Simon Litvin
Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer http://www.gen3partners.com
Dr. Simon Litvin is one of the world’s leading experts on the “science of innovation”. His scientific expertise provides the leadership required to deploy the G3: Innovation Discipline (G3:ID). He began his innovation career as a leading expert on TRIZ, a method for generating innovative and practical solutions to difficult product development and manufacturing problems.
He has been instrumental in the creation of G3: ID which integrates methodologies and tools to deploy a corporate innovation process. He developed a number of proprietary tools and methods that are critical pieces of G3:ID. He has led innovation projects for many of the world’s top companies, including Xerox, Ford, Gillette, and Toshiba.
Through his understanding of one of the major problems with the product innovation process, the inability to capture knowledge from pre existing innovation and the practical application of them to new challenges, Dr. Litvin worked with leading scientists worldwide and began to create a network of experts and a unique approach of using this network in the product innovation process. The G3: Global Knowledge Network (G3: GKN) was created by Litvin and is managed through the GEN3 research center in St. Petersburg Russia. It networks more than 6,000 scientists who can solve nearly any technical challenge needed during a G3: ID challenge.
Dr. Litvin is responsible for the Russian branch of GEN3 in St. Petersburg, Russia, in addition to his responsibilities in the US. Working with Dr. Sam Kogan, President and COO, he built a Russian organization of scientists, technical experts and leading thought leaders. The combination of a Russian team dedicated to research and development combined with the GEN3 US team of leading business strategists and technologists is a powerful combination offering clients exposure to solutions, faster, more efficiently and with a global perspective.
Before joining GEN3, Dr. Litvin was executive vice president and chief scientist and a co-founder of Pragmatic Vision International, an innovation consulting firm that GEN3 acquired in 2002. Prior to working at Pragmatic Vision, he was vice president at Invention Machine Corp., another product innovation consultancy. At IMC, he also led TRIZ training at such companies as General Electric, Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Ford Motor.
Dr. Litvin has authored six books and nearly 100 articles. He holds more than 20 patents. He is a member of the Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies and a board member of the International TRIZ Association and TRIZ Journal. Dr. Litvin has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Russian Academy of Science, Science of Machine Problems Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was named a “master of TRIZ” by the International TRIZ Association in 1998 and was dean of the TRIZ University in Leningrad.