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Everybody is talking about innovation, and the cheap product concept is no longer viable. You have to be ahead of others. survive ahead of others. Innovation is something which you cannot define. You have examples of innovators, but the circumstances in which innovation happens, mind-sets which innovate, all these are undefined concepts. But there are certain aspects, which probably, the policy makers and the educators can look into. One of the issue at heart, I should raise is whether our course curriculum is designed to suppress innovation or designed to provoke innovation?
Let me explain. Is our course curriculum water tight that a student with a special skill has no route to survive? Steve Jobs is a fine example. This is not a problem of our country. It is a global problem. How to integrate the innovative capability with the regular course curriculum? It is a big challenge. On one side you require a credit course to acquire a degree. On the other hand, you require skills to develop.
Since 1977 I am a faculty member and since 1979, I am with Engineering Institutions. I come with Material Science background, I am not a typical engineer but I am watching, as I am a part of an Engineering Institution. We need to distinguish between what is engineering and what is engineering Science. You have a body of knowledge and you put it into a product. And that is kind of engineering. But when we talk about engineering science, we are creating knowledge first, and that knowledge is converted to a product.
If you look at the DELL Lab profile over the years, they have kept people who had absolutely nothing to do with the Industry. Why did they keep them? Maybe, in his lifetime, one idea. They do not know when he will be useful, but they need wise people. People who can think ahead of others.
So, if we want to promote innovation, we have to give opportunity to our younger mind to show their aptitude. And where does their aptitude lie? See, you have set targets in 20 courses. The student is exceptionally good in one and in remaining 19 he is sort of average. Maybe he fails in one or two. So, what do we do then? Should he be thrown out of the institution? Or you reach a flexible structure whereby this special skills also has a place?
When we look at the history of various industries how they have evolved, many of the successful entrepreneurs have been drop outs. So, where did we go wrong? The question I’m raising is not fixed toIndia. We need a paradigm shift in any education. Also Engineering education. Engineering education is going to drive the economy. Our economy is going to be driven the way we are going to create our engineers.
I believe that many engineers may not agree with me we have to bring in a lot of Science also in Engineering. Just empirical engineering education will not help you to develop innovators. You have to train a student with certain skill and certain techniques which are required to innovate. Innovation, is a very fuzzy thing. People who make discoveries, if you ask them, how did you get these ideas, they won’t say I went along this straight line it was just a fuzzy and non-linear kind of thought process and suddenly they land up with a great idea, which is called discovery.
So, I believe that, if we bring in more of Science content in engineering. I am not pointing on the Mathematics . I am pointing on the science of engineering. That engineering component is a must, if we have to go forward from here. In Western world it does happen. In fact most of the faculty there, they are major engineering Science faculties.
In India, we have our own problems. We want to survive as one community or the other. We can’t have a community which combines the two. So we need a paradigm shift in our course curriculum, The way we teach so that students will acquire the skills. They are also given an opportunity. They are not thrown out of the system because they could not clear some papers, but they were exceptionally good in others. So, how to retain them, how to make use of their talent. That is our challenge.
I would like to request to our regulators, that how do you bring in this kind of paradigm shift by which you can provide opportunity to such talented ones.
We need to keep pace with research and development that is taking place elsewhere. Now , if our industries have to survive, they must spread in a very big way in R&D. They cannot survive on importing the latest technology and continue for some years. They have to build on that and be ahead of others, once they have imported the latest technology. They should learn from Pharma Industry, where how much they spend for one single medicine. It may or may not hit the market. The industries have to invest substantially to promote basic engineering science research. This should create some innovation.