Innovation Brokers

Lydie Smets

Lydie is co-founder of bumbleb.tech, where she challenges the status quo of high-tech product innovation. She envisions a future where teams don’t just react to challenges, but anticipate, prepare for, and build through them. 
 With a PhD in collaborative product innovation management and over a decade of hands-on experience in project and program management in high-tech sectors like semicon, 3D printing, photonics, quantum, and agritech, Lydie knows how innovation really works: it's messy, complex, and never goes as planned. That’s why she developed a practical blueprint for product innovation, a method that supports high-tech teams turn proven technology into scalable, marketable products. 

As an innovation broker, Lydie supports start- and scale-ups in creating clear and realistic product and program roadmaps, embedding risk and issue management that works in practice, and establishing project management frameworks that facilitate collaborative innovation. She also brings a sharp eye to product industrialization, helping teams get ready for manufacturing, involve the supply chain early, and build in serviceability from day one. Lydie’s approach is holistic and transparent: she holds up the mirror and challenges assumptions to keep teams focused on what truly drives progress.