Probably the best analogy I have heard - Apple is a great recipe company - they use ingredients already existing to make an awesome dish. The most objective and neutral view that I've come across. Good to see, instead of fanboyism from either side.
Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Innovation: Local or Western?
In a recent debate, Peter Thiel, well known technology Venture Capitalist, made a comment that India and China need not innovate anything, rather they need to just look at what is successful in the West and copy that. A good write-up on why this approach is wrong is written by YourStory
And today, Hindustan Times has written about Prof Anil Gupta, who had moderated the panel discussion on innovations at Emtech 2010 (in which I was a panelist) and his work on discovering and popularising Indian innovations. The list of some innovations that have made a huge impact on the ground, but are totally indigenous and popularized by Prof Gupta must be an eye opener for Peter Thiel. I think none of these could have been thought of in the West.
I believe that each region comes with it's own separate challenges. I have seen this happen before - the West looks at solving problems in an entirely different way from the way the East does. This is not to say that one of these methods are better, but only to say that each place has a different set of constraints, and for the best solution to the local problems to emerge, the solutions have to emerge from places where the local constraints are best known. For example, taking the case of Vortex ATMs, I think the greatest innovation is not the reduced cost of ATMs, but the fact that due to its lower power consumption, the back-up time is greatly multiplied. The optimized solution for power constraints emerged only because the solution emerged from India, which faces a lot of power problems.
Similarly, the solutions like the cycle powered washing machine could also only emerge from places where making regular washing machines are a problem - places facing a lot of power cuts.
Hats off to Prof Gupta for his tireless efforts in spreading these ideas and popularizing them. May the local inventors thrive.
And today, Hindustan Times has written about Prof Anil Gupta, who had moderated the panel discussion on innovations at Emtech 2010 (in which I was a panelist) and his work on discovering and popularising Indian innovations. The list of some innovations that have made a huge impact on the ground, but are totally indigenous and popularized by Prof Gupta must be an eye opener for Peter Thiel. I think none of these could have been thought of in the West.
I believe that each region comes with it's own separate challenges. I have seen this happen before - the West looks at solving problems in an entirely different way from the way the East does. This is not to say that one of these methods are better, but only to say that each place has a different set of constraints, and for the best solution to the local problems to emerge, the solutions have to emerge from places where the local constraints are best known. For example, taking the case of Vortex ATMs, I think the greatest innovation is not the reduced cost of ATMs, but the fact that due to its lower power consumption, the back-up time is greatly multiplied. The optimized solution for power constraints emerged only because the solution emerged from India, which faces a lot of power problems.
Similarly, the solutions like the cycle powered washing machine could also only emerge from places where making regular washing machines are a problem - places facing a lot of power cuts.
Hats off to Prof Gupta for his tireless efforts in spreading these ideas and popularizing them. May the local inventors thrive.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Emtech India Conference 2010
I was a speaker at Emtech India Conference 2010, speaking about "Cash boxes for Rural India" as part of the Social Innovations session. The panel discussion was chaired by Prof Anil K Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad.
Unfortunately I had to miss out on most of the discussions, needing to be back in Chennai very soon. Of the discussions that I could be part of, the talk by Dr Raskar (of MIT Labs) was very interesting, with the technologies that he demonstrated looking like straight out of a sci-fi movie.
There was also a young asst. professor from IIT-B - Shashikanth Suryanarayanan fro Dept of Mechanical Engineering, giving a talk about decoupling decision making and actuation. He has a case study about an advanced 'power steering' also capable of independently steering the front wheels (like / \ or \ /). This talk was interesting from two angles - the innovative technology part, and more importantly, the feel good factor about having bright young talents as profs at IITs.
The other technology innovator I was impressed with was Kranthi Kiran Vistakula (founder of Dhama Apparel Innovations), who has made a light weight (600 g) 'air conditioned jacket' which uses hydrogen bonding (I couldnt understand how), powered by small batteries. The nearest competitor product weighs a few kilograms.
It was good to meet these innovators first hand. Suddenly it dawned on me that technology innovation in India is not merely about software alone and that these are capable of having a greater impact on Indian life than its software growth.
The talk given by me at Emtech (on 8th March) as well as launch of India's largest solar powered ATM roll-out by my company Vortex has been covered in DNA on its 14th March Bangalore edition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)