pune international centre foundation day, wednesday, 24 th september 2014 professor m. m. sharma,...

Pune International CentreFoundation Day, Wednesday, 24th

September 2014

Professor M. M. Sharma, FRS

Emeritus Professor of EminenceInstitute of Chemical Technology

(Deemed University), Mumbai

The Crucial Role of Innovations to spur RAPID, all inclusive Economic Growth

Invention refers to any new idea that works

Innovation refers to ideas which are converted to

profitable use

Innovation is basically the oxygen for your future

To lead industry you have to innovate properly

Approach innovation in an innovative way

2Prof. M. M. Sharma

Everything we know will become blunt over time

Innovation is not a functional activity; it is a

business activity and you need every component

of business- sales, marketing, manufacturing- as

a piece of it

Innovation cannot be scheduled

Transition to the new system is typically fast and

non-linear

3Prof. M. M. Sharma

Prof. M. M. Sharma 4

InnovationsSome Technologies which have changed fundamental of businessBall Pen, Helicopter, Transistor, CD’sDNA, Vaccines, AntibioticsMobile phones, Anaesthetic agentsXerox, SatellitesHybrid seeds, GMEmail, InternetMost Recent fracking ↔ Shale gas


Research is subjective, inspirational and often

irrational; it is not a very structured activity; it can

be described as a random walk in a blind valley to

find whether it is really blind

Results of Research are seldom known in advance

Good researchers need curiosity and endurance;

they must have strong will power, and a passion for

solving problems

Innovation needs calculated leaps into the unknown

Innovation is tough to manage and easy to stifle

Innovator is often harassed!

While management demands Consensus, Control,

Certainty, and the Status quo, Creativity thrives on the

opposite – Instinct, Uncertainty, Freedom and Iconoclasm.

Management and creativity are antithetical

Most bureaucrats and legislators regard R & D folks as

“welfare queens”

6Prof. M. M. Sharma


Innovation requires knowledge and therefore depends on education.

Innovation requires space to unfold and is therefore dependent on the underlying political conditions.

Innovation requires backing of the society thus appreciations and comprehensions are crucial.

Otherwise we will not be able to treat incurable diseases and new diseases that will appear.

Productivity of less and less arable land has to witness marked increase to feed 9 billion people by 2050

[Dr. MARTIN DEKKERS, Chairman, Board of management, BAYERAG]


Quality of our lives is highly impacted by Technical Progress.e.g. Impact of Modern Medicine which we could not have dared to dreams 50 years ago (also diagnostics including noninvasive flow of blood into heart)

Variety and quantity of food

Impact on Life expectancy (India at independence of 28 years to now >60 years)

Technology is the systematic orchestration of all

knowledge and experience to lead to something

practical and commercially useful

Technology should be demarcated from scientific

pursuits which are concerned with creating new

knowledge and opening new frontiers and, in its own

right, is also cultural activity.

Robert Solov, N.L., 1987,- at least 50% of economic

growth can be attributed to technology development

(In advanced countries it could be 70 to 80%)9Prof. M. M. Sharma

Technology is big “C” of capital and is an expensive

equity and ability to make advances become sharper

Technology is a crucial instrument, even a weapon, to

compete internationally in a truly free market

Technology Development should be like a rowing

exercise and not a relay race

10Prof. M. M. Sharma

Technology can create an altogether new trajectory for

economic revolution

Technology is nutrition

Quantum jump take place through discontinuities and

not through linear path (e.g. transistors, lasers, NMR,

vaccines, etc.)

Growth is based on Discovery as well as Market

Driven approaches (archetype polyamide- Nylons)

How to find the needle in the Haystack and how to find

it fast?11Prof. M. M. Sharma

• Both international and national empirical evidence have recognized the role of Technology progress in economic growth through increase in Total Factor Productivity (TFP)

• Entrepreneurs are generally innovators and developers in the economy. They are creative and are driven by animal spirit of making profit. They are also risk takers. These entrepreneurs facilitate “learning by doing” in embodied and disembodied technical progress


• Innovation requires an open mind and an atmosphere that encourages people to imagine, think broadly, collaborate, capture serendipity, and have the freedom to create [Innovation Ecosystem]


• Curiosity needs to be coupled with the ability to critically evaluate data, accept input and be ready to adopt the change. Lack of imagination kills many a project


• Patience is a mandatory condition if innovation is to thrive. There is a need for the tenacity to overcome technical obstacles and to champion their bold new ideas in the face if disbelief


• There is no one predictable path to successful innovation. Half of the great innovations in the world came from great insights, the other half happened by accident and none of them on a schedule

• [Roger McNamee – a longtime technology investor]


• Innovation can be a messy and inefficient process; it is not one that can be managed through simple metrics


• The innovation process is driven by the need to understand how something works or why it doesn’t, to grow revenue, reduce costs, or increase productivity; to solve a customer’s problem; or to keep healthy and save lives

• [DNA of Invention]• [JUDY ESTERIN- “CLOSING THE

INNOVATION GAP”, McGraw Hill]19Prof. M. M. Sharma

Serendipity

Serendipity has always played a crucial role but does not

strike uninitiated persons. Examples in the Chemical

Industry- LDPE, HDPE, Cellulose nitrate, Teflon, Viagra,

etc.

Serendipitous events have often changed the Course of

Science

It is possible to create an environment where serendipity

gets a chance to work


Lord May, The Former President, Royal Society, London

Systematically organized research activities arguably began

in the mid-1800s, in the nascent German Chemical Industry.

The subsequent centuries saw steady growth.

World War- II vividly demonstrated the importance of

Science (sometimes in regrettable ways). The past 50 years

have seen more advances in scientific knowledge than in all

past human history, while the number of research workers

today likewise exceeds the total ever previously to have

lived. 21Prof. M. M. Sharma

It is the nature of basic “blue skies” research that its

fruits are unpredictable and largely unownable. It is a

classic “public good”. This is why most support for

basic research (roughly 80% in the U.K., with around

6% from industry and most of the rest from Charities)

comes – and always will come- from Governments.

The Science Base is the absolute bedrock of economic

performance.


There are three reasons why governments

invest in their science base:

1. For the new knowledge thus produced

2. (More important) To buy a ticket in the wider club of

knowledge producers

3. (Most important) For the successive cadres of trained

young people, some of whom will cycle back into the

knowledge- producing process, while others carry its

products out into industry, business, public service,

etc.


Researchers are in the main driven by curiosity

On the other hand, their patrons, these days primarily

governments on behalf of taxpayers, are driven by

economic practicalities. This causes tension.

Create institutional cultures in which the best young

people are free to express their creativity and set their

own agendas, not being entrained in hierarchies of

deference to their seniors, no matter how distinguished

these may be.


Dilemma of an Innovator

Ideas may be considered revolutionary or pedestrian

Faces humiliation

Genius prefers homogeneity of individuals rather than

heterogeneity of groups. We in the universities have

the spiritual freedom to try new ideas

Small firms have therefore greater propensity to take

risks


Good innovation requires you to have a broad mix of

individuals. These range from pioneering extroverts, who

are possibly even stormy and irrational, at one end of

spectrum, through solid, systematic team players in the

middle, to dogmatic, rigid, or even reactionary characters

at the other extreme.


CEOs and Boards have become the major impediment

to sustaining innovation

More than innovation, budgets dictate behavior

It takes courage to view innovation as the enabler, not

the enemy, of earnings


Seeking consensus for all breakthrough innovation

decisions is another deadly innovation disease; it wastes

valuable time and can dilute creative concepts. CEO can

protect an innovation culture, learn from failures rather

than punish or stigmatize then. Failure is an integral part

of the innovation process.


Innovations required change and change requires

courage. Instilling a climate that recognizes the critical

need for innovations and encourages and rewards

innovative behavior requires a change in the mind set

of many CEO’s


• A fertile relationship between Science and Engineering is required

• The case of Plastic LED (Serendipitous)

• The inspiration to study the semi conductive properties of molecules came from curiosity, but was rapidly paralleled by the desire to make something from it

-Dr. R. Friend, Physicist, University of Cambridge30Prof. M. M. Sharma

• Innovation is the electric charge that makes the world’s heart beat

• To predict the future of Technologies is more or less to predict the future of Economics


Fruits of Science are required for:

• Vaccines against pandemics• Better food supplies• ‘Clean’ energy• More robust networks• Equitable policies to preserve

ecosystem and climate


The pace of scientific innovation and its acceptance by the public and business community increased during the twentieth century.

The appreciation that science makes important contribution to society became especially evident with major breakthrough in medicine and health, such as Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin for treating bacterial infections, which drove the early growth of the pharmaceutical industry in the middle of the last century.

Progressively the process of discovery and the monetary or strategic value that may be created have been recognized by business and governments

- Christopher M Snowden, Rec. R. Soc., 2010, 64, S55-S63


• The Government of China has a 15 year plan for linking 60% of the country’s overall economic growth to scientific and technological innovations


We as a nation will have to innovate to survive

We need to nurture best-minds and be elitist

entirely from brilliance point of view and a

passion for what they do

Remember we cannot feed tomorrow’s

population with today's agriculture



Mistakes are common, not because people or firms are incompetent but because they are continuously dancing on the edge of knowledge. The ability to learn from failure is critical to making progress.

In India a very important factor affecting Innovations is total lack of ownership of failures.


Companies should consider appointing a chief Innovation officer so that innovations get a boost.

pune international centre foundation day, wednesday, 24 th september 2014 professor m. m. sharma,...

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