Year 2011 in Innovation

Wish you and your families a very Happy New Year 2012.

In recent years I have been sending out this compendium to people who have interest in the field of Innovation, Creativity and Design. The intent remains to further the understanding of this vital topic and evangelize the spirit of innovation. Here are the 120 stories from 2011. I hope you find this useful. 

I will be grateful to you if you could pass on this compilation to your friends and colleagues. That will be a true new year gift for me. 

Sources: BBC, Booz & Co., Boston Consulting Group, Business Today, BusinessWeek, CNN World, Economic Times, Fast Company, Financial Post, Financial Times, Freakonomics, Harvard Business Review, HBR Blog, IBM, Inc. Magazine,  Industry Week, Knowledge @ Wharton, McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey Quarterly, MIT Sloan Management Review, Nature, NY Times, Scientific American, Technology Review, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Wired.

Also do check out the archived compilations here. 

Best of 2010

Best of 2009

Dec’ 11 $35 Tablet from India Lots of India's Innovation is Invisible Test Your Innovation IQ The Next 5 in 5: IBM Predicts Future Innovation Tournament @ P&G A World of Jugaad Surviving 2012: An Action Plan for Year Head Sustainability Nears a Tipping Point Creativity Linked to Rule Bending 2011 in Reflection: The Nature	Nov' 11 India's Innovation Stimulus Why Social Innovation needs Design Thinking How Pursuit of Profit Kills Innovation A One-Two Punch to Foster Creativity When Good Companies have Bad Ideas 8 Best Innovation Ideas from Around the World Inventing the Collaborative Workspace Social Innovation: A Matter of Scale Rise in Intellectual Property is Changing the Face of Innovation 3 Biggest Barriers to Innovation and How to Smash Them
Oct' 11  Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture is the Key Steve Jobs 1955- 2011: All about Steve  Do Patents Kill Innovation 3M Bets of India- Style Innovation 10 Innovation Myths Crowdsourcing a Cure to Breast Cancer 10 Steps for Creating an Open Innovation Culture What Google's VP Marissa Mayer Does as an 'Idea Connector' WSJ 2011 Innovation Awards Innovating to Zero CO2	Sep' 11  A Three- Box Approach to Managing Business Model Reinvention  China in Transition The Age of Customer- Innovator Lessons from Asian Innovators: AsiaNBC From Social Network to Collaboration Network Netflix's Bold Disruptive Innovation Innovating with Services Why we Desire but Reject Creative Ideas China as Innovation Nation Should you Reward Bad Ideas?
Aug' 11  7 Immutable Laws of Innovation How to Prepare for a Black Swan After the Tsunami The Future of Innovation Management: The Next 10 Years How to be like Apple The Elusive Big Idea Innovative Ways of Storytelling 5 Ways Standardization can Lead to Innovation Why Playing Games Could be Next Big Thing for Business What Innovations Would Make Cities More Livable	Jul' 11  How will you Measure your Life: Clayton Christensen Innovation's Nine Critical Success Factor The Paradox of Samsung's Rise Leaders find Creativity in Chaos We Share Too Much and It's Stifling Innovation The Best Strategy for Big Innovation: Know Your Limits Montessori Build Innovators Can Innovation be Reduced to a Process? Think Like a Designer Women Enhances Team Intelligence
Jun' 11  IBM @ 100: Ideas that Shaped a Century TR 35 Winners: Innovators under 35 Forbes World's Most Innovative Companies Global Innovation Interest Index The Global Innovation Index 2011: Most Innovative Countries Nokia's Epic Fall Resource Efficiency: The Sixth Wave of Innovation Innovating in Uncertain Markets: 10 Lessons in Green Tech The Business Models Investors Prefer Y Combinator is Boot Camp for Startups	May' 11  3M's Open Innovation Salman Khan: The Messiah of Maths How to Fire Up the Innovation Engine Stanford's Fresh Entrepreneurship Factory Lessons from Zuckerberg's  Personal Innovation Lifestyle How Facebook Hacks its Way to Innovation 5 Common Mistakes Business Leaders Make About Innovation Bamboo Innovation (Chinese Lessons) Future Cities of Innovation Unthinking Machines: Future of AI
Apr' 11  Sparking Creativity in Teams: An Executive Guide Why Most Product Launches Fail The Paradox of Open Innovation: Intellectual Property How the Ivy League is Killing Innovation 8 Ways to Democratize Experimentation How to Institutionalize Inspiration in Your Company Larry Page on Innovation  Innovation Lessons from NY City Design Fundamentals from MIT  The Evolution of Web Design	Mar' 11  EmTech India 2011: Top Indian Innovators Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming Global Cities of the Future 9 Ways to Test an Entrepreneurial Idea How eBay Developed a Culture of Experimentation 7 Deadly Sins that Choke Out Innovation Can Innovation be Disciplined Without Killing it?  Teaching Kids Thinking Executing an Innovation Strategy The China 2.0 Innovation Dilemma
Feb' 11  2011 Most Innovative Companies: FastCompany 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2011: Technology Review Cisco's Virtual Management Lab Why Creative People can Loose Out on Leadership Position A Quirky Way of Innovating Open Innovation @ GE Embedding Innovation in Leadership Four Principles of Crafting Innovation Strategy All Innovation is Personal Chris Anderson: Crowd Accelerated Innovation	Jan' 11  The HBR Agenda 2011 Unleashing Innovation in China The Next Big Thing in Managing Innovation Hotbeds of Innovation Larry Page's Google 3.0 Richard Branson on Intrapreneurship Innovation @ Microsoft How to Transform Good Ideas into Great Research? New Business Models in Emerging Markets   Innovation: Made in China

India Innovation Summit- CII- Day- 2

Innovative Approach for Higher Education and Research

• Rishikesha Krishnan, Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy at IIM Bangalore, chaired the session and observed that Bangalore long had prestigious research institutions like the Indian Institute of Science and several Defense R&D laboratories. But it’s a new generation of relatively young institutions that have the potential to change the innovation landscape of Bangalore. In concluding the session, he observed the importance of integrity of purpose in building strong institutions - there can be no compromise on the core mission of the organization. The experts emphasized the importance of carrying people with them, and infusing a sense of purpose to overcome barriers. They felt that team work was imperative to achieve excellence, and to meet the high bar placed by international competition and societal expectations.  
• Warren Greving, Director of Srishti Labs, observed that Design Thinking underlies translation of R&D to products and services. He is creating a research school that is part of a design school to design services back to industry, with the considerations being: 1) Importance of creating or recreating new organization; 2) Value of divergent and convergent thinking. Most of what we do is convergent but you need to mix both; and 3) Diversity in India should be a driver of creativity and india has a tremendous asset of it. Often vision needs to accommodate what others have. This would lead to a bigger vision. 
• K VijayRaghavan, Director of National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), made a call for non-linear research. He said that the British never intended the growth of science in India, and the early scientific leaders – Satyen Bose, JC Bose, Ramanujam, Raman and Meghnad Saha – were accidental geniuses, not the result of deliberate institutional outcomes. India climbed on the Science bandwagon after independence and set up a whole range of new institutions. But these institutions tended to stagnate unless propelled by visionary leadership. Again, success was inspite of, rather than because of, the system. Today, we are entering a new phase of institution building. The people attracted to these institutions have been trained at the best institutions in the world, and now its up to the new Indian institutions to help them achieve non-linear results. On creating a culture of innovation, he said that once you choose, explore the boundary. Leadership should be a lack of repression! Much of what it is now is repression. Another quality-  Don't compromise. This should be institutional.
• Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, gave background about Wipro's initiatives on education and the need to create organizational structures that are aligned with reality.  In his view, while we have thousands of schools and teachers, we have not created the education support infrastructure – experts in content, pedagogy, and delivery – that can help the school system deliver effectively. This is the gap that the two Azim Premji institutions seeks to close. Since we have a lag in this area, we often don’t have the resources readily available, and the challenge is to scale up through internal capacity development. A critical element of the APF philosophy is that the concepts and practice have to work closely together – all ideas have to be tried out in the field, not just restricted to academic writing.On people's working style, Anurag opined that Indians work differently. Here focusing on teams is very critical as firms can't afford to have distracting dynamics arising from personalities or credentials. It's the integrity of purpose that bind teams.

Innovations in Healthcare – Technology and Affordability

• Ashwin Naik, CEO and Co-founder of Vaatsalya Healthcare, talked about his efforts in creating healthcare facilities in tier-2 and tier- 3 cities and how one needs to rethink of business models when doing business there. With mounting cost pressure, need is to think of services and not just new technology. Rural healthcare emerges as one of the greatest applications of technology, eg: Rural Kiosk. 
• Arjun Kalyanpur, CEO of Teleradiology Solutions, spotted a huge shortage of radiologists in India, especially in rural parts and devised the teleradiology solution. Sighting instances of current installations and expansion plan, Arjun said that there is process innovation, but also needed is tech innovation, for eg mobility.  
• Harish Lalchandani. Marketing Director - South Asia of Wipro GE Healthcare, warned that our problematic lifestyle is fast making India the cardiac, cancer and diabetic capital of the world. So stressing is the country's infrastructure. Availability, quality, and cost are the major challenges, so GE mandates that all of these challenges are met in their innovations. 

Nurturing Innovation - Country / Region Approach

• Peeyush Ranjan, Managing Director, Google India R&D, defined innovation at Google to be "introduction of something new". The 10 rules of innovation from Google are: 1) Hire the best; 2) Empower them - speak up; 3) Put users first; 4) Have a well understood vision; 5) Value teamwork; 6) Share information; 7) Iterate; 8) Be data driven; 9) Provide an escape valve (20% time anyone can do what they need to do); and 10) Persevere (hard work). 
• Neil Pollock, Head of Integrated Managed Services Business at Bharti,  said that nurturing innovation depends upon the way we educate our children. It's about how much you value innovation? It must not be platitudes. If you don't recognize, reward or prize it you will stifle innovation. The earnest thing for creating a culture of collaboration is trust and it's important to focus on retaining talent.
• Paul Marchal, Director R&D of IMEC, said that India is in a great need of innovation, especially human-centric, top down, big multi-disciplinary initiatives. Caution- Don't think you are the smartest kid on the block, if you want to nurture innovation!
• Deepu Chandran. Director of Innomantra, drew from his practice that even small companies are manage innovation well. Often firms expect people to innovate, but fails to tell how! So the result is chance innovation. Identified ingredients of innovation are: expertise, creative thinking and motivation. Innovation gets killed in firms when people don't know what to do with their ideas.

These were the talks made and insights shared. Now here's some more for you to ponder over:

• Innovation is curiosity vs purpose, in balance
• If a start- up is not internet delivery model we are ok, but where it has engineering component we are not there
• In India, capital comes with advice but expert advice comes without capital
• In India, many entrepreneurs do not have field experience at young age which is critical. This may likely end up in a prescription based model rather than a discovery based model for companies
• Financing models are not aligned to cash flows in rural areas so innovation is needed in business model
• Hire employees to be entrepreneurs, train them and cut them loose. But shelter them in corporate partnerships to incubate entrepreneurship 
• Research is an enterprise activity, integrate centralised effort with dispersed field efforts

India Innovation Summit- CII- Day- 1

Inaugural Session- "Making Bangalore the Innovation Hub of Asia"

• Kris Gopalakrishnan, the Chairman of CII's Southern Region set the agenda by highlighting the unique position that Bangalore has as an innovation destination. With a proven record in IT/ ITES, the city also has a rich talent for biotech, aerospace and medical education and is a vibrant talent base with presence of various global companies. This ecosystem of collaboration helps connect the dots and with further support from government, the future holds promises of this city and the region. A case in point: in recent past, over 1.5 million jobs got created by the knowledge sector as again 200,000 by all other sectors, combined. The session further reflected on rate of change for India in next 20 years and the impact digital consumer citizens, pervasive computing and flattening of the world will have on new business opportunities. 
• Ajay Nanavati, Managing Director of 3M India, reflected on Bangalore as a hub of serious innovation in the space of aerospace engineering and biotech. 3M happens to have India's largest R&D center and one of the fifth largest in the world, with the intent of leveraging this center for innovation for India and a hub to take innovation out to the world. The key for successful innovation in Ajay's view was to stick to the investment in good as well in bad times. 
• Praveen Vishakantaiah, President of Intel Technologies India, furthered the discussion with insights on how various economic cycles help build innovation. There's also a call for innovation at times of low growth.
• Sridhar Mitta, Managing Director of NextWealth Entrepreneurs, had a call for diverse talent and its role in promoting innovation.  Drawing on a research study conducted at the Stanford University, Sridhar talked about the Silicon Valley vs Bangalore- Israel- Beijing research triangle, concluding that the uniqueness of Silicon Valley may get dwarfed by the diverse talent coming in from this triangle. He concluded the session appealing that chaos is the best time for innovation to emerge. 

Bangalore as a Hub for R&D in Asia

• Vivek Mansingh is the President, Communication & Collaboration Group at Cisco India, shared that Cisco spends over 4 to 5 million in R&D in India and has over 700 patents from here. The firm has created a conducive environment to perform number of innovation programs for developing products for emerging markets, such as Cisco Campus which is currently being used by Cisco in Bangalore. Vivek maintained that while education is the key the innovation, equally important ingredients are: talent, leadership, physical infrastructure and academia relation. Talking about leadership profile of technology talent- T-shaped competency and soft skills are to be looked out for. 
• P Gopalakrishnan, Director of  IBM India Research Laboratory, stated that R&D in India is 'small r' and 'Big D', but tide is shifting slowly towards more focused research work. One instance being IBM doing remote mentoring - IBM pushes problems that university students can pick up and are assigned mentors - close to 200 people are mentoring teams of 3-4 students, such that it is scalable- and giving guidance on technology and presentation. Gopal also reflected on connecting Physical World to Digital World, e.g. real time traffic modeling, hence applying different tolls suiting Indian conditions.
• Shouvick Mukherjee, VP and CEO of Yahoo! India R&D,  stated that India needs to transform itself from R&D-centric to Customer- Centric Innovation Hub. This calls for appreciation of market dynamics, insight about the unmet needs and designing a solution from thereon. Shouvick maintained that it's tough to figure out global needs as opposed to being influenced by Indian requirements. Some of the issues remain, such as, talent with domain expertise, people who can think of problems that haven't been solved, opening up to universities and above all- passion. One best practice shared was Hack Programs , where Yahoo! works with startups to benefit from what they are doing and allow the community to leverage Yahoo's platform. 

Bangalore – A hub for advanced engineering beyond IT

• Ajay Nanavati, Managing Director of 3M India, started this session with the famous quote from 3M "Research is the transformation of money into knowledge. Innovation is the transformation of knowledge into money". He identified 7 habits of Innovation @ 3M, viz: Leadership committed to innovation; Maintain the corporate culture actively (spends 5 -7% on innovation); Broad base of technology; Networking for innovation; Set outstanding expectations and reward; Quantity efforts; and Get close to the customer (capture unarticulated needs and have high tolerance for failure). 
• Sanjay M. Correa, Managing Director of GE's JFWTC,  talked about the focus of the Center on emerging markets, for instance the MAC 400 ultra portable ECG machine designed and developed here in India keeping in view Indian market. This has been a result of structured approach to capturing the Voice of Customer, which contributes to about 90% of contribution to any new innovation (10% being Blue Sky Thinking). In numbers, the center has $200m investment and 1,000+ patents filed. 
• Venkatesh Valluri, Chairman of Ingersoll Rand, impressed upon building products through innovation convergence. The three phases of innovation as: Innovation through value creation; Innovation through convergence and finally Open Innovation.  Productivity earlier was about costs and now it is not about cost. More importantly when you want to reverse engineer and take costs out that is where productivity is seen. One of the best practices shared is: Entrepreneur creation program, where the firm hires talent, train them and then after two years send out so that they create business and IP. Their IPR teams then work to value IPs jointly. This calls for maturity and transparency within the company and in community.
• Vijay Ratnaparkhe, President and Managing Director of Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, defined innovation as new product for Bosch. These could be invention driven innovations or opportunity driven innovations. He talked about nurturing the culture of innovation via systematic creation against specific challenges. 

Bangalore – A hub for disruptive innovation – A startup view

• Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman of IDG Ventures, started by highlighting the trend that domestic companies are buying Indian products and there's been a increased focus towards developing product for the Indian market. There's been over $ 3.3 billion of venture funding happened in recent years, of which 36% has gone to Bangalore. 
• Mallikarjun Sundaram, President and CEO of Mitra Biotech, said that it's the ecosystem of companies that drove him to Bangalore from the US. Thought India gives an access to talent from domestic as well multinational firms, the funding market isn't that vibrant yet. 
• Sanjay Nayak, CEO and Managing Director of Tejas Networks,  started with a stark fact that this decade India would be importing over $1 trillion of telecom and networking equipments, making it as one of the largest contributors of trade deficit. Coupled with this large market, India now offers experience in product lifecycle management and serious cost advantage. What ever is done in India is increasingly relevant to both developed economies as well other emerging economies, making this an opportune place and time. Strategy is to leverage domestic market to scale quickly.
• Rohan Parikh, Head of Green Initiatives and Infrastructure at Infosys, threw light on Infosys' green initiatives. Instances being: Smart Devices allowing people to monitor and regulate energy consumption via sms, etc and other power saving technologies currently being developed and tested at Infosys.

Seventh India Innovation Summit- 2011

The Seventh India Innovation Summit, jointly hosted by CII and  Karnataka Government, got concluded last Friday evening at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore. Attended by over 500 delegates from across the country, the two day event did live up to its expectation of sharing insights and practices on innovation drawn from various institutions, large and small. Though I could not be a part of the event (owing to my end-term exams here at IIM Bangalore), the 'Network Effect' did work. My mentor, GS Nathan painstakingly took notes for me to share with you and help evangelist the spirit of Innovation. I owe it to Nathan.

Kindly share the note within your community. Also feel free to add to it online (at http://cii-innovation.blogspot.com) or by writing back to me on innovation.evangelist@gmail.com. Happy reading. 

India Innovation Summit- Day-2 Session-VI

The last session for the day was themed around: Good Practices on Making Innovation Happen.

The discussion was moderated by Naveen Kulkarni (Director- BD and Research Asia, Philips), on deliberation on some of the good practices of managing an innovation program. On the panel were: Anil Menon (President, Globalization and Smarket Connected Communities, Cisco), Pickhard Friedhelm (MD, Robert Bosch Engg and Biz Soln'), and Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan (IIM Bangalore).

Anil shared that at Cicso, with over 160 acquisitions done, 90% employees are retained and they look for talent in an acquisition and are very selective while doing so. He further opined that having a good competition makes you better. Creativity is often emotionally taxing and the reason large firms' aren't often innovative is that they are designed to survive shocks, have more to loose, and hence resist change. Their tendencies to slap confidentiality on everything and to keep filing patents without knowing good from bad is not always appropriate. At Cisco they don't spend too much time on making strategies, they start first and then if it succeeds, they make plans to scale. He summed it up well by saying that success is your degree of freedom which comes from what all you have tried (and failed at). Don't fear failure.

Prof. Krishnan picked three instances from India, viz: Tata Ace, Bajaj Pulsar and M&M Shaan. He said that innovation models in india are a mix of- top down, tech + biz confluence and need an ability to manage complex projects. He picked from AG Lafley (Former CEO of P&G)- "do the last experiment first", ie- Know what's not working early. Further the best way to make innovation work is influencing stakeholder systematically.

Pickard from Bosch defined innovation as something which is new as well successful. Pickard proposed that engineers are good at problem solving, don't ask them to identify problems, give them problems to solve. On a question on industry- academia relationship, he said that industry expects basic skills from students and rest gets developed on the job.

Naveen did a fantastic job in moderating the panel discussion and engaging the audience in Q&A session. Sighting instances from Philips India, he stated the role of de-centralized operations in managing an innovation program and the methodical Stage Gate approach.

The session followed by the valedictory session.

Two wonderful days, full of insight got over. I draw a lot of learning from these days and believe the same for you.
Take care and do share your comments.

India Innovation Summit- Day-2 Session-V

The theme for this session was: Potential for Business and Technological Innovation by Industries.

Focusing on the holistic growth of India, the session featured few of the socio-economic opportunities being explored. Subu Goparaju (Head Setlabs, Infosys) chaired the session.

First up was Anurag Gupta (CEO, A Little World), who showcased his novel micro-finance product- ZERO. Comprised of a mobile phone and a handheld device it's a novel solution currently powering some 60 lakh banking customers across India. The device is solar powered, has fingerprint and voice print recognition, and is a self sufficient unit. The bank is run by women inside the house and is fairly intuitive and safe. With one banking branch for every 35 villages in India, Anurag maintains that India has a huge room for micro-finance.

Ashish Gawade (CEO, BOPEE Innovations) was next. Sighting instances from the research work done by late Prof. CK Prahalad and Manashakti Centre of Peace of Mind, Ashish depicted the wealth that lies at the bottom of the pyramid and the need to enable/ mobilize it.

One of the distinct speakers at the session was Dr. Suresh Deshpande (President IAGES), who spoke about his experience in creating a robotic arm useful in laparoscopy operations. The ingenuity and the intent of Dr. Suresh was commendable while creating Swarm which is far economical than other solutions available in the market. For his emphatic talk and commendable achievements, he received a standing ovation from the audience.

The last of the speakers was Rajendra Pratap Gupta (International Heathcare and Retail Expert), the person who wrote the manifesto for BJP. He depicted the 1/3 rule that he coined sometime back, that pretty much applies to everything in India, ranging from mobile penetration to people in BPL and India's GDP. Through a series of suggestions, Rajendra deliberated on pressing issues including- agriculture, healthcare, poverty and distribution. A talk full of interesting facts.

Subu did a very good job in moderating the panel discussion and keeping the Q&A focused (often a tough task).

India Innovation Summit- Day-2 Session-IV

The theme for the first panel discussion on day 2 was- Is India Innovating?

It was more than a question. It was a challenge as I Vijaya Kumar (CTO, Wipro Ltd.) likes to put it. He maintains that while India often fails to innovate, Indians do, and it comes from the power of ecosystems. Due to the novelty and visibility factors of products, their innovation is easy to appreciate, while that's not the case with services, making it more obscure. He set the context of the panel discussion around the Innovation Clusters and how to improve the Ecosystem.

The first speaker was Manoj Kumar Mandelia (Founder, Canopus India), a student from IIT Kharagpur. Started by five students from the campus, Canopus focuses on Waste Water Treatment for SME industry and household. Leveraging its patent pending LOCUS technology, the approach uses microbial fuel cells and not just treats water but also generate electricity in the process. Realizing the dearth of treatment plans in India, the team geared up to designing those as well and are now scaling up. Manoj concluded his talk very nicely by depicting the way a great idea loses its advantage from mind-to-market and how often our academic system is responsible for our risk averse behavior.

The next was Paul Basil (CEO, Villgro Innovations Foundation), who presented a very strong case about the big business opportunity existing in villages of India. He stated that there are 600 million Indians dwelling in about 600,000 villages and there's a huge room for creating social enterprises out of these. Through a very engaging presentation, studded with images of ingenuous creations from across India, Paul very effectively brought home the point that a little bit of investment in rural areas can yield rich results. Some of Villgro's investments include: MyIdea Program for students, Seed Funding, Talent Mentoring Networks, InnoHub, Unconvention (innovation awards), Innovation Fellowship Programs, and Teaching Entrepreneurship at schools, among others. A very emphatic talk.

Next came Preetha Reddy (MD, Apollo Hospitals) who gave a very interesting perspective on innovation in healthcare, especially in India. The 4 Ps of health care being: Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, and Participatory. While there are access issues in India, both in terms of physical and financial, India leads the world in low cost, high quality healthcare services. For instance Yeshasvani Healthcare Insurance Scheme where rural people deposit Re 1 covering their surgery cost, and Apollo Reach are ways of bridging the gap. She also hinted at the US learning from India in terms of cutting waste and adopting process innovations in healthcare.

Talking of Innovation in India and missing out Reva, doesn't happen often. It was Chetan Maini (CTO, Reva Car Company), talking about the need to innovate and his vision for EV in India. Stating the ambition of Reva to be earth's favorite Electric Vehicle Mobility Solution company, he depicted highly innovative and contemporary approaches in the making. With 40% of workforce involved in R&D, the key drivers of innovation at Reva are- Strong IP Committee, Rich Consumer Insight, Thinking and Doing Differently, and Value Innovation coupled with High Tech. Chetan opined that often not having a benchmark helps innovation. Talking of the two new products- NXR and NGX-2, Chetan depicted novel additions such as solar roof, advanced telematics, intelligent energy management and low carbon footprint as key. He also illustrated the innovative selling and distributing approaches adopted in London while leveraging online media and teenagers. Chetan summarized it well when he said that in India there exist pockets of excellence, which now need to come together.

Last of the talks came from Arvin Baalu (Head of Engg- Harman India), where he mentioned about the work Harman India is doing to support new product launch, globally. That's like moving up the value chain.

In all a very well moderated session after which the audience broke for tea.

India Innovation Summit- Day-1 Banquet Session

Exhausted with a day full of stimulation around business, technology, academia and government, the audience needed something different. The banquet session did very much the same. Studded with the likes of Kiran Bedi (Retd. IPS Officer), Sudha Murthy (Chairperson, Infosys Foundation), Shashi Deshpande (Writer), and Raj Kumar Khatri (Commissioner of Industrial Development, Govt of Karnataka) the stage was set for some different strokes.

Moderated very well by Kris, the panel was the highlight of the day.

Narrating instances from her wee days at police, Kiran Bedi stressed upon the need to generate resources without complaining. She urged the audience to focus on what's available and what you want to achieve. Calling policing as 'legal social engineering', Kiran mentioned about galli schools that have evolved to become Navjyoti Community College, recognized by IGNOU. Another being Safe India e-Complaint which allows citizens to file police complaints over the internet. Yet another being India Police which aims at providing education to the children of cops. She appealed to the youth to add something before and something after money, ie. Ethics before making money and a purpose after. And then making money is not bad. In her highly inspirational and candid talk, she said that courage is the single most important element of success. She maintained that Business Schools for the Poor, Community Colleges, and Home Care Industry have a huge potential for propelling future growth.

In her down to earth style, Sudha Murthy confessed that being impractical is her greatest strength and biggest motivation. This impractical approach has helped her build compassion. For her, discipline and creativity aren't opposite, but one drives another. She urged youth to run after passion and not money, as life is a colorless picture and you can color it as you wish to. Having quizzed on work-life balance, Sudha said that one needs to lead a balanced life and discipline helps in doing so. Sudha opined that telling stories and giving real life examples are the best ways to inspire people. While doing so, never be judgmental, let the students derive conclusions.

Shashi furthered the sentiments by narrating her early career struggle as a writer and how persistence helped her reach to this level. She said that writers have a rather tough life owing to little social dealing and often one is left alone. It's only the self confidence that helps sail through. To her, being true to oneself and working for no external reason are important to a satisfying life. She also said that having a compartmentalized approach, one for work and one for family, has helped her largely.

Raj added his experiences too on how vital it is to be driven by the concerns of clients (citizens of the country) while sighting instances from managing the Global Investor Meet at Bangalore. Raj complemented the panelists very well and one could see the sparks flying on the stage.

A brilliant finish to a very insightful day. Thanks CII and all the organizer for such a fulfilling gift.

India Innovation Summit- Day-1 Session-III

The theme for this panel discussion was- 'Organization and the Creation of Innovation DNA'

Though the word DNA sounds quite loaded, the weight of speakers on this panel did the justice. Chaired by Ajay Nanavati (MD, 3M India), the session revolved around good practices of managing a structured innovation program in a corporate and enabler there of. Ajay started with this cute definition, 'Research is converting Money into Knowledge and Innovation is converting Knowledge into Money'. He outlined the Innovation DNA to be comprising of- a marketplace of ideas; visionary leadership; systematic approach; and collaboration, supported by human and technical skills.

The first speaker was- Andrew J Ouderkirk (Corporate Scientist, 3M), who spoke about the yin and yang of operations execution and innovation entrepreneurship in every successful organization. At 3M, a culture of innovation stems from: Access (to markets and platforms); Resources (including 15% time, funding and network); and Systems (for New Product Introduction, Metrics, and Stores). While depicting the Periodic Table of Technologies, Andy explained the way a technology evolves. This could be evolutionary (expert led), recombinatory (scouts and architects led), or revolutionary (scouts and architects led). These technologies result into a myriad of new products and that's how innovation get managed at the powerhouse.

Next was Rahul Bedi (Director- Corporate Affairs, Intel India), this time as a panelist sharing traits of inspirational leadership. Rahul maintained that at Intel, the two drivers of culture are- Egalitarianism (equality) and Constructive Confrontation (ConCon). The former makes it truly an open door (no door as he likes to say) company, and the latter allows people to debate objectively. He also warned that often visionary leaders might overshadow the company leading to over alignment and deselection of what's not on leader's side. That's what kills diversity. That brings back to the two principles Rahul discussed that shape Intel.

Idit Biton (CMO, Systematic Inventive Thinking), furthered the discussion with a brief introduction about her company, followed by illustrating some principles of creativity. While engaging the audience in real creative exercises, Idit introduced- Subtraction as one of the useful tools for idea generation. The talk brought freshness into the session, not just because of the presentation by a lady (first one since morning), but also because of her ability to involve the audience. A well received talk.

The session was concluded by a brief talk from VR Ferose (MD, SAP Labs India) on SAP Developer Network and some of the work SAP is engaging with partner organizations.

India Innovation Summit- Day-1 Session-II

The theme for this session was: 'Changing Demographic Profile of India- Role of Youth in Innovation'

The stage was set with people from across age groups. Moderated by Rahul Bedi (Director- Corporate Affairs, Intel India), the panel focused on role of youth in innovation. Rahul started with a candid Q&A with Kaushik Srivatsan (Grand Prize Winner, Intel International Science and Engg Fair). Young Kaushik won everyone's heart with his innocent responses to some real pressing questions and lived through his journey of reaching (and then winning) the grand prize. What stood out was the role of mentors and scope of such engagements.

Next was HK Mittal (Adviser and Head- National Science & Tech Entrepreneurship Development Board). Must be in his 50s, but quite young by spirit, Mittal narrated anecdotes and stories from Indian entrepreneurs in driving the point home that Indians are ingenuous. His was the most admired and engaging talk of the day. He revealed many instances of grassroots level innovations which came from the strength of Innovation Ecosystem and often driven by personal passion.

He was immediately followed by Suhas Gopinath (CEO, Globals), who became one of the world's youngest CEOs at an age of 14. Suhas took the audience through his schools days and interesting moments of his startups journey. What came out was a profound sense of applying creativity and having an ambition.

The last talk came from Shouvick Mukherjee (Head, Yahoo! R&D India) where he discussed about the early days of his working with Yahoo! and how David Filo (Yahoo's co-founder) used to be frugal in innovation spending, but rich in customer insight. In all a well received talk session. Was the time for audience to take another break and be ready for the next session.