Cross-pollination on MaRS
One of the benefits of being in the MaRS environment is that it presents opportunities for exposure to a wide variety of activities and events. In addition to the programming that MaRS and our partners provide, there are many other third parties that make use of the space. While they may not always seem directly relevant to our work, they provide those cross-pollination opportunities that can sometimes spark really interesting ideas.
Case in Point:
Not long ago, MaRS was selected as the venue to an event organized by the Canadian Red Cross, ‘Covering Conflict: A Journalist’s Guide to the Laws of War.’ The keynote speaker of this full day event was journalist Roy Gutman, who received a Pulitzer Price for international reporting for his coverage of the conflicts in the Balkans.
His key message was that journalists have a profound responsibility to know and understand the rules of the game that they are covering. He used his experience in the Balkans to highlight this. During the beginning of the series of wars between and within those states, it wasn’t clear what was happening.
Was it a Serb-led attack on Slovenia and Croatia or the federal state trying to breakup? Was this a civil war brought about secessionists or were the smaller states forced to secede by a bullying Serb state? Was it a civil war or an International conflict?
The answer was in the way the war was being fought, but that wasn’t necessarily apparent to those covering it at the time. Not knowing and understanding International Humanitarian Law meant not being able to report breaches in the law as they occurred. He sought out the Geneva Conventions, but what he found was a densely assembled set of laws written by lawyers and generals.
This experience motivated him to establish the Crimes of War Project, which attempts to bring together reporters and legal scholars to increase awareness of the laws of war. He is seeking to empower journalists to be able to identify and shed some journalistic light on knowing and wanton breaches of international laws. He has written what is likely the most accessible review of International Humanitrian Law, Crimes of War.
The message: Uninformed bystanders have a very limited ability to identify and appreciate the significance of those minute precursors that can give rise to major events. By knowing and understanding the rules of the game, one can see patterns emerge that can predict outcomes.
So what does this mean for MaRS, for innovators, for me?
From my own experience, while it is important to develop specializations and focus, having sufficient appreciation for peripheral issues is also important so I can recognize those harbingers of danger or opportunity. I am not, nor will I ever likely be, a patent lawyer. But having enough appreciation of patent law to identify an opportunity, and to know when to call in a patent lawyer for help, is important in drug development. Whether it’s being able to identify acts of genocide as they occur, or clinical trials problems during drug development, knowing the rules is essential.
Kevin currently manages initial client engagements with the MaRS Venture Group. He also administers a federal fund that provides mentorship to start-up companies across Ontario.