Recently, the first session of IEIE | Think Tank took place online successfully. The keynote speakers from Singapore Management University, emlyon business school, University of Novi Sad and Shanghai neoBay Venture Capital Co., Ltd. share their insights into the theme “The World after the Pandemic” around various aspects such as digitalization, innovation, supply chain and ecosystem, speaking about the current challenges and potential opportunities, answering the questions raised by the audience. This online event attracted nearly 200 attendees most of whom are students, professors, entrepreneurs and leaders of big corporates from Singapore, France, Serbia, Morocco, Canada, USA and Sweden.

Prof. ZHANG Zhigang, CEO of Shanghai neoBay Venture Capital Co., Ltd. delivered a welcome speech, providing an introduction to International Ecosystem of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IEIE), its origin, its objectives, its principles and scope of collaboration among its members. He pointed out the significance of IEIE | Think Tank, highlighting global collaboration which is even more important than ever before under the circumstance of the pandemic which has influenced deeply the whole world.

Prof. Arnoud De Meyer is a global academic leader with more than 35 years of experience in top international institutions in Europe and Asia. He served as President of Singapore Management University (SMU). He is also an internationally recognized researcher with a deep understanding of R&D and Innovation Management, Manufacturing Strategy and International Management, having consulted with large manufacturing corporations in Europe and East Asia, and was independent director for several governmental institutions and publicly listed companies in Belgium, France and Australia. He talked about the transformation of customer’s behavior which is resulted from the Pandemic, putting emphasis on business model innovation. Meanwhile, he indicated the trends of re-shoring and near-shoring influenced by digitalization which can better respond to the customers’ demand. Due to the fragility of supply chain caused by the pandemic and the uncertainty in the future, it’s important to reinforce resilience, agility and sustainability, building up the ecosystem to improve the efficiency and create added value to customers.

Prof. Yeming (Yale) Gong, is a professor of Management Science, DBA advisor at emlyon business school and visiting professor at Cornell University. His main research interests include big data logistics, big data supply chain, intelligent operation strategy, and intelligent manufacturing. Prof. Gong has published 41 articles in leading international journals, such as Production and Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, IIE Transactions, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Annals of Operations Research etc, including 13 A/FT level articles. He has published book “Global Operations Strategy: Fundamentals and Practice” in Springer, which has been a best-selling book for years. This book has been globally adopted by more than 40 universities or business schools in Europe, USA, Australia, Africa, China, and other Asian Countries. He analyzed the trends of global digitalization and strategy after the pandemic, mentioned the challenges to the digital market after the pandemic but put emphasis on the opportunities brought about by digitalization in the domains of distant conferencing, public healthcare, disaster logistics, and supply chain as well as the improvement of virtual reality technology. In addition, he pointed out the 4 dimensions related to digital transformation in enterprises such as business processes, business models, business and culture & organization.

Prof. Dr. Bojan Lalic is professor at the University of Novi Sad, Head of Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Chief of Chair for Production Systems, Organization and Management and Associate Professor at Faculty of Technical Sciences, Serbia. He is also adjunct professor at emlyon Business School, France and Beijing Normal University, PR China, a visiting professor at University of Nis, Serbia, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, University of Maribor, Slovenia. Until 2017, he served as an Advisor to the Minister for Innovation and Technological Development at the Government of the Republic of Serbia. Based on the requirement of modern society, Prof. Bojan LALIC expounded technological innovation and ecosystem, and proposed that collaboration among enterprises, incubators, universities and research institutions is essential. On this basis, he proposed that one of the key factors contributing to technology transfer lies in cooperation among government, universities and industry, predicting that the positive effect of this collaborative mechanism after pandemic will be more prominent. Moreover, Prof. Bojan LALIC analyzed the impact of the pandemic on globalization, technology, social form, public health and consumer behavior.

During the Q & A session, the students from China, France and Turkey raised the questions referring to venture capital, digital transformation, e-commerce, application of virtual reality and customer behavior. The keynote speakers answered the questions. Before the end of the event, Prof. ZHANG Zhigang, CEO of Shanghai neoBay Venture Capital Co., Ltd, delivered concluding remarks, putting emphasis on the fact that collaboration and ecosystem will contribute to cost reduction and sustainable development. He expressed that the road ahead of us is featured by collaboration and ecosystem, recommending every attendee to be friends with the future.

International Ecosystem for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

International Ecosystem for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IEIE) was initialized in Belgrade, Serbia by neoBay Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community, emlyon business school together with the universities, the incubators, the science parks from East Europe and South East Asia. Based on the principles of equality and double-win, IEIE is designed to resource sharing, technology transfer, co-incubation and matchmaking in international market, aiming at establishing a sustainable and reciprocal mechanism, which has already attracted 10 institutional members from different countries.