After the resounding success of the “How will India pass China” panel, with attendance exceeding capacity, the organisers Amit Shahi and Sudhir JohnHoro from theIdeaworks were keeping their fingers crossed before the start of the next session the following day. There were several events going on that Friday afternoon in Davos.
However, the discussion on design, innovation and entrepreneurship in an emerging India, which featured panelists Paola Antonelli, Wilfried Aulbur, Bill Rusitzky, M P Ranjan, S D Shibulal and K R Shridhar, as moderated by Tim Brown, drew a very strong audience.
The topic on ‘Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Change Drivers for India’s Inclusive growth’ was a vibrant discussion on innovative design and ‘out of the box’ creativity to reduce the costs of India’s growth and frugal engineering making the benefits of this growth accessible to a wider swathe of its people.
Paola Antonelli started off by comparing India’s position as similar to that of Italy after World War II. India, she said, has a vibrant sense of life, living and a culinary culture and is well placed to utilize its talents to reduce the ecological costs of growth.
M P Ranjan spoke of the challenges faced by his design students in finding acceptance for their designs, a lacking ecosystem and among other things, creative initiatives from the Indian Institute of Craft and Design such as the use of bamboo in large scale fencing in Tripura.
Wilfried Aulbur cited Tata’s Nano car to make the point about India having the necessary innovation skills and capabilities. He believed however that an ecosystem encouraging constant and quality innovation was lacking.
K R Sridhar picked on this point as one of the reasons, along with the availability of capital, for him locating his company in Silicon Valley rather than in India. He also spoke later on about the need to develop rural connectivity and infrastructure to reduce migration to the cities, which he felt was, was unsustainable.
However, S D Shibulal countered with the view that the ecosystem was being built and of paramount importance at this stage was investment and access to relevant education.
Bill Rusitzky spoke of issues such as (lack of) intellectual property rights and piracy hampering innovation.
Towards the end of the session, J.N Godrej, who was in the audience was asked to speak about Godrej’s new refrigerator - Godrej is using innovative technology and materials to build a refrigerator tailored to meet the requirements of a rural population and run on limited infrastructure.
The discussions continued even after the session was over. Through two panels over two days at Davos, enlightened thoughts on India’s development had been aired and debated upon with Indians, expats and foreigners joining in with equal enthusiasm.
Nilav Bose is an MBA student of the London Business School. This blog represents his own views.
Photos available at INDIA Future of Change's Facebook site.
However, the discussion on design, innovation and entrepreneurship in an emerging India, which featured panelists Paola Antonelli, Wilfried Aulbur, Bill Rusitzky, M P Ranjan, S D Shibulal and K R Shridhar, as moderated by Tim Brown, drew a very strong audience.
The topic on ‘Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Change Drivers for India’s Inclusive growth’ was a vibrant discussion on innovative design and ‘out of the box’ creativity to reduce the costs of India’s growth and frugal engineering making the benefits of this growth accessible to a wider swathe of its people.
M P Ranjan spoke of the challenges faced by his design students in finding acceptance for their designs, a lacking ecosystem and among other things, creative initiatives from the Indian Institute of Craft and Design such as the use of bamboo in large scale fencing in Tripura.
Wilfried Aulbur cited Tata’s Nano car to make the point about India having the necessary innovation skills and capabilities. He believed however that an ecosystem encouraging constant and quality innovation was lacking.
K R Sridhar picked on this point as one of the reasons, along with the availability of capital, for him locating his company in Silicon Valley rather than in India. He also spoke later on about the need to develop rural connectivity and infrastructure to reduce migration to the cities, which he felt was, was unsustainable.
Bill Rusitzky spoke of issues such as (lack of) intellectual property rights and piracy hampering innovation.
Towards the end of the session, J.N Godrej, who was in the audience was asked to speak about Godrej’s new refrigerator - Godrej is using innovative technology and materials to build a refrigerator tailored to meet the requirements of a rural population and run on limited infrastructure.
The discussions continued even after the session was over. Through two panels over two days at Davos, enlightened thoughts on India’s development had been aired and debated upon with Indians, expats and foreigners joining in with equal enthusiasm.
Nilav Bose is an MBA student of the London Business School. This blog represents his own views.
Photos available at INDIA Future of Change's Facebook site.
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