25 August 2022
If you are looking for a middle name for Bas Allart, it is 'collaborative innovator'. The medical biology graduate is a passionate builder of innovative business ecosystems. Four years ago he decided to dedicate his experience and expertise to the food sector and co-founded Brave New Food. "I want to make an impact by accelerating the next generation food solutions.” Find out about his four secrets to innovation.
The thread running through Bas' career is accelerating innovation, connecting companies in all stages of development to each other and to knowledge institutions and governments. After setting up his own startup, he used his experience to set up new innovation ecosystems. Incubator UtrechtInc, the innovation program of Utrecht Science Park, the Jaarbeurs Innovation Mile and HortiHeroes are striking examples of this.
The secrets of innovation
Wherever Bas sets up shop to develop these kinds of collaborations, he always follows a set of principles. These are his innovation secrets:
Secret 1: Embrace openness
The first secret is to always challenge the parties involved to collaborate on solutions together, beyond their companies boundaries and even outside their own industry. Bas: "I am convinced that open innovation leads to appropriate solutions faster, but it remains difficult for many parties to really embrace this openness."
Secret 2: Stimulate interaction
Many initiatives call themselves 'open' because everyone can submit on their platform - like the open innovation programmes of some well-known (food) companies. "In the end, however, there is only one party that decides whether there will be a match, and that is the organizing party. In practice, this means that acceleration is reserved for the lucky few and that a startup or scale-up has to do the same trick multiple times again.”
Very inefficient, according to Bas. “By bringing all initiatives together on the Brave New Food platform, we make co-creation easier for both corporates and innovative startup and scale-up companies. Because of the openness and interaction, the chance of a successful match is higher and will lead to real impact faster."
Secret 3: Stick to your own expertise
Bas is convinced that everyone has their own expertise. “When I wanted to launch a startup myself, I started reading a lot and I talked to people to find out what is already there and what is going on. The more I knew about it, the more complex it got. You really have to be into the content to come up with an innovation. It would have been better for me to stick to my expertise: supporting those entrepreneurs to help them further their solutions.”
Secret 4: Love what you do
For those people close to Bas his new focus on the food sector will not be a surprise. "I love to cook and I’m very passionate about what I eat. I try to make responsible and sustainable choices as much as possible. In my opinion, the transition to sustainable and healthier food is not going fast enough. With Brave New Food I aim to accelerate that movement through our open collaborative innovative approach. My mission is successful if every food company and every organization knows: 'That's where I have to be'. With more than a hundred affiliated partners and thousands of innovative thinkers, we are going to change this game.”
Want to get in contact with Bas? Please send him a message on LinkedIn.