Hosted by lecturer Markus Lahtinen, Vincenzo Corvello started his visit with a Meet-and-greet, giving a brief presentation on his recent research on corporate-startup collaboration. He spoke mainly about the collaboration type “corporate accelerator” which specifies a type of company collaboration between large companies and startup companies of varying maturity.
These collaborations often start with a large company having a technological problem which they need a solution for.
Assoc. Professor Corvello outlined several benefits for both the large corporations and the startups, such as:
- Large companies encountering new technologies and knowledge,
- Large companies building new customer-supplier relationships,
- Startups getting access to financial resources,
- Startups gaining competencies about the industry and market.
Additionally, he mentioned some of the difficulties with such collaborations, for instance the possibility of differing expectations between the two companies.
The meet-and-greet hosted several interesting conversations and discussions between the attending staff.