Think about this for a moment. How many people noticed the heavy import of diagnostic kits to test HIV by India, in the 1990s (2-2.5 million kits in 1996)? How many could see the need for Hepatitis B vaccines and the need to make them affordable? Why were such phenomenal opportunities seen by very few and converted into profitable businesses serving social needs?
Peter Drucker once said that the best opportunities are “visible, but not seen.” I would not have understood the meaning of it a year or two ago. But having experienced it (though partially) I think its very appropriate at least in the Indian context. The idea that I want to specifically talk about is the need for disease diagnostic kits in India and the only entrepreneur to “see” that demand, who then answered it with a profitable business solution. Read more
Ashraf Ghani speaking at TED conference, talks of the disconnect between the problems of the world he operates in and the problem solvers who design for development . He says that their designs are selfish. He says
The world in which I operate, operates with designs regarding roads or dams or provision of electricity that is not been revisited in 60 years.
This observation seems relevant for inefficient cooking stoves and their widespread use around the world. A vast majority of people use traditional solid fuels like wood, agricultural waste and cow dung. Apart from the specific use in cooking, wood and agri waste as a source of fuel is used in many parts of the world for various uses. The prevalence of its use for cooking is higher in developing countries of Asia and Africa. It should not surprising after all, considering the advantages of abundance, ease of use and the cost that use of such traditional fuels have!
Read more
Kauffman Foundation’s recent study on the entrepreneurial impact of MIT brings out some important observations, especially for universities around the world interested in building a dynamic entrepreneurial culture.
The study Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT highlights the number of companies founded by MIT alumni and the economic value created by them. Full report here (pdf). It assesses the role of the university in building regional economy, apart from being an institution of learning. Read more
Looking at things from an Indian perspective, “cutting edge” it seems to me has two edges. The one at which the frontiers of a discipline are explored and pushed further by the way of formalized research much like the developments in nanotechnology, telecommunications, computing etc, Then there is the other end which is as vibrant and as progressive which are usually an answer to problems of immediate nature. This edge of research and innovation happens in the farms, fields, schools, houses and the ramshackle yet functional workshops of India. It is a more likely setting in which innovative technologies and creative designs are born, which serves the purpose just as good as the other edge.
The wide array of work shown at the conference highlights the relevance, importance and significance of innovation at the most basic level of society.
Prof. Anil Gupta
Prof. Anil Gupta’s eloquent presentation Creativity, Compassion, Communication and Collaboration – Kernel of Social Innovation was replete with such brilliant examples of the model that he calls sink to source. The ideas that he presented were shaped from extensive interactions, experiments and the very literal “journey for exploration” or “Shodh Yatra” that he has been undertaking over the past several years. More often he has been the connection joining the two extremes of grassroots innovation and cutting edge technologies.
Read more
MIT Alumni Panel
The conference ended with a lively discussion on innovation, risk taking, and failures. The panel had MIT alumni along with Ramesh Raskar, Mohanjit Jolly and moderated by TR Editor-in-Chief Jason Pontin.
Here are some quick notes on what each one had to say! The notes are not complete and are only a recollection of the highlights of the session.
Anita Goel: In the whole life cycle of innovation success and failure is a part. Post 9/11 anthrax and SARS threat was high. During that time I had a call from the US military and they asked me to come down for a talk. They were looking for someone who had a background in physical science and this new area of nanotechnology.
Read more
The MIT Media Lab Workshop was an invitation-only event at the conference, held yesterday. The presentations of the key solutions, developed as a product of the engaging exercises of the workshop, were unexpectedly and surprisingly open for all. I would have been interested in taking a peek at the workshop too but considering that I could sit through the presentations, seemed like I missed very little!
The workshop was to discuss some of the most important technological challenges impacting India and the world at large. The sessions were designed to brainstorm, share and discuss ideas/solutions to these challenges.
The topics:
What happens when every Indian is a film director?
(smartphones, video cameras and social media)
How do you access information without computers?
(The future of human interfaces and the challenges with massive amounts of data)
How do you get healthcare without medicine?
(Scaling healthcare services to meeting India’s growing middle class requirement)
The solutions which the participants came up with were presented and they had to describe the technological details and market approach of their idea. The solutions were reviewed by the panel. (with Ramesh Raskar, Jason Pontin, Anita Goel and Pranav Mistry)
Read more
Fireside chat with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD, Biocon and Dr. Andreas Kirchner of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research moderated by Narayan Suresh, Group Editor, TR India.
This was a straightforward Q&A session on various issues concerning technology innovation and research in the Indian industry. The following is an account of most of the discussion, and is NOT a transcript of the session.
Fireside Chat with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Dr. Andreas Kirchner
Read more
The innovative idea necessary for the next revolution in photography: computational photography. This is the coming revolution that few people have heard of.
“Computational photography will change how we do photography,” says Ramesh Raskar, of MIT Media lab. “It should allow you to fix things that you can’t currently – whether by combining pictures in a different way, or by fiddling with optics so that more is recorded than on a normal camera; basically to do what Photoshop can do, but at the moment you take the photograph.” Read more
“India is at the cross roads of innovation” and “India is a lab for Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) technology” remarked Pradeep Gupta of CyberMedia, at the opening of the EmTech conference.
Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of Technology Review outlining the magazine’s mission as “describe and analyze” technology, gave an outsider’s view of tech and development in the country. ( Blog The New Commonplace). Listening to the folks who bring out the country’s only technology magazine, it is an early indication of the technology and research focus that tech community in India is shifting towards.
Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief, TR and Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia
Read more
