Day 4: Panel discussion

The fourth day’s events started off in right earnest with business sessions of JFs, SFs and the TTs.
However the highlight of the day was definitely gonna be the Panel Discussion on the Symp Theme. Consisting of eminent personalities – Prof-Ganesh Prabhu (Faculty at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore), Prof Christopher Bull (Faculty at Brown University) and Professor Gabriel Harp (Faculty at the Shristi School of Art and Design) – each being a subject matter expert in their fields spoke of Process Innovation, Social Innovation and Innovation in Education respectively.
Moderated by Vijai Kumar (SF-BMS Class of 2000), the panellists began by giving a short little presentation on the innovations which have been witnessed in their fields, examples of the same, the key drivers which propelled the innovation and the new path the innovations have created, existence/creation of such markets, downsides if any and many other aspects of them.

Prof Prabhu, whose expertise in the area of process innovations, led the audience through the kinds of process innovations that India has been witness to (especially with a major portion of India’s economy being a services–driven one) first spoke of how reconfiguring an existing product/service has been one of the process innovations with the Jaipur Foot being a star example of how collaboration with ISRO(Indian Space Research Organization) to produce lighter weighing artificial limbs (prosthesis) as well as the model of providing two kinds of service – one which is providing the limb free of cost to the not-so-privileged while another being a choice for the privileged buyer of the Jaipur Foot to pay any amount he/she wishes to pay (many a times, the amount paid is three times the cost of the prosthesis).
Moving on to how reconfiguring two products into one led to the success of the travel portal, Makemytrip.com , Prof.Prabhu spoke of how flexibility in choosing different airlines provided the user a customised travel schedule which was one of the reasons for its success.
Maruthi Automobiles’ offer (TruValue Cars) of re-purchasing second-hand cars from its users and rebranding/refurbishing the same into quality used-cars was another successful innovation of creating a new way of selling existing products.
The case of DimDim creating a platform for priests to deliver sermons or for teachers to provide classes to students through the free web conference services DimDim offers was a case of creating a new product/service of higher value.
Shimano’s was another classic example of innovation in business processes in the bicycle industry with gear-set kits which could be fit on most bicycles making Shimano garner a market share between 86-98% in the early 90s.
Delving on cases where innovations in business through people created products/services, Prof Prabhu shared the immense success of networking portal PaGalGuy.com which offers focussed services to MBA/Business School aspirants, premium services which are generally charged elsewhere are offered at no cost by a team of MBA grads who felt the need for the such a service.

Next up was Prof Chris Bull, who spoke of Social Innovations, of enterprises created which in turn created meaningful jobs, increased agricultural productions and stimulated economic development (Kickstart, Grameen Bank). Prof Bull shared with the eager audience of the various characteristics of an innovator in the social domain.
A big heart, passion, persistence and the hard wait through the initial stages of any innovation are a few of the things called upon, but again the success rate for innovations is relatively small. Urging the audience that for one to be an innovator, one needs to get onto the field, get one’s hands dirty, understand the market dynamics hands-on and act, Prof Bull shared his insights about social innovation.

Next up was Prof Gabriel Harp whose deck on Innovation in Education had the fellows take notice wondering if the maze and arrays of dots were abstract art or something to interpret. Elucidating further, Prof Hart informed the keen audience of the demographics and the economy which make up a nation’s dots and the squares and of intertwining any two industries sometimes can bring aobut something as radical and abstract as a pair of gold screw earrings(a hybrid of the gold and the iron&steel industries!)
Connecting the dots/nodes, making new hybrids, bridging different industries, creating knowledge sources and locations across various aspects of the spatial dimensions are the challenges one faces in the field of education. Providing us an example of how the noble teaching profession and its teachers can be viewed with different perspectives as a network entrepreneur, trickster, jesters, jokers or brokers, Prof Hart surely had everyone thinking.
Providing examples of innovations (in the education sector have furthered the cause of holistic learning) like Playpower which are exploring ways to make laptops(simlar to gaming consoles available in China or India) for as little as $10 to the interaction of students and new media, to students creating knowledge through cell-phones (learning on the field by taking pics of plants through cell-phones) to farms on tripod like stands/supports as well as harvesting square cocoons.
Dwelling on the responses to innovation (adaptability, coordination, knowledge sharing) as well as the challenges to be faced in the form of questions like sustainability, their challenges for a service based economies, and the robustness one may lose or gain, of cognitive biases and epistemological foundations that might hinder or help the innovation, not to forget the ways in which infrastructure and design inertia enforce themselves upon the innovation, Prof Harp signed off his presentation with a flourish.

Next up, was a round of discussions amongst the panellists, moderated ably by Vijai who not only ensured the audience’s voice was heard as well as developed the topic .

Not only did interesting questions emerge but it was quite a sight to see not all the panellists quite agree on a few aspects of innovation.

Just a sampling of the question posed to the panellists by the audience:

>Is there any such thing like a mid-life crises for Products and would innovations need to be made continually? A case in point can be Apple which was only revived after Steve Jobs came back to chart Apple back into the company we know it is today.

> Are innovations carried or brought about for the sake of innovations? Sometimes at the expense of robustness?

> Facebook is still more popular than PaGalGuy.com? Any reasons though FB doesnt have a focussed/targeted audience unlike PG which targets only MBA aspirants and still genrates revenue through Ads?

It was not just another panel discussion, Vijai was able to draw enough comparisons to the Melton Foundation and the need to innovate given the current scenario. Also of how the Foundation always had brilliant ideas, entreprenuers who marketed/braodcast the idea, but unfortunately didnt have executors and thus losing fantastic ideas.