December 9, 2020 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Free- This event has passed.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in R&D, or… How to Solve Big Problems Fast and Cheap.
Here’s the question: Would you rather be like the Wright Brothers, who cracked the code of flight in three years for $3000, or Langley, head of the Smithsonian, who spent 25 times more and launched an airplane with great fanfare straight into the Potomac? Years ago I wanted to know what led the Wright Brothers to their success, and it turns out it’s not because they are geniuses, and not because it was inevitable with the advent of motors, but because they had developed a methodology that was a radical shift from what came before.
The 19th century method was to rely on the power of one’s mind to divine a solution. It is slow, expensive, and only sporadically yields results. The Wright methodology dependably, and in a finite amount of time for as little money as is possible, yields seemingly amazing results. Rather, the results are amazing, but it tends to appear that the inventor is amazing. The methodology allows results to emerge naturally. In its essence, the method presumes an answer exists, and serves as a navigational aide to get through the uncharted waters of from here to there.
In this talk I will outline the 7 habits that lead to solving big problems fast and cheap.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Grupp—or “Cosmo” as he is universally known as—is a successful entrepreneur and inventor. He has a PhD in nanotechnology physics from U. Penn, and applies those skills to medical devices. He is three-for-three in inventions he has worked on in startups that have come to market. While he was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford, he started a company whose transistor is now in the iPhone. He invented Procept Biorobotics’ tissue resection method that is now used clinically for BPH with near-zero risk of nerve damage. Locally, he was the first employee and VP of R&D at Hemex Health, an OTRADI startup. He developed Hemex’s malaria diagnostic which is now on the market in India and is poised to save millions of kids’ lives. Currently, he runs Grupp Works, a medical device innovation consultancy, where he has spun off LifeAir, which has developed the first ventilator that eliminates the risk of patient-patient viral transmission. He has two sons still in grade school, who he helped develop and produce their first product for their own company Two Brothers Toys, which sold out at Oodles in Sellwood.