Kim Garretson’s fellowship intends to bridge a gap between disruptive innovation and the industries needing to embrace the change.

Corporations in media and strategic communications increasingly look to sources of innovation outside their own organizations to meet the speed of change. Major sources of innovation include the venture capital industry and startup incubators and accelerators.

Yet, according to Garretson, most corporations, including media companies, brands and agencies, are not staffed and lack resources for discovering, vetting and validating the best outside innovations. Meanwhile, several thousand new companies launch each year in these fields, all scrambling for the attention of prospective industry customers.

Garretson’s fellowship will research new processes, tools and platforms for RJI to become a center for connecting the best innovations in the open marketplace to the corporations that can best accelerate the pace of change with the new ideas.