Transcript Slide 1

Pune International Centre
Foundation Day, Wednesday, 24th September 2014
The Crucial Role of
Innovations to spur RAPID,
all inclusive Economic
Growth
Professor M. M. Sharma, FRS
Emeritus Professor of Eminence
Institute of Chemical Technology
(Deemed University), Mumbai
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
2
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
3
Innovations
Some Technologies which have changed
fundamental of business
Ball Pen, Helicopter, Transistor, CD’s
DNA, Vaccines, Antibiotics
Mobile phones, Anaesthetic agents
Xerox, Satellites
Hybrid seeds, GM
Email, Internet
Most Recent fracking ↔ Shale gas
Prof. M. M. Sharma
4
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
5
 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”
Prof. M. M. Sharma
6
 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
appreciations and comprehensions are crucial.
thus
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]
Prof. M. M. Sharma
7
 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)
Prof. M. M. Sharma
8
 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%)
Prof. M. M. Sharma
9
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
10
 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?
Prof. M. M. Sharma
11
• 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
13
• 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]
Prof. M. M. Sharma
14
• 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
15
• 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
16
• 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]
Prof. M. M. Sharma
17
• Innovation can be a messy and
inefficient process; it is not one
that can be managed through
simple metrics
Prof. M. M. Sharma
18
• 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]
Prof. M. M. Sharma
19
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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
20
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
21
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
22
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
23
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
24
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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
25
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
26
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
27
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
28
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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
29
• 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 Cambridge
Prof. M. M. Sharma
30
• 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
31
Fruits of Science are required for:
• Vaccines against pandemics
• Better food supplies
• ‘Clean’ energy
• More robust networks
• Equitable policies to preserve ecosystem
and climate
Prof. M. M. Sharma
32
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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
33
• The Government of China has a 15 year
plan for linking 60% of the country’s
overall economic growth to scientific and
technological innovations
Prof. M. M. Sharma
34
 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
Prof. M. M. Sharma
35
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.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
36
Companies should consider appointing a
chief Innovation officer so that innovations
get a boost.
Prof. M. M. Sharma
37