Innovation Flow

This is the second in a series of Blog posts on the Urban Mobility Challenge. You will the first post here -  https://innovationflow.blogspot.in/2016/03/future-of-urban-mobility-key-challenges.html Sustainable mobility for the future is all about creating automotive technologies that are clean, safe and fast. If we look at the urban mobility scenario today, there are three problem areas that need attention (a) pollution due to vehicular emission (b) vehicular accidents and (c) loss of productivity due to difficulty in navigating through dense traffic. Electric Vehicles are emerging as the future clean vehicle technology and will remove concerns around rising vehicular emissions. Autonomous cars have demonstrated accident-free performance for more than a million miles. Connected vehicles that can proactively communicated with signals, parking lots and other vehicles on the road are fast emerging as the solution for handling traffic jabs in the cities. The opportuniti...

I was a panelist at an International Conference on Intellectual Property organized by CII in New Delhi recently (Nov 2017). The theme was AI in Manufacturing. I made three points 1. The adoption of AI in manufacturing is too important to be slowed down by the complexity of handling IP. Just because we don't know how to handle the IP, we cannot delay benefiting from AI and Automation in Manufacturing. Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, AI and Machine Learning are set to change the landscape of Manufacturing. We can greatly accelerate innovation in manufacturing by partnering with AI. 2. The creation of patentable ideas by AI is not new. The  Creativity Machine  is the brainchild of Dr.  Stephen Thaler  and is an  Artificial Intelligence  (AI) product that not only imitates original and creative thinking, but produces it. Thaler's machine has already been credited with the invention or improvement of a number of products and the creation of a numb...

Materials Innovation for Electric, Autonomous and Connected Vehicles When I was invited to deliver the keynote address at the International Conference on Materials and Processing, I was very excited to a global audience of fellow material scientists. I decided to speak on creating a sustainable future - sustainable energy and mobility technologies. Sustainable mobility is all about creating technologies that are clean, safe and fast. The sustainability of electric vehicles depends on the availability of the battery storage material lithium - when lithium availability becomes a bottleneck, materials scientists need to discover alternative materials for lithium or create process for effective recycling and reuse of lithium from batteries. Most motors of the electric cars need strong magnets that are made of rare earth minerals - Neodymium. When Neodymium becomes scarce, innovators need to create motor designs that can work without RE magnets or find alternative magne...

I was invited by CII as a keynote speaker for their first CTO Summit (Mumbai, Nov 2017). I designed my talk around two themes (a) the challenges that a CTO faces in managing the disruptive technologies and (b) the new skills that the CTO has to acquire to lead successfully in a  VUCA world. I discussed the technologies disrupting the Mobility and Energy industry - Electric, Autonomous and Connected Vehicles, Renewable Energy etc.Analyzed their exponential growth and potential for convergence. New business grow through technology platforms rather than technology pipelines - it is a paradigm shift for the traditional CTO who has been building technology pipelines for many years now. The closed innovation model is giving way to Open Innovation model - saves cost and accelerates the development.- the CTO has to manage a distributed innovation team and handle shared IP. The CTO has to acquire four thinking skills to lead technology in this VUCA world - D esign Thinking, E xponen...

I was invited by the CII Western Council to speak to their CEOs forum on Disruptive Technologies recently (Ahmedabad, Dec 2017). I designed my talk with two objectives in mind  (a) create an awareness, among the business leaders, of the disruptive potential of certain new technologies and (b) discuss how traditional businesses should respond to disruption. Disruption arises when successful businesses fail precisely because, in the face of technological change, they continue to make the choices that made them successful in the first place. We looked at the exponential growth of technologies and the impact of their convergence - cited specific examples in AI, Data Analystis, Cybersecurity and Additive Manufacturing. Also emphasized the need for learning Robotics and IoT. Analyzed the technologies that are dependent on Infrastructure and regualation driven - renewables,  autonomous vehicles, healthcare and synthetic biology. If we analyze how GE invested in di...