Plantations in Death Valley? Anyone briefly familiar with this Californian desert would just scorningly shrug his shoulders. But the valley of death is also a metaphor for the phenomenon, familiar to practitioners of knowledge transfer from low to high technology readiness levels. The technology readiness scale was developed by NASA; we, however, are more familiar with the version adopted by the European Commission for evaluation of results of R&D projects within the Horizon 2020 framework.
Academic institutions worldwide compete for reputation in research excellency discovering new knowledge. However, this knowledge reaches only till third, seldom fourth technology readiness level. Marketable applications at high technology readiness levels are still a significant investment away. When students seek employment outside of academic and pedagogical institutions, a similar gap stands between the knowledge and culture that they absorbed during the education and the culture of their workplaces. This gap is the aforementioned valley of death, the gap of two, three medium technology readiness levels, which has been observed when applying basic knowledge all over the world. It is best illustrated by the perspective of academics, that “now only the trivial technical problems need to be solved” and perspective of businesses that “this technology has not solved any problems yet.” The students are those who bridge this technology gap and can bring the knowledge, acquired at low levels, over the valley of death to its applications at higher technology readiness levels. While doing so, students can make the researchers, who seldom cross the valley, familiar with challenges that may benefit from their research.
An aqueduct Data Solutions Laboratory can build for your company is designed to assist all stakeholders in the knowledge maturing process and stir the newly produced knowledge in the direction of your company needs. An aqueduct between you – the employer, students – your future employees, and academics – your knowledge source. An aqueduct consisting of a map of data challenges your business processes produce, a map of data analytics methodologies that could be applied to them, a dedicated academy familiarizing students with challenges, map navigation of choosing most suitable methodologies, and finally, a hackathon, (periodic) event where anyone interested in your challenges can meet and exchange the knowledge that your business can harness to improve your company’s processes and excel in meeting the highest of your client’s needs.
The more water would flow over this aqueduct, the greener the valley of death between academic state-of-the-art and your company’s mature innovative technology can become, the better will you understand integration of newest technological and academic discoveries, the better will your company serve its clients and hence fulfill its purpose. The purpose will flow back to the newly born knowledge at the low levels of technology readiness, and by contemporary psychological research, this support in reaching mutual purpose will lead to both individual and societal success. Why is this not an utopia? Because we are not fighting natural laws of physics, chemistry, or biology that make the well-known Californian Death Valley a desert, but are bridging a culturally established difference between two interdependent social groups, the academic sphere and the employers of young talent, the mathematical model of which is a non-zero-sum game. With the aforementioned maps, academies, and hackathon events, we are creating interfaces between stakeholders in the process – employers as knowledge utilizers, academics as knowledge source, and students as the medium of knowledge transfer fueling the next generation of companies driven by knowledge based on data.
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