Innovate@Insight Innovate@Insight: Turning Novel Ideas into Solutions for the World Through our Innovation Program
By Karim Adatia / 26 Sep 2022
I’ve always believed that anyone can be an innovator.
Christmas lights were invented by a 15-year-old. Walt Disney was fired from one of his first animation jobs because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” The first chocolate chip cookie was created from a baking mishap in the 1930s.
But beyond a festive representation of the holiday season or a delicious sweet treat, many of the inventions we rely on daily are the result of a good idea, hard work and the ambition to make it happen by everyday people like you and me.
As a leading solutions integrator dedicated to helping clients achieve meaningful business outcomes through IT, our 3,700+ technical experts are frequently presented with unique challenges that require out-of-the-box solutions. Our team of engineers, architects and developers must dig deep to solve new problems and accelerate digital transformation in never-before-seen ways.
Oftentimes, the best solution is one our talented teammates create themselves. Existing technology typically doesn’t address the problem entirely, and novel solutions are needed to fill the gaps.
That made us think: What if these new technology solutions could be patented and widely applied across industries? Surely other organizations have similar challenges and could benefit from these innovations.
That’s how the Innovate@Insight program was born.
We launched Innovate@Insight in 2019 to encourage our technical experts to turn their ideas into patented intellectual property that differentiates their work and the transformative solutions Insight brings to market. The program gives teammates the opportunity to pitch their ideas to peers and executives across all lines of our business, including IT, operations, legal and human resources.
It also provides the innovator a unique leadership experience and an opportunity to gain a wider perspective of marketable uses for their idea — or suggestions on how they might apply a great idea to further use cases beyond their original intent.
Innovators often don't recognize when they have a great idea or aren't sure how it can go from "great idea" to a scalable, commercial solution that can be used broadly. Our legal team simplifies the entire process, helping file and prosecute patent applications with national patent offices and global patent organizations.
So, what has our innovation program accomplished so far? Insight submitted 70+ patent applications over the last 18 months for innovation spanning Internet of Things (IoT), edge data processing, advanced analytics and computer vision solutions — most of which have been incorporated into commercial solutions.
One solution — the Insight Connected Platform™ — has benefited most from the program with several new innovative features currently under review by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The Insight Connected Platform is a simple, scalable IoT and AI framework that manages data from any smart device and intelligent system into a single dashboard.
The platform helps organizations gain deeper operational insights that align holistically with policy and compliance standards, improve processes and promote rapid response to areas of concern.
While the Insight Connected Platform itself isn’t novel, the Innovate@Insight program identified the unique functionalities around automated intelligence that are patentable — giving Insight a distinctive edge in edge-based technology applications.
In our new blog series, also dubbed Innovate@Insight, you’ll meet a few of the inventors who are bringing greater meaning to what they do through the program. You’ll get a glimpse inside the brains of our most creative teammates to learn how they’re driving big leaps in the industry, from ideation to reality.
That’s why we created the Innovate@Insight program — and this namesake blog series — to share how we turn one-off solutions into patented intellectual property that can benefit the greater good.
Turn creative visions into reality. Insight teammates are building the industry’s next big thing.
Karim Adatia
Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Insight
Karim Adatia is a legal professional and business partner with diverse experience empowering and developing teams to achieve their professional and personal goals. He has more than 20 years of experience supporting corporate, commercial, securities law, finance, real estate and intellectual property matters. Karim is deeply committed to allyship, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and serves as the executive sponsor for the AsianPacific@Insight teammate resource group at Insight.
