Join Us for Our WiCI Webinar @ Thursday August 17, 2026 12 PM CT

[Fickbohm, Zoe N]

WiCI Webinar

Wireless Community Innovation: What Can We Learn from Free & Open Innovation?

K. Venkatesh Prasad CEO and Founder KPRASADAA LLC

Date: Thursday, August 17, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Register Now

 

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Abstract

In the early 19th century, a mass produced Model T, affordable to the everyday person, including farmers, soon got adapted to enable the creation of horseless farms. In this talk, we’ll revisit that era briefly to understand the key timeless attributes of the deeply human sociological process that underlies user innovation: a process where users (the end users or intermediate suppliers) create functionally novel solutions. 

Using a number of cases, including OpenXC, an open-source (hardware and software platform for automobiles), we’ll describe the nature of free and open innovation and its ability to accelerate technological innovation. The lifelong work of Eric von Hippel (on sources or innovation, lead user innovation and free and user innovation, for example) show how products & technologies across the spectrum of human experience from mountain bikes and antilock brakes and artificial pancreas systems have their origin in free & open innovation.  

Farms have always been a crucible for early innovation and we’ll describe how design support for innovators on farms (and more broadly in rural communities) has the potential to bring a “return on investment” to producers in the form of increased design ideas by wireless communities with a high adoptability (as the problem solutions might have come directly from the users).

 

Biography

Retired: Senior Vice President of Research & Chief Innovation Officer, Center for Automotive Research (CAR), Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Sr. Technical Leader & Member, Technology Advisory Board (Ford Motor Company).
 

Research Fellow, Emeritus, CAR and 

Research Affiliate with Prof. Eric von Hippel

Behavioral & Policy Sciences

MIT Sloan School of Management

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The Center for Wireless, Communities and Innovation (WiCI) at Iowa State University focuses on advancing the frontiers of mission-critical wireless at the far edge, as well as the platform and practice of research, education, innovation, and community empowerment.

The WiCI seminar series offers an open forum for interdisciplinary dialogues on the technical, social, economic, and policy dimensions of far-edge wireless innovation. If you are interested in sharing your insights through a WiCI seminar or have any questions/suggestions about the seminar series, please feel free to contact us at wic...@iastate.edu.