node help you throughout the project development?
(e.g., methodology, machinery, testbeds, market, networks, ... you name it).
Please elaborate on the support and the benefits.

  • Widening knowledge: during the 5-month hybrid collaboration, I participated in about +20 events/classes/conferences/workshops in the areas of innovation & AI. To be highlighted here is the “All Things Open 2021” open-source event;

  • Data gathering for survey results: 2 databases were identified and organized, summing up to having contact details for more than 500 companies in North Carolina, to be reached out for an extensive survey;

  • The project advances: based on the professional interactions with the US node and other network contacts, we decided that Rosetta has the potential to unfold into a spin-out from Aarhus University.

 

How do you see your project development in the future?

What impact will the results have on society or environment?

Enterprises nowadays, of all sizes, are investing many resources in identifying and implementing the next big idea. What at first seems like a mix of innovation activities, at later stages, it becomes a rather complex and time-consuming process, not necessarily providing the right results. Idea management systems (IMS) are part of the solution as the means to organize stakeholder ideas in one platform. A hybrid approach to idea management is superior to sole computational evaluations or sole human decisions.

What impact do you foresee on your further development/ research/
career/ product or service growth

Data presented via all these innovation contributions in the form of ideas require managing to avoid two major pitfalls: constraints in processing information and ineffective ideas from the routine local searches. The project aims to offer a novel method for managing new product development ideas in firms via AI as the toolbox.

What is the ultimate result you are trying to achieve?

Bringing Rosetta to enterprises will provide the following impact:

  • Open innovation, empowered by AI will provide faster access to gathering new knowledge, thus increasing innovation capacity;

  • Creating competitive and financial benefits by promoting the flexibility of Rosetta as IMS as it democratizes innovation activities for enterprises;

  • Increasing employee/stakeholder motivation and organizational efficiency in promoting innovation skills.

What are your next plans? Any sustainability in collaboration with the
US Node?

RENCI at UNC-Chapell Hill has opened the doors to the Research Triangle Area and supported
me to follow leads in building collaborations with the local industry for future designated case studies. The partnership with RENCI will continue in the coming years, as we have initiated introductions with the “twin” institution in Tokyo, Japan, namely RIKEN.

 

What is the biggest benefit the NGI program has offered to the development of your idea/ product/ service/ career? e.g. What was possible thanks to the NGI that it wouldn’t without?

Besides the general academic contributions, I am grateful for the opportunity and NGI Explorers and the professors Yufeng Xin, from RENCI, UNC-Chapel hill, believe in my Ph.D. project ambitions very early on in graduate school. It showed for me and proved further that I am onto something unique. To bring this more on the personal development level, it gave me confidence that I can be in the front life of the tech industry as a woman in STEM without having coding or programming as my calling.

 

What is your reflection on the award you received from the NGI Explorers program and recognition of your efforts by external parties?

Presenting the final collaboration results in front of all cohort participants in the NGI Explorers and the professional jury opens up more possibilities for Rosetta. One of the advantages of the NGI Oscars is the dynamic that the Q&A creates across all explorers,s where the jury asks about topics that are relevant across all projects. To conclude, being one of the prize winners contributes to generation
traction about Rosetta, which will make a stronger case in our future funding strategies.