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Is the Education system helping us innovate, or are we simply preparing the students to do assembly line work? The more uniform systems, curriculum, and structure we put in place, the more our education will deliver less innovation and design. When you give a block of wood, with two essential tools like a mallet and a chisel, to a young person, you will make the person think, design and evolve. If you give Lego blocks, a kit to assemble an aero-model or simply use templates, you will stifle design and creativity. The kits and uniform building blocks make good business sense for marketers, require less teacher effort, and quickly help build prefab models, misinterpreted as creations in our education system.
When children get a container full of play dough or our good old plasticine, they make shapes and put thought into action. If you provide moulds/ templates with the play dough, you will make them use the shape and create a mere cast! Design is an evolution of vision and free thought, from chaos to order, from fuzzy logic to logic. The essence is freedom and the evolution of the mind. ‘Jugaad’, our frugal and flexible approach to innovation has been the true spirit of an Indian. Innovation helps us do more with less, generates original ideas and pioneers growth. It all begins with the honest and true action guided by a free spirit of the young mind.
Frugality, flexibility, and following your instincts are principles we learned growing up in India. Intuition and immense adversity are the mother of best ideas. In the West, innovation is in R&D departments; in India, innovation happens at every corner of the street. Educators and trainers must provide an environment that helps a ‘free mind’ design, perhaps the only way to bring about innovation. The assembly line method of manufacturing built by Ford was indeed a way to mass produce with standards, and in good time, today we have China as the world’s factory.
Israel is a famous ‘Start-Up Nation’ with the maximum number of new enterprises listed on Wall Street. Silicon Valley, the mecca of innovation, finds a large part of the design and innovation from Israel. To ‘process and build’ is indeed good business, but to ‘design and innovate’ is of much bigger value. If we do a ‘me too’ and look at our competition, we waste the opportunity; if we reflect and think we will create, this is what education must help us do. We do not need a replica; there is always a limit to what we can do with an assembly line, and the way the people of Japan and Israel today look at innovation and design, there is a lot in it for our educators to learn.
‘Charkha’ was believed to be a symbol of self-sufficiency during India’s freedom movement, when each household was self-sufficient and innovated to build the nation. We will be happy if innovation is able to solve some of the daily problems faced by us. Given the caterpillar, it is hard to believe that one day, the butterfly will fly free! Innovation and design alone can make the mind soar and conquer new frontiers.
“Indian companies will find it difficult to truly build a global brand until they invest in technology like Samsung and LG. Indian spending on R&D is about 0.9% of GDP. China has 1.5% of GDP, which is second to the US in absolute terms! South Korea spends about 3.4% of GDP, Japan about 3.5%, and the US about 2.8% of GDP. You must spend about 3% of GDP to be a world-class leader in technological innovation. ~ Kamini Banga of The Economic Times.
What does ‘Made in India’ stand for? This is a tough question, and we need to ponder it. Are we just the suppliers of ‘low-end’ unskilled labour force or ‘high quality’ managers and talent to the world? If we want to lead the world and regain our lost glory, our education system and policy must encourage innovation and learning, not just focus on literacy statistics. When we go to a class full of innovative minds, we should make it our duty to help them think, design and innovate. Art and craft have been an intrinsic part of the Indian civilisation, yet we have not realised the true potential of innovation and design. The history of India shows our craftspeople were the leaders in design; the Taj Mahal, the famous forts and monuments that stand out worldwide, were all designed by creative Indians. Arayabhatta, Tagore, Raman, Chanakya, and many leading minds, including a legend like Mahatma Gandhi, were real innovators in their areas. Today, we are becoming an assembly line of Japanese designers, producers of crops grown from imported seeds, and sending out the best of Indian minds to empower nations worldwide.
A teacher alone can help build a great India by assisting young people to lead in innovation and design. Let us not ape competition, but be original as this alone will add the most incredible value, and who knows, the block of wood a teacher gives to the student will one day produce another marvel in design. The true ‘Guru’ today needs to be resurrected in our society and help the ‘Shishya’ reach his true potential. Innovation and design will only be possible when the teacher finds the right place in society and is able to be the actual leader society needs.
The time is now ripe for us to value our culture, develop an open learning environment and recommit ourselves to innovation and design. Gone are the days when we could pride ourselves on providing the world with engineers and doctors and delivering low-end processes. We have to reclaim our true position as leaders and innovate to succeed.
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