What does the work of Tataj Innovation involve and what is its purpose?
What is the Network Intelligence methodology? What is its relationship with innovation and entrepreneurship?
Could you highlight cases of companies that have successfully applied your Network Intelligence Methodology to increase competitiveness?
How do you promote the importance of networks within the European Commission?
You have strong links to Barcelona. How should this ecosystem consolidate its position as a benchmark in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship?
What is your role as an ambassador of The Collider and what is the program’s added value?
Which quote would define the way you work or live?
Daria Tataj is the founder and CEO of Tataj Innovation and the inventor of the Network Intelligence Methodology, a standard competency model for professionals working in innovation, knowledge and technology fields. Daria talks with The Collider about the importance of networks and highlights how they are crucial for any ecosystem to accelerate its growth and development.
What does the work of Tataj Innovation involve and what is its purpose?
Tataj Innovation is an R&D and #EdTech firm developing Network Intelligence (#nIQ) solutions to build the top skills recommended by the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2020. We work with teams and organisations to build purpose-network-fit strategies and leverage the innovation ecosystem.
We are very proud to be an official ally of the Spanish government in implementing the strategy España Nación Emprendedora.
What is the Network Intelligence methodology? What is its relationship with innovation and entrepreneurship?
We developed a framework based on ‘The Network Society’ by Manuel Castells and his theory of mass self-communication power. This framework is a standard competency model for all professionals working in innovation, knowledge and technology fields.
Having a sufficient level of Network IQ (Network Intelligence) skills is necessary but is not the only condition for success. If you want to be a global leader or to lead a high-growth enterprise, you need to create a purpose-network-fit. You really need to understand who are the right people and systematically build relations with them, both within your team and organisation and outside at the ecosystem level. This methodology is designed to create bridges between people in order to solve complex and meaningful problems together faster.
Could you highlight cases of companies that have successfully applied your Network Intelligence Methodology to increase competitiveness?
We work with different types of organisations in Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, the United States and Poland, among others. We work with deep tech entrepreneurs who have garnered immediate success in fundraising and accessing global markets. One great example is our strategic partnership with the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Manchester. We have lots of case studies of entrepreneurs making the last mile connection. We also work with investors, universities and business organisations.
In Spain we work on different projects, but I would highlight EIT Health to improve the quality and speed of building partnerships among this platform’s partners in order to optimise the leverage and management of this distributed organisation.
How do you promote the importance of networks within the European Commission?
I work with the European Commission in two fields. Firstly, Industry 5.0 and the future of manufacturing. From my board position at EIT Manufacturing, I influence how this European partnership accelerates key industrial policies to promote technological sovereignty and the reorganisation of global value chains in order to provide Europe with sufficiency in certain sectors such as health and energy, among others. I also underpin the importance of a skills agenda; that is, how to train the next generation of talent for the manufacturing sector.
Secondly, I also work with the European Commission on Partnerships for Regional Innovation, a new framework that comes back to the importance of ecosystems as a place based on innovation. We promote the creation of more synergies between organisations and connect them globally to accelerate growth and help them enter global markets but also to help them work together better and innovate together locally.
You have strong links to Barcelona. How should this ecosystem consolidate its position as a benchmark in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship?
Barcelona is very well connected and integrated locally. I think that if only there were more network intelligence in the ecosystem, you could accelerate the speed of growth and development. Cities that have such big potential like Barcelona, Manchester, and Eindhoven come from an industrial past, so there is knowledge and legacy. Now is the time to reinvent the city, the local ecosystem for the digital age, for a totally different geopolitical and economic structure for global value chains. I advocate for what I call the ‘global value web’, that is, networks where funding, talent, and knowledge flow.
What is your role as an ambassador of The Collider and what is the program’s added value?
The Collider is a fantastic deep-tech innovation investment program and a role model for programs that could be started in many other cities. My role as an ambassador of The Collider is to help the program create networks.
At present, I am focused on developing the relationship between Barcelona and Manchester, which is one of the most interesting dynamic ecosystems in Europe. They want to transform the industrial past into the future and Barcelona is a fantastic role model for them. Last year The University of Manchester created a venture capital fund of half a billion pounds (the second largest fund in the UK) to finance the startups and science deep tech ventures coming out of three universities.
Which quote would define the way you work or live?
“Network intelligence: power your network and network your power”. This is a quote from Tony Walker, a colleague at the University of Manchester.