Published on May 21, 2020 in BusinessLine

I think that all geographies have the potential to generate new business opportunities – it is not a zero-sum game

Scientist, innovator, thought leader of the manufacturing sector, national research professor, board member of a Fortune 500 company and recipient of Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honour, Raghunath A Mashelkar wears many hats with ease.

In an exclusive interview with BusinessLine carried out over email and telephonic interaction, Mashelkar said that the post Covid-19 world would be a different world but China will continue to remain a manufacturing hub.
It is a reality, which cannot be wished away. It will be a China+1 world where global companies will spread their risks and set up their manufacturing in other geographies. In such a scenario, the Indian government and companies need to hit the gold vein and make the most of the forthcoming opportunities.

Excerpts of an interview:

1. What kind of innovative technologies are required for speeding up the manufacturing process so that our companies add manpower, increase revenues and enhance exports in the post-Covid-19 world?

Dr. Mashelkar: Digital transformation of manufacturing operations is not an option but is an absolute necessity in the post-Covid-19 world. It will not only create a more flexible, agile, and responsive manufacturing environment but will also enable manufacturers to better respond to uncertainty, volatility, and risk.

In the short term, technologies that aid social distancing will be deployed at manufacturing plants. However, in a post-Covid-19 world in which workers have to keep their distance from each other, the trend towards automation will only accelerate; therefore the addition of manpower may reduce in the long term.

Some of the innovative technologies that need to be deployed are data analytics-led demand prediction and production planning, remote assisted assembly operations through Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and AI-based face tracking solutions to manage access control instead of biometrics.

IoT solutions can be of great help in energy management, and monitoring machines’ and workers’ health. Further, AI, IoT and data analytics will help in integrating customers, employees and vendors through digital platforms.

2. You are part of the Maharashtra Government’s task force for rejuvenating the state economy. What areas of Maharashtra’s economic activity need immediate attention?

Dr. Mashelkar: The Pune International Centre Expert Group under the visionary leadership of Economist Vijay Kelkar has acted as a think-tank for the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. It has given recommendations during the current crisis on a variety of economic building blocks. It ranges from the urgent issue of supporting and saving and then boosting the growth of MSMEs, to aggressively attracting foreign direct investments by wooing global majors, who will bring ancillaries and supply chains with them, to promoting investment flows and economic growth in specific sectors such as real estate. Some of these recommendations are urgent ‘here and now’ type, and some can be implemented in the medium term and some in the long term. I am delighted to say that the Chief Minister has set up a special task force to implement the recommendations so that ideas can lead to real impact without losing time.

3. In the post-Covid-19 world, which geographies globally will generate new business opportunities?

Dr. Mashelkar: The latest IMF growth projections on the world economy have predicted that China, India and ASEAN countries will see strong growth and business opportunities. However, I think that all geographies have the potential to generate new business opportunities – it is not a zero-sum game. As organisations respond, they will try to have a more diversified supply chain in the post-Covid-19 era, an opportunity for all economies. Growth may move closer or to countries that are neighbours. For inventory management, ‘Just in time’ will give way to ‘Just in Case’. Resilience will become more important than efficiency. The world will need new products and services. Businesses can avail this as a new opportunity. Health, sanitisation, distancing, protection, transportation, deliveries, surveillance, food security, and construction are some of the areas that will bring in new opportunities for the goods and services sector.

4. With the Chinese Government and their companies being viewed with great suspicion by the global business community, what can the Indian government do to attract global investments?

Dr. Mashelkar: The new business model will not be ‘no China’ but it will be ‘less China’.

In fact, it will be ‘China +1’.

Reportedly, Google is investing in Vietnam to produce its Pixel smartphone. Microsoft will produce its Surface tablet there. That means ensuring that alternative supply options are built too, not altogether abandoning China.

In that context, India certainly has a big window of opportunity, provided ease of doing business is dramatically improved by firmly and speedily dealing with the well-known challenges, which are linked to land availability, labour law and high cost of inputs. I strongly feel that the tech sector has a good future for attracting global investments into India.

Look at what has happened ― Jio Platform received FDI of over ₹67,000 crore from major payers like Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity and General Atlantic in just four weeks, and that too when the Covid-19 pandemic was on the rampage and investments were at standstill in the rest of the world.

Why this surge in investments? Because Jio Platforms is a next-generation technology platform powered by leading technologies spanning cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain.

Just as in digital technology, we also have a huge opportunity in new biotechnology and advanced materials technologies.

5. You have strongly emphasised in your book ‘Reinventing India’ the critical importance of the trio of ‘Talent, Technology and Trust’. How relevant is it in the post-Covid-19 India?

Dr. Mashelkar: The three Ts are far more relevant now than ever before. Let me explain.

The Prime Minister just announced the ambitious launch of ‘Atmanirbhar’ Bharat, meaning a self-reliant India programme. This is both timely and laudable. However, for this aim to succeed, we require ‘Atmavishwas’, meaning trust and self-belief.

India’s greatest comparative advantage is a talent pool, but still talent, technology and trust must go together. Let me illustrate the point.

India desperately needed (and will need) large-scale testing during this pandemic, and even after this phase. For the Covid-19 testing kits, we were dependent on China. One million kits were imported and States governments started using the kits. But ICMR stopped the tests since the kits were faulty. On April 27, India cancelled an order that was already placed for half a million Chinese testing kits. My question is, can the Indian biotechnologist design, develop and deploy these kits in the country? The answer to this is a definite yes.

For instance, rising to the challenge, the Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology (IGIB) a premier Institute of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has created an innovative test, which uses cutting-edge CRISPR technology for detection of the genomic sequence of the novel coronavirus.

It specifically recognises Covid-19 sequence in a sample with greater specificity than the state-of-the-art techniques. An innovative combination of CRISPR biology and paper-strip chemistry has to lead to the visible signal readout on a paper strip. Its main advantage is its affordability (₹500 only) and relative ease of use and non-dependency on expensive Q-PCR machines.

CSIR, IGIB and Tata Sons will bring it to the market within a month. The jury is out on whether we will have the ‘Atmavishwas’, the self-belief, for wide-scale use and promote this globally-competitive technology, not only in India but also export it abroad.

In early April, India announced that it will import second-hand ventilators from abroad and now comes the US announcement of the donation of ventilators to India.

Can’t India build them on their own? Yes, we can. Let me explain.

In April, Marico Innovation Foundation had set up a grand challenge ‘Innovate2beatCOVID’ with a cash prize of ₹2.5 crore, with me as the Chairman of the jury. The prize is going to some remarkable innovations in both PPEs and ventilators, both of which today are imported.

The innovations being awarded are designed to suit Indian conditions and some of them even have features which are ahead of the state-of-the-art technology.

Again some of the innovations can help create ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in the space of PPEs and ventilators. But what is required is an aggressive and bold public procurement policy to support such innovations. I have described it in ‘The Path Ahead: Transformative Ideas for India’, a book edited by the CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant.

However, the implementation of all these transformative ideas will require ‘Atmavishwas’, the trust, the self-belief, the never-say-die spirit of ‘yes, we can’.

 

1. Why is the Queen Elizabeth Prize (QE Prize) so important? How can it inspire the future generations?

Dr. Mashelkar: Nobel prizes in chemistry, physics, economics, literature, peace and physiology or medicine over the years have acknowledged the path breaking human achievements in these fields.

There was no such equivalent of Nobel prize in engineering. And that is surprising, since engineering has played such a transformative role over centuries. QE prize, for the first time, has set up an equivalent of a Nobel prize in engineering to recognise the ground breaking work of engineers that brings global benefit to humanity.

The life & work of QE prize winners will be an inspiration for young aspiring engineers. I experienced this myself. In my Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Lecture Series in Monash University last month I gave a lecture on `Future of Engineering and Engineering our Future’ (https://echo360.org.au/media/5af3dc53-dc27-4d2b-91bc-be44d40e4985/public). There, I displayed the work and achievements of the last three years’ QE prize winners. I said that as NextGen engineers they must aspire to win this Nobel Prize equivalent in engineering. The excitement amongst the young students was palpable! I am sure the inspiration experienced in that lecture hall in Monash will start reverberating through the global young engineering community, as it sees more and more iconic QE prize winners in future.

2. Can you tell me about your initial interests in engineering – what inspired you to pursue the career?
Dr. Mashelkar: My science teacher Narhari Bhave in Union High School in Mumbai was in a way responsible for creating a trigger for my becoming an engineer.

One simple experiment in physics that he did, when I was just 13 year old, stands out in my memory. He took us out into the sun. He wanted to show us as to how to find the focal length of a convex lens. He held a convex lens in one hand, a piece of paper in other hand, and moved the lens up and down. When the brightest spot appeared on the paper, he said that the distance between the convex lens and the paper was the focal length. He held the paper for a while and the paper burnt. He said to me `If you focus like this, you can burn anything, you can achieve anything in the world’. That was an inspiring message for me- “Focus and you will achieve”.

But that simple experiment was followed by a challenge he gave us. Why should we use kerosene to do cooking? Can we not use sun’s energy for that purpose? I kept on thinking on how one could do it on a large scale. After all, you can’t have thousands of convex lenses to concentrate solar energy.

But more clarity emerged when my teacher demonstrated the process to make soap in our lab and followed it up by our visit to a Hindustan Lever factory in Mumbai. There we saw the manufacturing of thousands of soaps in an assembly line. I understood the power of engineering, making goods on a large scale for society, and also doing good for society. Engineering appeared as a noble profession to me. That inspired me. So at a very early age, I decided to become an engineer. The credit really goes to my high school teacher, Narhari Bhave!

3. The UK and India have recently set out a number of initiatives designed to help with the progression of technology and science, by sharing expertise. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-india-agree-ambitious-new-tech-partnership) Why do you think it is important to share knowledge across borders?

Dr. Mashelkar: India & UK always had vibrant links in research but now these are getting extended to innovation also. Research converts money into knowledge. Innovation converts knowledge into money. And the way to do it is increasingly by innovative co-creation in a borderless world through partnership.

UK has been the second biggest science partner with India. UK has been always amongst the top few nations in science, whereas India is the fastest rising nation in term of science. UK is already a start-up nation, the Cambridge phenomenon took place 30 years ago. India is a ‘starting up’ nation. The Bangalore phenomenon has taken place only in the past 10 years. So the partnership between UK and India can be a win-win, not only for them both, but for the whole world.

I have a few suggestions on what can be done to make these links more inspiring and impactful.

First, we should create a Indo-UK young scientists network by picking up the brightest scientists in their early thirties from India and UK and funding joint projects. These early bonds will persevere for next five-six decades. And who knows they might jointly win a Nobel Prize or QE prize one day!

Second, inclusive innovation with `affordable excellence’ is what the world needs. While Indian scientists and engineers have an uncanny ability to think and design for extreme affordability, UK scientists dazzle in excellence. Joining hands for such affordable excellence projects, say in health, education, energy, food security and communication, could be a win-win.

Third, UK is already digital. India is on its way to becoming digital. For example, in mobile data transmission, India jumped from the 155th position two years ago to the first position six months ago. Therefore, there is a great scope for creating joint virtual centres of excellence and innovation, which can create enormous impact.

Fourth, India and UK should work on grand challenges that will not only be mutually beneficial, but bring benefits to the world. Take the specific challenge in our war on climate change. Who knows, a grand challenge set up to convert carbon dioxide by a disruptive photocatalytic technology at atmospheric temperature and pressure to synthetic fuels may lead to a great breakthrough! The Newton-Bhaba Fund is a great idea. We can now raise the bar by tuning it to really ambitious grand challenges.

4. Engineering is one of the most common career choices in India (studies indicate that India produces 1.5 million engineers every year from 4000 institutes). Why do you think this is and can it be problematic?

Ans. In the India of the fifties, the career choice was largely made by the parents. In a poverty-stricken India, parents would naturally choose a profession that provided the family with the highest income. And that profession used to be engineering back then.

In later generations, the choice was made by the young students themselves, who looked for big career opportunities. As Indian manufacturing industry grew in all sectors, demands for engineering graduates increased. As India grew as a software power, with offshoring growing exponentially, Y2K challenge appearing at the turn of the century, very large job opportunities came up and software engineering became the most sought after.

I remember that a couple of decades ago, one third of the Indian export was created by young IT and IT service engineers (who constituted only 0.06% of Indian population) with an average age of 26 years! That demand remains unabated. Now, every year, 300,000 engineers are hired by IT and IT services industry.

Something or someone catches the imagination of the young and makes them want to emulate. In early eighties, when engineers like Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani created Infosys as an IT start-up and went on to become billionaires, young people wanted to follow them by getting into engineering profession. When Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) created a world record by making India the first ever nation to successfully launch the Mars Orbiter Mission in its very first attempt, and that too at one tenth of the US costs for their Mars Mission, young people got inspired by this engineering feat and everyone wanted to join ISRO! When Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, an engineer, became India’s president, respect for the profession shot sky high!

What is the downside? Engineering schools have mushroomed. India is producing an extraordinary number of engineers. But does the quantity match the quality? The answer is no. In fact only a fraction of engineers turn out to be job worthy or job ready. Many companies, therefore, make the graduates go through `finishing schools’. So number without a consistent all-round quality is a big challenge!

5. Can you tell me about your approach to engineering and how to most effectively use resources to benefit the maximum amount of people?

Ans. What engineering would be most crucial for the 21st century? According to me, it will be ‘Gandhian engineering’. I remember two of Gandhi’s tenets: “I would prize every invention of science made for the benefit of all” and “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not every man’s greed”. The first tenet refers to equity. The second tenet refers to sustainability.

Serving the needs of billions of `have nots’ means making products and services available not just at `low cost’ but at `ultra-low cost’. But the `have nots’ do have aspiration for the highest quality and performance. This means doing what looks impossible at first sight. Despite income inequality, create access equality. But what does that mean?

Let us ask some challenging questions:

– Can we make high speed 4G internet available at 10 cents per GB, and make all voice calls free of cost – that too in a large and diverse country like India?
– Can we make high-quality but simple breast cancer screening available to every woman, that too at the extremely affordable cost of $1 per scan?

– Can we make a portable, high-tech ECG machine which can provide extremely accurate reports immediately and that too at the cost of 8 cents a test?

– Can we make highest quality eye imaging device that is portable, non-invasive and costs 3 times less than conventional devices?

Amazingly, all this has been achieved in India, not only by using technological innovation but also non-technological innovation.

Industrial enterprises strive for getting `more from less for more’. That meant getting more (performance) from less (resource) for more (profit). But Gandhian Engineering has a different message. It means getting more (performance) from less (resource) for more (people), not just for more (profit).

MLM philosophy of Gandhian Engineering is spreading worldwide now.
The emerging economies like India are going for it, since they see that the rising income inequality will create social disharmony. They find that Gandhian Engineering is the only way to solve the problem.

But the MLM strategy is spreading worldwide. It began with C.K. Prahalad and I writing a paper `Innovation’s Holy Grail: More from Less for More’ in Harvard Business Review (July-August 2010). This was followed by World Economic Forum holding a special session on More from Less from More’ on 16 November 2010. The message continues to spread, as Fraunhofer, Germany had a special colloquium on `More from Less for More’ in Munich on 29 October 2016.

But there is more serious interest. I was invited by the European Commission to do a strategy paper titled “Organising Inclusive Innovation for Accelerated Inclusive Growth” and later I was invited to give a talk on ‘Innovation under Adversity’ in Innovation 2014 conference organised by European Union in Brussels. Gandhian Engineering figured prominently here. Several discussions later, EU is beginning to realise that quality, sustainability and affordability together are going to be the key to EU’s competitive advantage, not just the first two on which EU had focused so far. So EU is bringing in policy changes to see how frugal innovation based on Gandhian Engineering principles can be used to create a strategic advantage.

Big enterprises like GE, Siemens, Unilever, etc. are changing their strategies to create products belonging to the `affordable excellence’ category by using MLM strategies. A classical case is GE’s affordable $ 600 portable ECG machine (MACTM i).

Top academics of the world are getting involved too. For instance, Harvard University researchers have created an inexpensive detector, just costing US$ 25 that can be used by health care workers in the world’s poorest areas to monitor diabetes, detect malaria, discover environmental pollutants, and perform tests that are done by machines that cost thousands of dollars.

Gandhian Engineering is all about creating a more equitable society. It is all about designing a sustainable future for the mankind. Therefore, I feel personally happy that Gandhian Engineering has caught the fancy of the world.

6. Can you divulge details on the current global skills gap in engineering (we have global data which shows a clear undersupply) and what this means for economic development

Dr. Mashelkar: Yes, indeed. A skills gap exists both in terms of quantity & quality, although the distribution is very uneven. For instance, the shortage in terms of numbers for advanced economies is larger than that for emerging economies, like India or China. Why this skill gap? Besides the obvious reasons of inability to attract students for the engineering stream, in the developed world, there are others too.

First, the rate of change itself is accelerating! Engineers created exponential technologies (IOT, Robotics, AI, AR, VR, Blockchain ….). But exponential technologies themselves are rapidly changing the nature of work and jobs for engineers, thereby creating a skill gap.

Second, the context itself is changing. Today we talk about Science 2.0, Education 3.0, Society 3.0 and Industry 4.0. The next generation of engineers have to be skilled to get fully aligned with these changes.

Third is the issue of dramatic paradigm shifts. Data is new oil now. AI is new electricity now. Business model innovations (like Uber) are leading to Transport as a Service (TAAS) disruption, which is affecting traditional industries in which engineers worked (e.g. auto industry, auto value chains (from repair and maintenance shops to car financing), trucking, shipping, etc.).

In my own profession, chemical engineering, we have moved our engineering from micro to meso to macro. Thus the range of length scales that we deal with range from nanometres (nano materials) to micron (microfluidics) to millimetres (granular materials) to meters (chemical reactors) to kilometres (atmosphere, oil resources).

To deal with all this we need to create next-gen engineers. They have to be solution engineers (who use trans-disciplinary thinking, since the distinction between engineering disciplines is vanishing), whole-brain engineers (will require both left and right brain, since human empathy will be as important as engineering) and holistic engineers (moving from simple to complicated to complex problems, which involve environment, economics, regulations, society ….).

Continuing this issue of the list of new skills requirement at the top of the list we will have complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, co-working, cognitive flexibility, and all these coupled with emotional intelligence.

What we have considered so far is the `why’ and `what’ part of the skill deficit. The `how’ part of creating the skills and competencies of it is equally important.

The engineering educational institutions will have to move from compliance to innovation and from collecting dots to connecting dots. The students’ paradigm shifts will involve moving from memorising to processing, from completing to creating, from answering to asking, from isolation to collaboration and from marching to reflecting.

The teachers will have to shift from being teacher-centred to student-driven, from telling to listening, from presenting to facilitating, from being content experts to process experts and from mass production to mass customisation.

7. What are your views for those considering a career in engineering?

Dr. Mashelkar: First and foremost, they must understand that engineering is a great bridge between science & society. So they should consider themselves as not the conventional brick and mortar bridge builders, but builders of a science-society bridge that will decide the future of humanity.

Why the future of humanity? Take just one example. The threat of climate change is real, and does not discriminate – it will affect all of us severely. It threatens the very continuity of life on our planet. We need innovation that will save the world, and engineers will have the gigantic task of doing it. So they can be the leaders in saving the world.

Finally, what should be their motivation? The inspiring inscription on the Lamme Medal of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA says it all. It says “The engineer views hopefully the hitherto unattainable”. So they, as young engineers will not only be able to `view’ the unattainable but also `achieve’ the seemingly unattainable. What can be more exciting than that?

8. What are your career highlights to date?

Dr. Mashelkar: First, I broke convention by setting a small personal example of reversal of brain drain. I left attractive academic positions in US and UK and returned to India at an early age of 33 in response to the clarion call given by the then Prime Minister to reverse brain drain. Then, under very adverse and resource-starved conditions, I established India’s first ever polymer science and engineering department in National Chemical Laboratory, which later attained international acclaim.

Second, despite severe resource constraints, I was able to do quality research, mainly in engineering analysis of rheologically complex fluids, polymer reaction engineering and analysis, synthesis and novel applications of stimuli responsive polymers. This research earned me high accolades such as FRS, Fellowships of US National Academy of Science as well as Engineering, and even honorary doctorate from 39 Universities around the world. So I showed that it was not the `power of budgets’ but the `power of ideas’ that matter.

Third, I am proud to say that the idea of Gandhian Engineering in terms of `More from Less for More’ that I proposed ten years ago has spread around globally.

Fourth is about not only my doing science, but leading science, and making transformative changes. When I took over as Director of India’s National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) in 1989 I took up the challenge of converting it into an `International Chemical Laboratory’. We moved from import substitution to creating globally competitive technologies and international patenting. NCL began licensing its patents even to leading companies in Europe & U.S., becoming the first Indian laboratory to do such a `reverse transfer of technology’.

This leadership continued with my being appointed as the youngest Director General of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), which is one of world’s largest research & technology organisation with 40 National laboratories. I conceived & successfully led the process of transformation of CSIR. This has been heralded by some as being one of the ten most significant achievements of Indian science and technology in the twentieth century.

The fifth highlight makes me particularly proud as an engineer. I was just 39 years old when one of the toughest responsibilities was given to me by Government of India. I was appointed the Technical Assessor for the One Man Inquiry Commission that investigated world’s worst industrial disaster, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy that killed 3,787 people on 2 December 1982 and maimed thousands for life. Although there was a pressure to get foreign consultancy/advice, I said there was no need for that. Using our own strong indigenous capacity of complex engineering analysis, advanced modelling and simulation, I led the entire team that unravelled the cause of the accident.

Finally, the proudest moment of my career so far.

The day was 17 July 1998. On that day, a boy, who struggled to get his education due to extreme poverty, who studied under street lights and who walked kilometres on barefoot to his school, got inducted as Fellow of Royal Society and had the honour of signing in the same book in which Newton and Einstein had signed. That boy was me! That was the proudest moment of my life.

In Conversation
With Dr. Raghunath A Mashelkar-National Research Professor and President- National Teachers’ Congress-2019

Q. What does the Theme – LEAPFROGGING TO FUTURE READY HIGHER EDUCATION signify?

Dr. Mashelkar: India will have to move from `right to education’ to `right education’ to `right way of education’ in view of the great disruption that digital exponential technology is going to create. So we need teachers, who will be able to use right way of education to provide right education.

First on right education. A recent report by U.S. Department of Labour said that almost two thirds of the senior school going children will be doing jobs that do not exist today. So how does our education system prepare our students for jobs that don’t exist today? That requires visionary thinking.
No matter what disruptions take place with newly emerging technologies that can’t be predicted today, there will be five skills that will have an evergreen value.

First, dealing with complexity. Second, critical thinking. Third, creativity. Fourth, emotional intelligence. Fifth ability of co-working, co-creation, and that too with both men and machine together. The right education system for new India should be geared to that. So again, we need teachers, who will be able to prepare students with these five skills.

To my mind, this is what future ready higher education is going to be.

Q. How do you suppose a ‘change’ can be reinforced? How do various session Themes & Sub-Themes Address these?

Dr. Mashelkar: It is not just the change but the rate of rate of change that is going to matter.

I recommend few shifts that are required in our education system.
Coming to your question, the various Themes and Sub Themes should touch upon these ‘shifts’ during the course of discussions.

The 10 Major Shifts for Students

1. Completing to Creating (Previously the only objective of the student was to complete the homework given, now it’s more about creating something new.)

2. From Passive to Active Learning. (Passive is what happens when there’s a one way communication and rest of the class listens and takes notes, active is an interactive classroom)

3. Consuming to Producing (Presently, students are consumers of knowledge resource created for decades, they have now to participate in producing it)

4. Memorizing to Processing (Previously it was all about merely memorizing and just reproducing – now it is about processing for deep learning and not just storing.)

5. Replicating to Creation (The previous culture of `copy everything that you see or can’ has to be replaced by creation of new ideas, concepts, knowledge)

6. Isolation to Collaboration (students were all working individually – now they should be co-working with a team)

7. Marching to Reflecting: (Rather than being one to follow without thinking as when the army marches, one now needs to think and reflect)

8. From Rigid to Fluid (Rigid curricula and structures to open, flexible and dynamic ones)

9. Dependent to Autonomous. (From being dependent on top hierarchical authority to having distributed power)

10. From Answering to Asking (Teachers would ask and students would answer – now the process will have to be reversed as students will know more, thanks to easy, affordable access to knowledge)

The 10 Major Shifts for Teachers

For Teachers, some of the major shifts that are already occurring world over are –

1. Teacher Centric to Student Centric (From teachers deciding and dictating what’s good for the students, irrespective of student needs to tailoring to individual student needs)

2. Telling to Listening (In digital world, students will come to class already prepared, so no use teaching them what they have already learned, teachers will have to listen and learn)

3. Mass production to Mass customization: (One size fits all approach in terms of content and delivery to customizing learning modules for each student according to his capacity)

4. Linear to Multiple Streams of Education (single degrees in narrow specification to multiplicity and diverse disciplines)

5. From being a Presenter to being a Facilitator (Teachers going from mere presenters of knowledge to being facilitators of interactive learning among knowledge rich students)

6. From Compliance to Divergence (Rather than compliance with fixated processes and structures, need based dynamic divergence processes)

7. Scarcity to Abundance (knowledge restricted previously to books in library with limited access to now full access on a smartphone in one’s pocket)

8. From being Content Experts to Process Experts (content freely available, the process of delivering the content will be critical)

9. From collecting the dots to connecting the dots (Rather than students just being taught to collect information, now they will have to be able connect even seemingly different facts and figures)

10. Instructor to conductor (Rather than just giving education as instruction, teacher will play a role of a conductor of an orchestra, where students will be co-working and co-creating).

Q. Some of the Speakers at NTC 2019 are referring to IR 4.0, Education 2.0, and Science 2.0, how are these integral to the ‘Change’ we are referring?

Dr. Mashelkar: My recent book which is going to be launched on the day our conference, i.e. 4 January, speaks of ‘Leapfrogging to Pole-vaulting’. We cannot Pole-vault given the complexities, but we can certainly Leapfrog, therefore the theme is presently restricted to leap frogging.

This is the link we discuss during the session on ‘Future Ready Right Education: Right Way of Higher Education’ to which I have made an early reference. So I don’t have to go to a Library anymore, the entire library is accessible to me in the mobile in one’s pocket. There is no need for me to work 9 to 5, I can work 24 X 7 and plan my day to shift my lifestyle.

We have moved from Education 1.0 (Gurukul System, one-to-one learning with monopoly of few) to Education 2.0 (Assembly Line learning suited to Industrial Era, one teacher and 100 students) to Education 3.0 (Computerization era and the present digital disruption).

Incidentally education 3.0 will have a different `right way of education’. Our current ways will have to change dramatically to the third paradigm of education, where information memorisation and brute force recall will be made irrelevant. From `brain as storage’ to `brain as an intelligent processor’ will become the norm. Rich formatted content, flipped classrooms, and research material from the best faculty on a subject will be available for free. On demand tutoring, P2P learning, personalised and generative course structure and sequencing to meet the individual needs will be the order of the day.

So Education cannot be considered in Isolation. We have to look at Education 3.0. Industry 4.0, Science 2.0 and beyond all in a connected realm.

Q. What are the Methods? How far do Faculty Development Programs help?

Dr. Mashelkar: The challenge will be for the old teachers to transform their old ways of teaching and adapt to new changes. You cannot devalue or disregard their experience. No. You cannot replace people overnight. That’s not the solution. But how do you make them active participants and leaders of this process transformation.

Therefore, when we speak of leapfrogging, the methodology itself requires Innovation. The mindsets have to change. Students will adapt fast. Teachers have to change to match or exceed their speed. Will carrot and stick approach work or does it require self-motivation and self-discipline? I would prefer the latter. What should be the metrics of measuring performance of the teachers in this digital era-that needs to change? Paranter like teacher to student rates will loose a meaning because one digital teacher can teach a million students!

What we require is “Education in Innovation and Innovation in Education”. That’s the need of the hour. Teachers will have to constantly think of what Innovations can one bring in one’s teaching. Process of `Best Practices’ has to be moved to `Next Practices’.

*The interview is written and reproduced by Ms. Shruti Namjoshi-Sr. Corporate Communications Manager-MITWPU based on insights received during NTC Conveners Meeting with Hon’ble Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar.

The towering scientist stands tall – literally and figuratively- whose dedication to Science is legendary; the person who gave India the new Panchsheel (Child –centered education; Woman-centered family; Human-centered development; Knowledge-centered society and Innovation centered India) declares unequivocally -“Science per se is the quest of truth. And it embraces all the truth it sees”

Does that mean all Science is value-neutral? “Pretty much” quips Dr. Raghunath. A. Mashelkar (making his name abbreviate as RAM) and declares that the ways of creating Science are above board, rational and open to be whetted or tested by anyone. The Padmashri, Padmabhushan and Padmavibhushan recipient believes that the problem of ethics and morality, however, lies with the people who practice it, he adds, by chaffing away the ‘doings’ from the ‘doer’

And perhaps for the very same reasons, he refrains from making any blanket judgments about India in totality, especially on the topic of ethics. India, he declares, is a land of mixed blessings holding in its fold islands of excellence as well as cesspools. “On just about every parameter of corporate life, one can find enough data to praise it or condemn it – and the topic of ethics is no exception”

Mashelkar, who has graced his presence in the past and continues to do so, on the Boards of various top ranking corporate companies in India, finds the vicissitudes in the issue relating to governance in Indian corporate world reflecting the people they represent. Diversity and complexity being the hallmark in Indians in every way, the issue of Business Ethics is no different. “We have a long way to go in Business Ethic or even personal ethics for that matter” he contends.

The probable causes of this he purports are numerous. “Partly it is based on the way we are brought up” he says, “The idea of loyalty itself has various shades and meaning to an average Indian. It pans from family, to village, town, city, state and so on. And at every position, a person’s loyalty is subjected to a test to a point where a person is likely to lose his orientation of what exactly he stands for!” Adding further to this societal expectation, is the obeisance expected to the dictum Father knowest the best. One cannot question the given in the rigidity of hierarchical structures around it, which all contribute to stall individual pace of personal growth. The legacy of such a process comes in the way of overall progress since the society survives and sustains on shared meaning of these values. In Mashelkar’s opinion these dual expectations have made it difficult for an individual to survive merely off the strength of one’s own value system.

“But all that is changing” he says with robust optimism that pervades Mashelkar’s persona making him very hopeful for a better India at a rapid pace from 2020 onwards. And the reasons for the optimism are the several observations he makes about the Indian society over the past two decades. Thirty years ago, he contends, the impact could not have been as profound or stirring. “Thanks to the Media”, says Mashelkar, “that has made the bottoms-up deluge of all facts and aspects of public life accessible to the electorate. A common man can watch the everyday drama in the social life each evening in his own home.” Each moment of public life is thereby become accountable to the common man.

Mashelkar joins the contemporary visionaries in resting his sanguinity in the youth of India. He cites several instances from his interaction with the young, the able, the aspiring, the dreaming young men and women that form the 55% of our populous land. Of these interactions, what etches out as being the most significant one was the time he spent with slum children on his 70th birthday. What amazed him most was how conscious and articulate these little children were about the two major concerns that are undoubtedly the bane of Indian public life: degrading ecological environment and corruption. The degree of self-reliance they expressed to cure themselves of these evils was heartening to Mashelkar. “This readiness was unusual and I am certain that a modern India will be much different from its preceding years” he adds with justifiable confidence.

However, when one turns to the issues of governing the country, here too, Mashelkar finds the good and the worse work in tandem. Among the issues that hearten him the most of crossing the major milestone in public accountability by passing the Act of Right to Information. This, in his opinion, has made voluntary or involuntary ‘accountability’ a right of citizens especially when outcomes of any actions undertaken affect them. The other commendable phenomenon occurring along with it is Corporate Governance which has become like an all-pervasive movement in modern India.

Being the Director of almost 40 science establishments in India and having created India’s first ever Polymer Science and Engineering Department at NCL, Pune, Mashelkar has indubitably led Science in India. He unequivocally has an upfront and close view of the workings of these institutes. “Science and Truth always go together, for, Science is in the quest of Truth” asserts Mashelkar, “though, the ones who practice Science do not automatically become truthful”, he adds cautiously.

Mashelkar nevertheless accentuates unconditionally that by and large the institutes of Science in India are a cut above the rest in matters of governance and their standards are comparable to the best in the world. Though there have been instances of deviation at times, he claims, these are exceptions and certainly not a rule; irrespective of the fact that these are Research or Defense or Science or Space research Organizations.

Better still, Mashelkar contends, is the private corporate sector in India that has set a bench mark for Corporate Governance to a Nation that increasingly continues to become a nation of entrepreneurs. Those of whom who win Mashelkar’s indubitable admiration are Ratan Tata, whose company Board Mashelkar graces; and Narayan and Sudha Murthy – although these sets of people belong to a completely different genre of wealth creators, “who practice more of it rather than preach in matters of business ethics” says Mashelkar.

It is the Indian Government and its governance, or rather, the lack of it, which drives a wedge in Mashelkar’s optimism for a better India. “I worry less about budget deficit than the Trust deficit that has been ushered by the successive governments.” says Mashelkar, “This trust deficit is palpable between society and government; between industry and government and this entire deficit is affecting Science in India” laments Mashelkar. “People are losing faith at all levels since who you know has become more important than what you know” he adds.

Where next?

Mashelkar points out to the trajectory of history of businesses and the transits that have occurred thus far. The first wave banked upon the Physical-capital (land, money, building); the second wave banked on Knowledge-capital (information and technology and the skill sets) and the present one will bank on Ethical-capital adding on to earlier two. The trend of ranking of global corporates carried out by the likes of The Ethisphere Institute that ranks businesses not by their capital worth but by their ethical worth is writing on the wall for aspiring entrepreneurs anywhere in the world. Ethical capital, in Mashelkar’s opinion, will be the conscience-keeper of the businesses the world over.

In order that such capital thrives in India, Mashelkar categorically underlines his favorite penchant: education in Innovation and innovation in Education. Ethics, for him, is not just about good behavior towards people alone; it is the regard for planet, people, prosperity to all (not just a few).

Mashelkar, himself a recipient of honorary doctorates bestowed by a whopping thirty four universities, is a dedicated professor who finds a huge following at the courses he offers each summer at various universities abroad. He believes that the Academia can contribute greatly in imparting education on the subject. He believes, along with engineering and technology content, if the subjects like Logic, Ethics, Social philosophy and Economics were to be bought center-stage (having being banished from the engineering and technological courses in universities in the 70s), the young minds can be shaped to keep aware of these concerns that affect so many. In the race for specialization the awareness for these subjects has been the worst casualty, he contends.

The actual imparting of these subjects is of course, another matter. Mashelkar contends that the methodology ought to include real case studies, carry contemporary relevance , replete with examples and application on issues of ethics and be woven seamlessly into the grid of what engineering, science and technology can do and ought to do. He observes, ‘extra-ordinary stories of ordinary people coming from neighboring environment’ make greatest impact on young minds and have the potential for emulation.

Once a student trained in this environment moves into the real working space of Science, Mashelkar, who has been the President of Indian National Science Academy and been the Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for over a decade, believes, Science Institutions can help better ethical environment for Science in India.

Institutes like Indian National Science Academy (which he has presided on ); Indian Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (which he has presided for eleven years) and others such can choose to lay thrust and create pressure on ethical matter in Science through their own activities. When he compares the efforts taken by the UK based Royal Academy of Engineering (of which he is a Fellow); Royal Society of London (of which he is a Fellow) or the US based US National Academy of Science (of which he is a Foreign Associate) and US National Academy of Engineering (of which he is a Foreign Associate), efforts in Indian Institutions pale into insignificance.

Though at NCL (National Chemical Laboratories) Pune, there is no formal training, mentoring or counseling program undertaken for these subjects, Mashelkar informs that this is done more on informal lines by discussing and scrutinizing methodologies of practicing Science: the process of experimentation, publishing and sharing of these experiments, at each stage ensuring that facts and truth is not overlooked or sacrificed. “The very fact that NCL has provided the best of leadership for several science institutes in India is a testimony to how NCL has been a crucible to create ethical leadership in world of Science in India” informs Mashelkar.

Government and Judiciary

Mashelkar thinks that greater momentum for greater ethical environment in democracy can be fostered well by its famed four pillars: Executive (Government), Legislature (Parliament & State Assemblies, etc); Judiciary (Supreme Court, High Court & Other Judicial centers) and Media (Newspaper, Internet, Blogs & whatever which expresses people’s aspirations). Amongst these,he asserts, media needs to focus more on becoming a ‘responsible’ media,, while accomplishing its own job.

Through Mashelkar’s experience of chairing twelve high powered committees in India established to examine a variety of issues including higher education, national fuel policy, the drug regulatory system, and the agriculture research system, he is of the firm opinion that India does not need more rules to govern Science. All it needs is better rules. The better rules can only be arrived at by processing the existing rules through the filter of review, renewal and sunset. “When rules get out of context, relevance and is clearly outdated, we forget to send these into the sunset” quips Mashelkar.

And as for serving justice, Mashelkar says, “Only if the Judiciary ensures that justice is swift, severe and sure, the administration will regain the Trust deficit it presently faces”

Mashelkar strongly argues in the favor of creating an environment of responsible science and technology. He believes that if India wishes to be the flag-bearer of producing more from less for more people, and not just for more profit (another of his penchants), technology is the best help one can have. But every new Technology is bound to throw up new challenges when it comes to ethics. This is intensified even more when any of Recombinant DNA technologies happen to be at the core of the debate. And in India, he adds, we have two extreme responses to it: preventive (too scared to apply) or permissive (mindless application of it). Mashelkar is of the opinion that our approach should be that of being promotional (active fostering for technology because without which, humanity cannot address its own increasing needs) and precautionary (scientific validation of all things that can go wrong with the technology and making sure that these are prevented at all costs).

It is at this very juncture that the practitioners of Science of tomorrow, sums up Mashelkar, who will have to don new hats with new set of responsibilities. The scientists of tomorrow that India needs ought to have a global perspective, be careful of what unintended impacts their scientific contribution are likely to make, be a truthful practitioners of their craft and be humane leader of their flock.

Meeting Dr Raghunath Mashelkar would be a dream come true for any true blooded city reporter. Meeting him for an interview that has nothing to do with his achievements as an eminent scientist and achiever but as an conceptualiser and an editor, whose latest book on Gandhi has made him part of an Indian’s everyday conversation is a priceless opportunity that came to me on a platter.

The venue and the time were fixed.

All I had to do was show up. And read the book in concern, of course. Which I did.

Timeless Inspirator – Reliving Gandhi – can leave us, the third generation Indian of an Independent India – dumbfounded. After reading about 10 chapters it also struck me that this book can also inspire us; this third generation, cynical Indian who has grown up bombarded by varying views on the Father of our Nation, his eccentricity, his sexual preferences, his idealism, his weakness and so on – leading us to decry the essence of his principles and teachings in our lives altogether.

Reaching out to this sceptic, this Indian, me, is this compilation of the thoughts and beliefs of the existence, prevalence and relevance of Gandhi’s teachings through 45 icons of an emerging superpower; a compilation that proves to us that though we may disparage the relevance of Gandhi today, the 45 icons of our nation believe that his teachings hold merit today more than ever before.

This book brought me a sense of connect with the MAN, not the icon, the persona or the legend, making me move on from merely referring to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as Bapu and Father of the Nation to the fourth generation Indian of an independent soon-to-be-superpower India growing in my own home, to someone whose thoughts and ideals are worth holding on to even today.

Pune Metro (PM) caught up with Dr Mashelkar (Dr M) at his office on a sunny afternoon where he spoke about what Gandhi meant to him, how the book originated in his mind and where he sees the book heading.

PM: “First of all, our heartiest congratulations on the launch of this unique work of art. It is an amazing compilation and a superb product.”

Dr Mashelkar: “Yes. It’s a world class product in terms of quality. The design of the cover has the names of the icons – it’s their book. And the two wheels of a Charkha were replaced by a symbol of infinity to exemplify the timelessness of the ideas captured in the book.”

PM: “How did the idea of the book originate?”

Dr Mashelkar: “Well, I was honoured by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering in 2008, when I gave a speech entitled `Indian Innovation: From Gandhi & Gandhian Engneering’. I had then said that India’s greatest gift to the world in the 21st century would be Gandhiji’s teachings.

I spoke about Gandhian Engineering (More from less for more) anchored on the two important tenets – affordability and sustainability. Later I wondered how an architect or a scientist or a corporate leader today would view Gandhi’s philosophy. I wanted to include a kaleidoscope of experiences that spoke of Gandhiji’s philosophy and its relevance today. Thus the idea was born.

Amazing thing about this project is that idea was conceived in March 2010 and the book came out in October. So concept to realisation took just 6 months.”

PM: “What prompted you to choose these 45 icons that have been featured in the book?”

Dr Mashelkar: “The idea was to contact the iconic achievers of the country, all of them I hold in high regard. From people like Narayana Murthy, scientists like R K Pachauri, social workers, people who have done a lot for society, Abhay Bang, Dr Mohan Dharia, people like Kiran Bedi, who transformed Tihar jail, sportsmen like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar… a kaleidoscope. Amazingly, practically all 50 of them said we can’t say No to you. As you can see from the list they are the busiest of the lot. 45 could submit their manuscripts in time.”

PM: “The book is outstanding. What according to you was the strength that ensured this book was out in 6 months flat?”

Dr Mashelkar: “I must admit here that I had a terrific editorial team – Jayshree Shahade, Dr Triveni Goswami Mathur, Sushil Borde. I would say the contribution of people like Abhijeet (Pawar) was fantastic because when we approached him for publication of this book it took him 10 seconds to say yes. Ashutosh and his team in Sakal publications worked so hard. And finally, for the launch we decided that the last of the Gandhian that we have, Mohan Dharia, he is 87, should release this book and where else but Aga Khan Palace to release this book and what other day but 2nd October to release it. The day, time was right and the whole experience at the release function was so uplifting and there you are!”

PM: “Who is your personal favourite amongst the 45 authors who’ve contributed to the book?”

Dr Mashelkar: (Laughs) “They’re all my favourites. I cannot really single any one out. All of them have also been friends by the way. People like Sam Pitroda, Sunil Gavaskar, Kiran Bedi I’ve known for a long time. (Narayana)Murthy and I have been very close. Rahul (Bajaj) is a personal friend, R K Pachauri, Pachy as we call him is also a friend. So practically everyone out of the 45 has been very well known to me.

But if you ask me what is the reader’s reaction, even some of my best friends, who are scientists said that when we got the book in hand we read Sachin (Tendulkar) further adding we will read the remaining later (laughs). That tells you about the unabashed admiration that every Indian has for Sachin.

I think all of them are absolute gems. All of them are people I respect enormously. All of them are also people with enormous integrity.”

PM: “What I found incredible as a reader is that some of them such as Sam Pitroda or Pachauri who we know so little about as ‘people’ there’s a lot of personal insight that has gone into their writing.”

Dr Mashelkar: Yes, you are right. I would like to quote from what Vijay (Bhatkar) told me (he sends an email to Gandhiji). When I first read his piece there were tears rolling down my eyes. Vijay said “I didn’t write it. It was like somebody else was writing it for me, like he told me to write it.”

And most authors have thanked me for giving them a chance to write because they said we did a huge introspection.

Actually if you want to know more about these individuals, you will get to know about them by reading this book and what they have written. It’s a kind of a mirror. Look at Rahul Bajaj – he is so transparent. He has tried to look at himself (in his write up). He has done enormous introspection – how he has lived up to the values of his father, etc…

Some of them told me that because of this challenge they bought books and read Gandhi again.

Many of them did it under conditions that were so hard . For example, Anil Kakodkar was down with Malaria and Pneumonia at the same time. He came out of the hospital and wrote his piece.

Perhaps the busiest of them all, Narayana Murthy was the first to submit.”

PM: “What are your expectations from the book?”

Dr Mashelkar: “I have great expectations from this book. I want it to be read by the younger generation. We’re trying to get the book to reach out to them.

What we see in the book is India’s iconic achievers giving a contemporary view and reflecting on the relevance of Gandhi in the modern scenario.

I don’t think this has ever been done. You will have never seen a Narayana Murthy, Mallika Sarabhai or Amjad Ali Khan talking of Gandhi.

When I presented the book to President Pratibha Patil she said ‘I’m so glad you’ve done this because the relevance of Gandhi in this century is even more than the century gone by’. And that is true, as you can see, whether it be global economic meltdown, climate change, increasing terror…. What Gandhiji had said was right – There is enough for everyone’s need not for everyone’s greed and that is exemplified in the economic meltdown we saw.

Whether it’s cricket, dance, music, finance or anything else, Gandhi’s values have an impact even today. Everywhere you see, Gandhiji’s principles are becoming more and more important.

I, therefore believe the messages from the book have to be integrated in the curriculum for our students.
Dr Ramasamy, who is also a contributor to the book, asked us if we could bring the cost of the book down so that he could distribute it to thousands of aspiring young scientists.

PM: “So will the cost come down?”

Dr Mashelkar: “Yes definitely. We are working on a low cost version. When we advocate ‘More from less for more’, this book should also follow that. If the book has to reach millions of students, then less has to be very less.

Idea is to get it translated in Hindi and Marathi to start with and then other languages. Idea is to see that the book reaches out worldwide.

China will be an economic super power but India will be a great soft power, thanks largely to Gandhiji’s teachings. Look at what Rama Bijapurkar has done – Global Swadeshi is an amazing concept. What I want to make sure is that it does not remain in this book. The thought leadership of India is here in its full glory and it must reach out to everyone.

I want this book to reach all the parliamentarians, the opinion makers, the movers and shakers.”

PM: “I am sure you’ve received a lot of praise from people for the book. What is the best accolade you have received so far?”

Dr Mashelkar: (Smiles) “Many of the people who have read the book said that this Diwali they won’t gift mithai but this book.”

PM: “One last question Dr Mashelkar. Who wrote the introductions to the icons? There is a deep insight into their personal lives that a normal person would not have!”

Dr Mashelkar: “All 45 introductions were written by me! I didn’t want a normal CV in the introduction. I didn’t make references to their achievements alone, since I know them personally, I tried to bring the real person out.

PM: “Thank you so much for sparing your valuable time and talking to us Dr Mashelkar.”
Dr Mashelkar: “Thank you! When it comes to this book, I can talk for 24 hours.”

**********************************************************************************
Excerpt:

“Though Gandhiji is no more, his philosophy of peace, reverence to all and non-violence has become far more relevant in the existing world, filled as it is with hatred, animosity and misunderstanding. There are small wars among nations. It is neither such wars nor nuclear or hydrogen bombs that can save the world. Only the philosophy of Gandhiji can. Even his message to live with nature is equally relevant against the threat of Global Warming. To adopt the way of simple living and high thinking of Gandhiji and his philosophy ‘Gandhian Engineering’ have become far more relevant than ever before. In this context, there is no substitute to the ‘Timeless Inspirator’ in order to save humanity and Mother Earth.”

Concluding paragraph of essay by Dr Mohan Dharia, Padmavibhushan recipient, veteran freedom fighter, founder of Vanarai, fondly known as the Green Man of India.

Questions Related to Polymer Industry

1. What according to you are the key drivers of growth for the Indian polymer industry?

In India, we are witnessing a rapid growth in diverse key sectors, such as, automotive, construction, electronics, healthcare, textiles, and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). All this will contribute to the growth in consumption of polymers. Alongside, polymers are being increasingly used in the rapidly expanding needs in the areas of energy, water, agriculture, health, housing, transportation and communication. Here high level polymer science and its innovative application will continue to be significantly important in India. There will be a great resurgence of advanced polymer materials. The per-capita consumption of plastics in India is way below that of any developed countries. However, with rapidly changing socio-economic conditions, the per-capita consumption of plastics will increase significantly. A major national program, viz. “Make in India” designed to transform India into a global manufacturing hub. It will surely be another driver for the next wave of growth in the Indian polymer industry.

2. What are your thoughts on the patent laws in India? What is the way forward for research in the Indian polymers industry.

Indian patent system has been modified from time to time to meet the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) guidelines. Be it the inventor or the society, I feel Indian IP laws provide a balanced proposition for all its stakeholders. Polymer science research in India has already attained global excellence.

Let me just take the example of NCL. When I was the Director in NCL more than two decades ago, our US patents on solid-state polycondensation of polycarbonate were licensed to General Electric, who had a 40% market share in the polycarbonate market then. NCL polymer scientists had then demonstrated that they can think ahead of some of the multinational giants. These were the first instances of reverse transfer of technology from India.

NCL has moved on. Today, my colleagues at NCL are actively researching on biodegradable polymers from renewable resources, which will pave roadmap for our sustainable future. There is also an effort in developing biocompatible and bio-degradable polymeric based materials which will act as scaffolds for tissue engineering to repair, regenerate, or create tissues and organs by mimicking of natural extracellular matrixes.

Like NCL, there are many centres of excellence that have sprung up across the nation, both in public institution as well as private sector. At Reliance, for instance, some truly breakthrough innovations have taken place.

There are several areas in which polymer research will have to move forward. These include high performance composites, polymeric nanomaterials, specialty polymers for electronics, condensing polymers, stimuli responsive polymers, barrier polymers, supramolecular and self-assembling polymers, biodegradable polymers, polymers that can withstand high temperatures for prolonged periods of time (e.g. in fuel cells) and so on. Besides this, we will have to tailor our polymers for the changing scenario in manufacturing, packaging, separation processes, etc.

Take manufacturing as an example. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is picking up everywhere, be it fashion industry, be it medical and healthcare industry or be it education or retail. Now it is time to explore new materials that can be used in these 3D printers. Polymers will be the largest consumed materials for 3D printing.
3. As regards a global positioning of the Indian polymers industry, what should be the focus areas of the Indian corporate?

As I have mentioned earlier, India’s exponential growth in different sectors such as Auto, Agriculture, Medicals, Packaging, Space, Electrical & Electronics etc. has provided impetus for the development of next generation high performance polymeric materials with different functionalities. Furthermore, alternative feedstocks, such as, renewable and use of biotechnology are creating opportunities for newer polymeric materials. Indian corporates need to adopt multidisciplinary approach involving chemical and biological sciences in combination with engineering & advanced modeling, and effective public private partnerships for driving frontiers of innovation to create new value added products to speed up the development cycle from Mind to Market.

4. Is innovation unaffordable? Your thoughts please.

No, not really. The Mars mission, which sent Mangalyan in the space, just cost us US $ 74 million – not a billion dollars! I and late C.K. Prahalad wrote a paper titled ‘Innovation’s Holy Grail’ in Harvard Business Review (HBR) in the July-August 2010 issue. There we discussed as to how the combination of scarcity and aspiration had helped India develop its own brand of innovation – getting more from less for more people. This was called the MLM paradigm, i.e. ‘More from Less for More’. In this paper, we had first analysed the contextual factors that had undoubtedly facilitated the growth of India’s ability to innovate with minimal investment.

The Indian economy didn’t start growing until the 1990s, so local companies were small. Indian entrepreneurs, therefore, developed a penchant for undertaking small projects with huge capital efficiency, a good habit developed in bad times, which they have maintained in good times too!

The most important driver happened to be India’s innovation mind-set. Some Indian leaders had the audacity to question the conventional wisdom. The mix of miniscule research budgets, small size, low prices, but big ambitions had created the need to think and manage differently. Indeed it is fair to say that the combination of extreme scarcity and extreme aspiration is a basis of Indian innovation.

5. What according to you is the most exciting aspect of the current generation (innovators and) entrepreneurs?

I would ask a few questions to explain the most exciting aspects of the current generation innovators and entrepreneurs;

• Can we make a high quality Hepatitis-B vaccine priced at US$20 per dose available at a price that is 40 times less, not just 40%?
• Can we make a high quality artificial foot priced at US$10,000 available at a price that is 300 times less, not just 30%?
• Can we make a high quality cataract eye surgery available, not at US$3,000, but a price that is 100 times less, not just 100%?
• Can we make an ECG machine available, not at US$10,000 but a price that is 20 times lower, not just 20%?

Incredible as it may sound; all such impossible looking feats have been achieved by Indian innovators and entrepreneurs. And this has captured the imagination of the world to an extent that a new term `Indovation’ is beginning to do rounds now! What at first sight looks impossible, namely `affordable excellence’. We normally assume that what is affordable cannot be excellent. And what is excellent cannot be affordable. But Indian innovators and entrepreneurs have demonstrated a special talent to make this impossible, possible.

Let me begin my explanation of the concept of affordable excellence with a personal experience. In my mother’s name, I have created an Anjani Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award. This is the fourth year of the award. It is given for designing and developing a technological solution that leads to inclusion – meaning that millions of resource-poor people can benefit from it. But there are two conditions. First, it must belong to the category of affordable excellence. Second, it must be not just the “best” practice, but the “next” practice.

One of these awards was given to a 28-year-old innovator, Myshkin Ingawale. He found that women in villages were dying of anaemia because their low haemoglobin levels were not detected in time. He found out why: many of them were reluctant to give their blood. So he decided to create a non-invasive diagnostic tool, something that has never been achieved before. He used photoplethysmography, spectrophotometry and an advanced software for photon scattering to create ToucHb. This was technological `excellence’ achieved by using cutting edge technology, and not jugaad. Furthermore, he reduced the cost per test from Rs. 100 to Rs. 10. This was `affordable’. So he achieved `affordable excellence’.

ToucHb was a technological innovation. But there are many non-technological innovations. For example, India’s Aravind Eyecare Hospital performs ultra-low cost cataract surgeries with quality that even surpasses the international benchmarks. This is achieved by doing work-flow innovations, with more efficient and innovative use of scarce (and highly-paid) surgeons: rather than having a surgeon perform the entire surgery, each medical personnel performs a specific task during the operation. Aravind Eye care model has spread in 17 Countries now! Similar workflow innovations have been used to perform low-cost open-heart surgeries (at a cost of US$3,000) at the Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital in Bangalore with success rates that match their western counterparts. You will soon see the Narayana Hrudayalaya innovation on affordable excellence in a 2000 bed hospital in Cayman Islands near Florida!

I expect India to lead the world in innovation based on affordable excellence.
6. You have been the chair of India’s National Innovation Foundation for over a decade. Please tell us about it.

My friend Prof. Anil Gupta from IIM (Ahmedabad) is the father of grassroots innovation movement in India.

The National Innovation Foundation-India (NIF) started functioning in March 2000 as India’s national initiative to strengthen the grassroots technological innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge. It is based on a fundamental belief that India does not have 1.25 billion mouths, but it has 1.25 million minds! Its mission is to help India become a creative and knowledge based society by expanding policy and institutional space for grassroots technological innovators.

NIF has been able to build up a database of more than 2,10,000 technological ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices (not all unique, not all distinct) from over 575 districts of the country. NIF has till date recognised more than 775 grassroots innovators and school students at the national level in its various award functions. It has also set up a Fabrication Laboratory (Fab Lab) with the help of MIT, Boston, for product development apart from strengthening in-house research and development facilities for the initial validation of herbal technologies. Pro bono arrangement with patent firms has helped NIF to file over 725 patents (including eight filed in USA and twenty seven PCT applications) on behalf of the innovators and outstanding traditional knowledge holders of which thirty seven patents have been granted in India and five in the USA. It has also filed applications for twenty nine farmers’ developed plant varieties at the PPV&FR Authority. Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF) at NIF with the support of SIDBI has provided risk capital of over Rs 384 lakh to 193 projects, which are at different stages of incubation. NIF has received over six hundred product inquiries from around fifty five countries for various technologies, and has succeeded in commercialising products across countries in six continents apart from being successful in materialising eighty nine cases of technology licensing.

To me, the major activities of NIF comprise scouting and documentation (SD), value addition research & development, intellectual property management, business development and micro venture innovation fund and dissemination and social diffusion.

7. What is the agenda on the Global Research Alliance?

I have been the President of Global Research Alliance (GRA) since 2007.

The GRA is an international network of nine applied research organisations that works for promoting application of science and technology to solve large scale issues facing developing countries. The alliance was formed in 2000 in Pretoria, South Africa. Today, the GRA has access to the knowledgebase of 60,000 scientists across its membership in Asia Pacific, Europe and USA.

Our vision is for a world where the application of innovative science that serves the society, technology that transforms innovation that impacts. We do this through collaboration and co-creation, delivers access equality, improves lives, and solves global development challenges.

The GRA uses the best science and technology to solve some of the biggest problems in the developing world. These global issues span borders, cultures and religions and require a cross-boundary response. We address these problems by:

– mobilising the creative energy of our globally and culturally diverse researchers to address global development challenges through innovation
– sharing the breadth and depth of our science and technology resources and uniting with local partners, communities, industry and collaborators
– generating and implementing appropriate, affordable and sustainable solutions with positive and lasting impact

The GRA implements these solutions through partnership-based projects. The GRA also delivers technology workshops in developing countries and advises governments of developing countries on their national innovation systems.

8. We know Mashelkar as a polymer scientist, as a researcher, as a science leader, and indeed as a thought leader. Could you tell us at the end as to who had the biggest influence on your life? Who were your mentors? Who were your Gurus?

Well, I have talked about this often in the past, written about it in my book ‘Reinventing India’ (reinventingindia.com), it is available on my website (www.mashelkar.com), it gets reflected in my twitter (@rameshmashelkar), it gets reflected in my speeches. But for the readers of Polymers Communique, let me go through it again.

My greatest guru was my mother. Although uneducated, she understood the value of education. Despite our hardship, she kept on pushing me to do higher and higher level of studies. Shortly before she passed away, I had received my 25th Honorary Doctorate. He said, now I am satisfied. Now I can go.

My second great guru was Principal Bhave in Union High School. He taught us Physics. Because it was a poor school, I remember, it had to innovate to convey to the young students the message of Science.

I still remember one of the interesting experiences when, on a Friday afternoon, Principal Bhave took us out into the sun to demonstrate to us as to how to find the focal length of a convex lens. He had a piece of paper here, a convex lens here and he moved it up and down and there was a point when there was a sharp focus and a bright spot on the paper. He showed the distance between paper and the lens and said that this distance was the focal length. But then the paper started burning. For some reason, he then turned to me, and said, “Mashelkar, if you focus your energies like this, you can burn anything in the world.

From this I got two lessons- first the philosophy of my life that if we focus, we can achieve anything. And the second about the power of science. It was so powerful. I thought to myself why don’t I become a scientist. It left an indelible mark in my mind.

By the way, if you think carefully about that story, it also tells you about the new model for the society and for the nation. What is the experiment? You have the lens. And what does the lens do? It takes the parallel rays of the sun and then lets them converge. And what is the property of parallel lines? Parallel lines never meet. Parallel rays never meet but the lens actually makes them meet. I call it “convex lens” leadership by the way – leadership that brings people together.

The third teacher who made a huge difference for me was Professor M.M. Sharma. He had returned from Cambridge at the young age of 28. He took up the position of a Professor in University Department of Chemical Technology. He was incredible. I was among the top rankers in Chemical Engineering. I had a number of offers of scholarships from the United States of America and Canada for doing research for my doctorate degree. I had always done things which were different, by the way. I thought where could I get a better Guru for me and decided not to go abroad and worked in University and did my Ph.D under young Prof. Sharma, a man with enormous value systems. All his research was ‘idea based’. With barely Rs.10,000 per year as contingency grant, i.e. less than 1000 rupees per month, we did research that was published in top international journals. He has remained a teacher. I am the third Engineer to have got the Fellowship of Royal Society in the 20th century. Prof. Sharma was the first by the way. Ours is a rather unique combination of Guru and Shishya both getting Fellowships of Royal Society!

And the fourth Guru was Bharat Ratna Professor CNR Rao, who came in my life a little late. Prof. Rao is the most celebrated scientist in the country. The interesting thing is that he is past the age of 80 now and he still works 25 hours a day! Not 24 but 25. And that too day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. He is really my role model and an icon. Except the Nobel Prize, he has received all the major awards. I am sure he will get that too, and sooner rather than later.

What he did for me was very interesting and there is a lesson for you to take home. Anytime I got any honour and I went to him expecting him to appreciate and applaud. You know the only word he would use would be- Not Bad! I became a Fellow of Royal Society FRS, It’s a big honour. In fact, I remember receiving a letter from another FRS, who said `only two greater things can happen to you in life now, One is Nobel prize and other is death. One is certain and the other is uncertain’.

When I went to Professor CNR Rao and told him that I received FRS, he said Not Bad! Then I became Foreign Associate of U.S. National Academy of Science. It was established in 1868. In 140 years or so, only seven Indians have got this honour. Sometimes you get a Nobel Prize first and that honour later, like Sir Harry Kroto, who got the Nobel Prize first and five years after that he got this honour.

I thought surely now Professor CNR Rao would be impressed. So, I went and told him look, I got this honour. He said,’ Not bad’. I was really frustrated. So I asked him directly what will make him satisfied. Then he defined for me what is called a limitless ladder of excellence. He said, “there are no limits to the ladder of excellence”. You should continue to climb on this ladder of excellence for ever and ever. ‘Your best is yet to come.’

So in the end, I would simply say that this lesson of keeping on climbing on the limitless ladder of excellence is what I would carry with me till I breathe my last.