Federated research and entrepreneurship transform problems into opportunities (alt. “Toys R us!”) Entrepreneurship grows systems. Think of it as starting new branches in a tree of institutions.

Current organization of entrepreneurship (‘two Stanford dropouts in a garage’) enables systems to grow primarily or exclusively by trying to fit things into existing systems and ways of working (‘a new shaving razor with four blades’). At the same time, the largest opportunities—for both profit and contribution—are as always realized through systemic change (the difference in the effects of investing into oil drilling and gas stations and rubber tires and... before and after Ford’s systemic innovation of automobile production is a suitable metaphor pointing at opportunities for wealth creation opened up by systemic innovation).

Hence what we do now is (1) create a workshop for ‘toys‘ — Lego blocks-like ‘gadgets’ plus a ‘pipe’ for putting them together and (2) innovate on the level of systemic innovation and entrepreneurship, where the entrepreneurs can ‘pick up pieces’ and contribute to the ‘game-changing’ character of the whole project. Our goal is to create an approach to entrepreneurship that supports positive systemic change—and benefits from it. A prototype, developed around the ZIG Project in collaboration with Startup Weekend, is in germination.