Keeping up with the latest technological innovation can be challenging even for nimble startups. For a huge legacy company, folding bleeding-edge tech into the core of the business, it must put feelers out in the wilds of techland. This is how AT&T Inc. is making strides in areas like the internet of things edge and 5G networking.

“AT&T as we know it today is different from what it was seven years ago,” said Vishy Gopalakrishnan (pictured), vice president of ecosystem and innovation at AT&T.

This is thanks in part to the work of the ecosystem and innovation arm within the company. It was set up to ferret out the best innovation springing up outside the company and bring it inside. Its endeavors include ecosystem outreach, which acts as the interface of the broader startup and venture capitalist community, according to Gopalakrishnan.

“This allows us to keep on top of innovation happening across a wide variety of technology waterfronts,” Gopalakrishnan said. Another pillar of the organization is the foundry, which consists of six innovation centers around the globe putting the rubber to the road prototyping new technologies.

Gopalakrishnan spoke with Maribel Lopez (@MaribelLopez), principal analyst and founder at Lopez Research LLC and guest host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AT&T Spark event in San Francisco. They discussed how AT&T sorts through new tech for gems that hold real business value.

Bringing back the bacon from innovation outposts

AT&T is agnostic about sources for bright ideas and burrows wherever it catches the scent of innovation. This may include open-source communities or startups. However, the ecosystem and innovation organization is never too far from the C-suite, at least in its ultimate agenda. It has the business objectives of AT&T in mind at all times, according to Gopalakrishnan.

“It’s an art and a science. We like to focus on innovation that’s in context. Pure innovation is kind of interesting, but we always like to bring it back to either an internal stakeholder or an external customer as a stakeholder to sign off and be almost kind of the voice of reason to say, ‘Yes, this is interesting technology, but this is how it might or might not apply to my business problem,'” Gopalakrishnan said.

Recent areas of focus are machine learning for complex networking optimization problems and innovating within the cost constraints of emerging markets.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AT&T Spark event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE