People of Brnoregion Microscopy: David Uhlíř (JIC)

How did you become involved with Brnoregion Microscopy?

In my case, it all got started when Honza Neuman, founder of Nenovision, approached me some two years ago. He said that the microscopy community in Brno was amazing – something I never doubted. But, in his opinion, it was not fully exploiting its potential due to a lack of coordination efforts and missing a communication platform across academia, businesses, and the public sector. He asked me whether I would be willing to help and join the discussion about what could or should be done together. Knowing Honza is good fun and always full of ambitious ideas, I agreed.

We put together a sketch of what the priorities for common activities could be, and these became the first concept of an action plan that we started developing further. Honza brought me into contact with other members of the microscopy community, some of whom I knew before, others not. We also organized the first stakeholder meeting, where we jointly presented our ambition and invited partners to join. We followed with a couple of workshops – at the first one, we agreed on our common mission statement, and then we developed a more detailed two-year action plan for our activities.

What activities are you involved in within the community?

In the initial stages, I was helping the community to give a concrete shape to the activities of the microscopic community in the form of an action plan. This I see as a part of my job of being responsible for the development of the local innovation ecosystem. Following that stage, I helped select a coordinator for the platform, Radka Novák, who took over this role in March this year. And since then, I have been supporting Radka in her mission.

What benefits does it bring to you?

Personally speaking, the greatest benefit for me is personal satisfaction. It always fills me with great pleasure to see people come repeatedly to the meetings of working groups, stakeholder meetings, or events organized by BMP. They come with enthusiasm and every time they leave with new ideas, new contacts, and new learnings. Gradually, they developed mutual trust that greatly speeds up collaboration. And people express and share their gratitude for what we have achieved jointly. Being on the side of a public innovation agency, the benefit for me is to see the positive reactions of our partners and to see and hear about the benefits for the members of the community: academics, small companies, as well as large corporations.

Do you have any message for the community?

I never stop being amazed by the fact that collectively people can do much more than each of them individually. I take it as a great privilege to be part of the process through which we developed the activities of BMP as a collective and inclusive endeavor. I am personally very happy to see the ecosystem maturing and moving constantly towards more ambitious goals, gradually fulfilling the objectives that we set for ourselves. I wish all the members of the Brnoregion Microscopy were feeling welcome at the community events and enjoyed lots of new and inspiring encounters. It may sound like a small ambition but openness, sharing, and collaboration, in my opinion, are the way we can speed up mutual learning and grow ever more successful internationally in both research and innovation.