Motius Discovery: how we stay close to new technologies
We built an IoT device to keep our plants alive. We built an AI system that generates Schlager lyrics. We built a wearable spirometry device backed by machine learning. Why do we tell you this? Because those are internal projects we do just for fun. During Motius Discovery. Discovery is how we innovate, stay close to the newest technologies and foster self-development. But before we tell you more about it, let us tell you why we do it.
Why Motius Discovery?
At Motius, we believe in the growth mindset. We believe that the urge to explore, discover and learn is inherent in every human being. This urge helps to develop new skills, think outside the box and stretch abilities. And it perfectly aligns with the R in R&D.
As a tech company, we use Discovery as one of our internal innovation management methods. To be more specific, it is how we gather tech expertise and stay close to the newest technologies. During Discovery, we provide time, space and resources apart from customer projects and operative tasks to just focus on our own internal projects.
How does Motius Discovery work?
Motius Discovery is separated into three parts: camp, working slot, and conference.
Discovery camp is organized like a barcamp — an open conference with open workshops where the participants themselves determine the content and process of the conference.
For that, participants first have to propose topics that have to meet three criteria to enable exploring, discovering and learning:
- The technology is new, i.e. a corresponding paper was just released, an Open Source tool was just published etc.
- The technology has new potential, for instance when an old algorithm can finally be implemented because new tech developments allow it
- It is realistic that we draw an informed conclusion about the discovered technology within the given time.
Afterwards, we gather project teams around the chosen topics and then get to work. Note that this part is available for all those who are interested in the newest technologies, including techies that don’t work at Motius.
Discovery working slots are several hackathon-style working phases in which the project teams “do the science”. They research, experiment, write, code, build and develop to push their project forward and follow their goal. Each working slot goes on for around two weeks. In between the slots, we hold mini bar camps in which new relevant things can be introduced or new people can join the teams. After the fifth bi-week, it’s time for the final event.
Discovery conference is a whole conference day dedicated to the teams and their projects as they present the outcomes of their work. They explain their technology, share their learnings and demonstrate what they built. Out of all three parts, this is the biggest event. It is not just open for Motees but also for clients and the public. We also record it on video and spread it throughout our channels.
The essence of Discovery
As we said, Discovery stands for the R in R&D. It is our way to build deep tech expertise, stay close to the newest technologies and foster the growth mindset.
But just to make this clear: not every Discovery project ends up being a success. At least not in the way that people usually would define success (to fully realize the project’s ideas). But that’s okay as long as we learn from it. Sometimes, new technologies are not that easy to implement — even for us.
If that happens, we make sure that we keep track of the things we discovered and why it failed so that we can assess our work. If we choose to dig deeper into that technology at a later point, we already know some of the challenges in advance.
Whether or not Discovery projects work out, they are always a great access point for new knowledge, ideas and technologies. All of this directly becomes a part of our toolbox and then influences our partners and customers.
For instance, we once got our hands on Google’s Soli Sensor, gathered valuable experience and expertise with this technology and soon thereafter it entered the market. So basically, we’re already one step ahead of all those who weren’t able to play around with it. Is there a better way to take a company to the next level?
Apart from all of the above, Discovery represents our company culture, our core values and the growth mindset.
All in all, Discovery provides endless opportunities for self-development. In a company’s scope, it further allows us to encourage team building, interdisciplinarity and overall a lot of fun. So all of this explains why we do Discovery: it doesn’t just allow individual self-development, but a shared growth mindset.
In the aftermath, Discovery takes our whole company to another level because it enables us to constantly stay close to the newest technologies and develop deep tech expertise. And as we said in the beginning, that is what it is about.
What we have done at Discovery 2020
In our most recent blog articles, we dive deeper into some of our Discovery projects:
- Cyrine and Daniel implemented VAEs in both Julia and Python to find out whether the new programming language Julia can rival Python as “King of Data Science”
- Shi and Martin dove deep into customized integrated circuit design with Dialog Semiconductor’s GreenPAKs to discover a new way to create custom chip solutions
- Niklas built a wearable spirometry device to demonstrate that simple low-cost devices with new tech have the power to change traditional health procedures
- Sebastian tested the programming language Swift to discover the potentials of differentiable programming
- Stuart integrated Rust web assembly with Vue to discover a new range of web assembly possibilities
We love tech. We are curious. We believe in the growth mindset. We work heart. We play heart (yes, we love bad puns). Discovery is a format that gives us the room to develop without pressure.
