A talk was organised by Prof. Rao, Director, IIT Delhi on 7th July at the Department of Management Studies, IIT. It was inspirational in many ways, with anecdotal references of parity between student-teacher relationship. Some of the essential points of the lecture are as follows:
1. Students as partners: In the engineering community, a time has come to leverage the entrepreneurial ecosystem by incentivising students to become partners in commercial ventures and not treat them as subordinates.
2. Patent-Publish-Flourish: This is the new mantra of research these days. This formula has been propagated by Prof. Mashelkar, which intends that scholars and researchers must first of all aim to protect their ideas, publish it and then flourish by reaping its benefits in the long run. He gave the example of the sensor 'i sense' as to how the idea was more than 10 years ago but it was Apple that copyright "i" due to which it had to be dropped from the sensor technology.
3. Funding ideas in India: He stated how it was 10 times more challenging to fund an idea in India as compared to the US. In the US, ideas got invested for 10 times more. We still do not have an investment ecosystem in India for start-ups.
4. Indians good at only publishing: He cites as to how Indian researchers have the maximum number of publications per head. They even beat China in publication. However, it is not enough as publications lack real world problem solving and relevance.
5. How life of a researcher starts and ends in the library: He mentioned how a researcher starts the academic career by starting reading in the library and ends up with their own work being stacked up in the library.
6. Identifying a problem on which no research has been done earlier: He mentioned how important it was for a researcher to identify and common-sensically look for a problem on which no one has ever worked before - no research paper ever existing.
7. FIIT facilities may be used by non-engineers to protect fresh ideas: He authoritatively mentioned that non-scientist/ engineers must use the help of FIIT to patent their work and get back to him in case they do not cooperate.
8. Harnessing mobile tech market: He gave many examples of developing apps that can be used in everyday life, for instance one which blocks calls when you are in a classroom etc. Similarly, he mentioned about developing a mechanism by which the life of the battery is extended. He elucidated this by saying that despite advancement in phone models, there is no use as the charge fizzles out within a day!
9. Cardio research: He gave an example of how doctors are unable to identify the fatality in case of chest pain. They requested a way to identify chest pain due to heart problem versus chest pain due to other reasons. He even mentioned that in the coming time, Indians would be more prone to heart problems due their their sedentary lifestyles which they are not genetically made for as they are an "agrarian race" by profession - which now eats the same traditional food but does not do the commensurate physical activity.
10. India, case for low Agricultural Productivity: He shared statistics of how only 0.8 percent of population in the US is engaged in agriculture, yet contributes 1.2% to GDP. In India close to 45 percent of population is engaged in agriculture yet contributes only 14% to the GDP. This implies how low the agricultural productivity is in India and there is a need for more innovative ways of farming.
11. Standardising Indian food: At a time when McDonald's has been widely wound up from India, Dr. Rao mentioned why has Indian food not been able to work on a similar global food chain franchisee. A major challenge was to standardise Indian food, which varies in taste every time. Is that such big a challenge? Haldiram's has been able to do this within India, then why not outside the country?
1. Students as partners: In the engineering community, a time has come to leverage the entrepreneurial ecosystem by incentivising students to become partners in commercial ventures and not treat them as subordinates.
2. Patent-Publish-Flourish: This is the new mantra of research these days. This formula has been propagated by Prof. Mashelkar, which intends that scholars and researchers must first of all aim to protect their ideas, publish it and then flourish by reaping its benefits in the long run. He gave the example of the sensor 'i sense' as to how the idea was more than 10 years ago but it was Apple that copyright "i" due to which it had to be dropped from the sensor technology.
3. Funding ideas in India: He stated how it was 10 times more challenging to fund an idea in India as compared to the US. In the US, ideas got invested for 10 times more. We still do not have an investment ecosystem in India for start-ups.
4. Indians good at only publishing: He cites as to how Indian researchers have the maximum number of publications per head. They even beat China in publication. However, it is not enough as publications lack real world problem solving and relevance.
5. How life of a researcher starts and ends in the library: He mentioned how a researcher starts the academic career by starting reading in the library and ends up with their own work being stacked up in the library.
6. Identifying a problem on which no research has been done earlier: He mentioned how important it was for a researcher to identify and common-sensically look for a problem on which no one has ever worked before - no research paper ever existing.
7. FIIT facilities may be used by non-engineers to protect fresh ideas: He authoritatively mentioned that non-scientist/ engineers must use the help of FIIT to patent their work and get back to him in case they do not cooperate.
8. Harnessing mobile tech market: He gave many examples of developing apps that can be used in everyday life, for instance one which blocks calls when you are in a classroom etc. Similarly, he mentioned about developing a mechanism by which the life of the battery is extended. He elucidated this by saying that despite advancement in phone models, there is no use as the charge fizzles out within a day!
9. Cardio research: He gave an example of how doctors are unable to identify the fatality in case of chest pain. They requested a way to identify chest pain due to heart problem versus chest pain due to other reasons. He even mentioned that in the coming time, Indians would be more prone to heart problems due their their sedentary lifestyles which they are not genetically made for as they are an "agrarian race" by profession - which now eats the same traditional food but does not do the commensurate physical activity.
10. India, case for low Agricultural Productivity: He shared statistics of how only 0.8 percent of population in the US is engaged in agriculture, yet contributes 1.2% to GDP. In India close to 45 percent of population is engaged in agriculture yet contributes only 14% to the GDP. This implies how low the agricultural productivity is in India and there is a need for more innovative ways of farming.
11. Standardising Indian food: At a time when McDonald's has been widely wound up from India, Dr. Rao mentioned why has Indian food not been able to work on a similar global food chain franchisee. A major challenge was to standardise Indian food, which varies in taste every time. Is that such big a challenge? Haldiram's has been able to do this within India, then why not outside the country?
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