The Dow Chemical Company held its 4th annual Asia Pacific Innovation Day in Shanghai on 4th December, with the theme of “Collaborative Innovation for Tomorrow.” The event featured an innovation forum, Dow displays and an open tour of the labs at the Shanghai Dow Center. Dow innovators, business partners, government officials and experts from academic institutions gathered to explore collaborative innovation opportunities.
“At Dow Asia Pacific, we are driving ‘New Dow, New Asia’, a business portfolio strategy focused on expanding our market reach and penetration into high growth markets where we can be a preferred partner of innovative solutions in the region,” said Pat Dawson, President of Dow Asia Pacific. “Through innovation in Asia and for Asia, we combine local market insight with our expertise across technical and commercial operations, collaborating to bring value to our customers and the local communities where we conduct our business.”
Dr. Weiguang Yao, Dow Asia Pacific Chief Technology Officer, delivered a keynote speech during the innovation forum. He said, “We are committed to aligning our innovations with the megatrend opportunities and our customers’ evolving preferences in the region. We are leveraging our robust innovation pipeline through the mechanisms of ‘Technology Push’ and ‘Market Pull’ to accelerate the translation of our leading-edge science into products and solutions that fulfill local market needs. We’re driving collaborative innovation as one of our key strategies to capture growth opportunities and create value for our customers.”
“Greater China, as a key part of Dow Asia Pacific, remains a growth priority for Dow,” added Peter Sykes, President of Dow Greater China. “As we continue to drive our business forward, one of our main areas of focus is to create greater customer value through innovation. This requires us to unite our industry-leading R&D capabilities with an organizational commitment to collaborative innovation. In Greater China, we closely partner with government, leading universities, customers, and suppliers in pursuit of these goals.”
Dow has been collaborated with many partners across the value chain in different industries for product innovation. For example, it formed a strategic partnership with Haier in 2009, it inaugurated a joint Material Research Center with Fudan University in early October in 2012, and it established the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award at four leading universities in China.
The Asia Pacific Innovation Day has been held yearly since 2009, it shows Dow’s commitment to addressing world challenges through collaborative innovations with customers and partners throughout the Asia Pacific Region.
