[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/tsaparis_paul.jpg” caption=”Paul Tsaparis, president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (Canada), speaks at the McMaster World Congress. Photo by Ashima Bhatt.”]As president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (Canada), Paul Tsaparis is at the centre of innovations that span the IT sector. Tsaparis delivered a keynote address this morning at the McMaster World Congress and discussed how HP is walking the talk on innovation.

“Innovation means a lot of different things to different people,” he explained. “Every view and every lens is important, but it's how they come together that's important for innovation.”

Collaboration and community are central to innovation at HP. As co-founder Dave Packard said, “It is necessary that people work together in unison toward common objectives and avoid working at cross purposes at all levels if the ultimate in efficiency and achievement is to be obtained.”

Now, nearly 70 years after Packard and partner Bill Hewlett founded the company, Tsaparis says, “The greatest innovation the HP founders made was creating an environment where innovation was welcomed, expected and encouraged.”

And HP continues to work to create a culture where people feel encouraged to contribute and where innovation can thrive and develop.

Along with the focus on employees, Tsaparis focused on two other keys to success that are central to innovation at HP: participating in public-private partnerships and taking a global view.

One partnership Tsaparis highlighted was with SHARCNet (Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network), based in part at McMaster University. SHARCNet is a network across southern Ontario that brings together high-performance academic computers. Because of the combined computing power, researchers can tackle difficult problems that are too large for normal computers to handle, a clear example of the power that comes from collaboration.

“You have to find points of collaboration that create innovations,” concludes Tsaparis.