Innovation Flow

I am speaking at the Nanotechnology Center, Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) on 16 August. Nanotechnology is a fertile area of inter-disciplinary research and holds great potential for solving the World's most critical problems in renewable energy, affordable healthcare, water management etc. We often read reports on promising nanotechnology inventions that seem to have the potential to positively impact the lives of people. However a very small fraction of these inventions are commercialized and made available to the common man as affordable and valuable solutions.  During my years at GE, Dow and Honeywell, I had the opportunity to work with global teams of scientists and inventors who are some of the best in Nanotechnology. I lead many programs to bring their minds together and create innovative new products enabled by nanotechnology - I had my share of successes and failures and I got some very valuable learning out of these efforts. I intend to focus my tal...

My interest in Israeli Innovations got triggered after reading a Forbe's interview with Erel Margalit  who is the founder and head of JVP, Jerusalem Venture Partners ( http://www.jvpvc.com/ ) , a leading Israeli venture capital firm dedicated to building world class media technology companies. Established in 1993, JVP now has over $900 million under management and is investing in 35 companies.  I have summarized here two insights that I picked up by reading his 7 Golden Rules for Entrepreneurs  http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2012/06/19/erel-margalit-israel-vc-7-golden-rules-to-entrepeneurs/               1. Engineers alone won’t make it. We need to put engineers together with writers, storytellers, advertising people, artists… an army of engineers alone can’t succeed. To create, it is better to be around people with different mindsets. It’s not just a world where an engineer meets another engineer, it’s a wo...

When do Great Ideas come ? .... after Incubation  Archimedes had his bath, Galileo had his leaning tower,  Newton had his apple, and Einstein had his chair. All these Inventors were (a) intensely focused on solving specific physics problems (b) they had each looked at a variety of promising ideas, but reached an impasse after some stage (c) they smartly decided to move away from the scene - took a break (d) after some time, a fresh idea popped into their Mind (e) they recognized the potential of the idea and held on to it (f) they diligently worked on it  and finally developed a real breakthrough concept. Many Inventors have shared the vale of incubating their idea and described specific instances where the incubation phase is followed by a sudden enlightenment. We have heard the stories of Archimedes, Galileo and Newton too often - so let us focus on Einstein's story. You might have heard of Einstein's Violin but not about his chair - the chair that gave...

Henri Poincare Poincare is considered as one of the great geniuses of all time and there are two very significant sources which study his thought processes. One is a lecture which Poincaré gave to l'Institute Général Psychologique in Paris in 1908 entitled  Mathematical invention  in which he looked at his own thought processes which led to his major mathematical discoveries. The other is the book  by Toulouse who was the director of the Psychology Laboratory of l'École des Hautes Études in Paris. Although published in 1910 the book recounts conversations with Poincaré and tests on him which Toulouse carried out in 1897. Poincaré read widely, beginning with popular science writings and progressing to more advanced texts. His memory was remarkable and he retained much from all the texts he read but not in the manner of learning by rote, rather by linking the ideas he was assimilating particularly in a visual way. His ability to visualise what he heard proved part...