Cove Resident, multiple industry sector representative and community partner, the Executive Next Practices Institute (ENPI), now in their 9th year, is a nationwide organization comprised of middle to large market enterprise leaders (Board, CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, HR, key executives). They meet regularly in cross-sector, cross functional collaborative forums to explore emerging trends and share transformative strategies to keep them ahead of today’s fast-changing marketplace. ENPI serves as an innovation educator, liaison, key advisory source, and facilitator between the corporate community and entrepreneur centers like the Cove to promote startup and industry collaboration in addition to encourage job growth. They fulfill their objective through forums and workshops on emerging trends, innovation methods, capital sources and opportunity exchange. ENPI also provides broader exposure to the corporate community about Cove resources, initiatives, advisory councils, sponsorship and potential engagement opportunities with industry.  “There is now an elevated hunger of mid-to-large companies to establish relationships with centers like the Cove to look for not only IP, but to also scale technology, engage in collaborative projects with UCI, and also explore ideas with the community to potentially develop and incubate. Our sessions are highly interactive, tapping the collective intelligence of mid-to-large cap executives in attendance. After a short presentation, attendees explore the strategic implications of emerging trends for their business,” said Scott Hamilton, President, and CEO of ENPI. Hamilton is a former senior executive with companies such as Nestle, DirecTV, Aramark, and Honeywell and advises established and emerging businesses.  His Nextworks Strategy (www.nextworksstrategy.com) practice group is also based in Irvine. From their vantage point, ENPI has identified the following key areas of need in common between startups and corporations: •    Corporations as Customers of startups •    Corporations as a Marketing Channel for startups •    Corporations as Strategic Partners with startups (Technology testing and scaling, licensing, capital, mentoring, project support) •    Corporations with a need for Internal Incubation and/or developing Intrapreneurial structure/cultures ENPI has also gathered insights on the current state of startup and corporate collaboration based on a survey from IMAGINATIK 2016. 1. Interactions between startups and corporations are happening at an earlier stage:  While most startup and corporate interactions used to begin at the negotiation table, these groups increasingly recognize the benefits of earlier interactions. Corporations said that 67% now prefer working with startups at earlier stages, mainly “to explore new technologies and business models.”  2. Interactions with startups becoming “Mission Critical”: At an overwhelming 82%, corporations now view interactions with startups as “somewhat important” to “very important,” and 23% indicated that these interactions were “mission critical.”  3. Corporate innovation models are still in the early stage:  While 86% of large organizations view innovation as crucial to their future, most of their current attempts to work with startups to further that objective are early stage, underfunded, and scattershot—such that 25% of corporations surveyed were unsure of the exact amount of resources allocated to their innovation efforts. To further develop the entrepreneur ecosystem and encourage interaction among the community, ENPI has moved a number of their forums to the Cove. Hamilton maintains an office here and is available along with his team of experts to further expand this industry & community alliance. To learn more, visit: www.enpinstitute.com/events.