Do Innovation contests really foster innovation ?

We frequently hold Innovation contests in educational institutions, industries etc to promote the concept of Innovation and continuous improvement among students and industry personnel. But more frequently than not, these contests do not fetch the real benefit and fails to kindle an innovative mindset among the participants and competitors.

Are these innovation promotion contests or programmes really promoting innovation or hindering it ? What is the impact of competition in the area of innovation ?

In exciting research led by Prof. Reto Hofstetter of University of Lucerne in Switzerland and reported in HBR of July -Aug '21 (click here), it is pointed out that displaying more of innovation ideas is more often than not an inhibitor than a motivator or promoter of Innovation. The Recombinant Growth Theory of Creativity says that seeing others' ideas of innovation, motivates or stimulates new creative thinking in people in related areas or by combining ideas from one area with another idea from a different area. But what we observe is contrary.

Why does this happen ?

Intense competition often increases participant's competitive stress, impeding innovative thinking. Secondly, the thought that others are also vying for the prize diminishes a participant's motivation to be more creative.  The third reason is the fact that submission of competitors workable solutions often become a disincentive for creative thinking.

The way to face this counter innovative tendency (as per the authors) can be to 

• highlight only the top winners, 
• grouping them into four or five areas, 
• avoid jargons like "There is only one winner", 
• by downplaying or masking submitter's identities (to reduce the participants stress and fear of non-performance)  etc..  

This research result runs counter to the experience on Toyota shop floors. In Toyota plants across the world, the Kaizen system of Continuous Improvement is a great motivating tool for the workers to come up with their innovative ideas from their work environment and to showcase them for recognition and overall development of the organisation. Respect for the individual is the key to the success of Toyota system. 

In the western system the focus is on the idea and not the person who has put in the new suggestion / innovation. This could be the difference.

An understanding of this difference now points us to understand the innovation process better and try to eliminate the barriers to innovation across productive systems of the world.

George.

How will organisational management be in a post-Covid world ?

Post Covid, management processes are not going to be as it existed before. We have seen hybrid type of management happening across organisations globally for almost 15 months now, a mix of online and offline management organisational styles.

What are the specific characteristics of the new hybrid management practices ? In a research study done by Harvard Business School Professor William Kerr and his industry colleagues, published in Harvard Business Review June '21, done on 38 senior most professionals from CEOs and Vice Presidents in 5 industry sectors spanning from manufacturing to customer facing service industries in Northern Europe Nordic countries, titled "4 imperatives for managing in the post-Covid world", (click here) some interesting observations were made regarding managing the uncertainty in organisations that have been practicing  and exercising hybrid management systems.

Economic Times from India of October '20 (click here) mentions that the post Covid environment will mostly demand of organisations and employees tech skills, business skills and soft skills as given in the image on the right. 

This is very closely related to what the author experienced  in Alliance School of Business, Bangalore, India. After three months of silent observation from March '20 to June '21, the mode of education switched to online education for about four months before the faculty moved back to campus, while students had the option to attend the classes offline in the classrooms and online from home and hostels. By the middle of April '21 with the second Covid wave getting stronger, the instruction once again moved back from hybrid to online mode. The points discussed here were also felt by the author to be relevant in educational institutions.(the author is teaching in the Bschool).

The points observed were very relevant and is being presented here for the benefit of the public. 

The first point is the fact that while top management may feel good with the hybrid type management system, the middle and junior management feels the system a bit challenging and needs guidance and proper metrics to guide performance. 

The second point talks of managers needing to have better people based skills to interact and motivate the employees.

The third aspect points to a vibrant top management providing centralised guidance, good leadership, clear and shared vision, effective performance measurement and regular followup with other parts of the organisation.

The fourth point mentions that the processes should be crisis proofed, being able to move from independent to hybrid models back and forth number of times.

The learning has been useful for the management in designing better management processes and performance measurement metrics that ensure great motivation and collaboration across functions and hierarchies.

George.

Improving AI integrity

Artificial Intelligence can basically be classified into two branches, one that uses established algorithms to help make decisions (but no learning also called reactive AI machines that work on fixed algorithms) and the other which learns from the data supplied to it to help make intelligent decisions (also called narrow artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning etc.).

A hard fact we need to understand is that an AI is only as good as the data it is fed on or tested called the learning data and test data, usually in the ratio of 3:1 ... If there were humans on Mars, the AI which works with earthlings may not be effective with Martians, so simple .. The AI which was developed was fed on data on this earth. As such since we do not know how Martians (if they exist) would react to different stimuli, we cannot develop an AI systems that is all encompassing and universal.

Since AI is getting to be very widely used across domains and functions in the future, we need to figure what types of training data was the model fed on and for how long, what was the testing data the model was tested on, who supervised the learning etc.

Can faulty inputs to the model lead to faulty decisions ? It is very much possible, deficient learning data set or testing data set or an oversight could have corrupted or influenced the final AI based decision that was made. Have we ever thought what would be resulting implications of a faulty decision by AI ?

For example if we look at the pharma industry, US Federal Drug Administration, the most toughest pharma testing and passing authority in the world, does Randomised Control Trial experiments many a time in different settings before finally accepting or rejecting the  drug or molecule.would be then released for the public consumption.

The randomised control trial (RCT) is a trial in which subjects are randomly assigned to one of two groups: one (the experimental group) receiving the intervention that is being tested, and the other (the comparison group or control) receiving an alternative (conventional) treatment                                                     - www.bmj.com

 If the RCT experiments have worked well for the global pharma industry, ensuring integrity, reliability and accountability in the process, why should it not work for the AI industry to check for the integrity, the utility, reliability,  completeness and applicability of the software before it is released for the consumption to the people of world. 

If nations can collaborate in this direction, or UN taking the lead in this case, we can avoid grave mistakes and accidents that would befall the world because of traps, drawbacks and shortcomings in the software that have escaped the eyes of the regulator. 

This article in part derives its origin to the article in HBR of June 2021 titled  We should test AI the way FDA tests medicines by Carissa Veliz.

George..

Will the new Hambantota port change global supply chain equations ?

Colombo is the nearest port to the world's most busiest Asia-Europe main sea trade channel. To decongest the Colombo port on a study by Canadian International Developmental Agency through SNC Lavlin, the Sri Lankan government in 2010 proposed to start a new port south of Colombo at Hambantota, 200 kms south of Colombo. 

 

Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse(L) and Sirisena

The Kochi or Vizhinjam port, including the container handling port in Vallaarpaadam, Kochi situated in the state of Kerala in the southern tip of India, do not have capacity to be major hubs of global merchandise flowing in this route in the present circumstances. Understanding this drawback of the Indian port, grabbing the initiative on the recommendation of the Canadian consulting firm SNC Lavlin and the Danish engineering firm Ramboll in 2006, the Mahinda Rajapakse government in Sri Lanka decided to build the Hambantota port on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer basis.

When both India and US refused to collaborate with Sri Lanka in terms of funds and technology, as it affected their commercial interests in the region, the Sri Lankan government had to approach the international community for help. Sensing a great business opportunity,  China under it's One Border One Road initiative of 2005 forwarded a 15 year repayment period loan of $300 million from Chinese Exim Bank in 2007 at a soft rate of 6.3% which kickstarted the project. 

At the same time Sri Lanka also issued an international bond for $300 million at 8.25% interest to collect more investment for the project. We have to understand that these were gravely excess financial repayment commitments that the small island state of Sri Lanka was taking upon itself, hoping that the new port would bring in additional revenues to help it repay. 

Everything went fine, the first phase was completed in 3 years on time. In 2012 contrary to advice by the project building firm, Danish engineering co. Ramboll, without waiting for revenues from phase 1 port to stablilise, Rajapakse govt decided to go ahead with the second phase container port. This time Rajapakse govt went for a loan of $757 million from China Exim Bank, at 2% interest. Rajapakse even named the port after himself.

 

By 2014, trouble began, when the international clientele did not find the port attractive enough, the ships calling in the port declined which affected the revenue generation from the port. With limited funds at it's disposal, the Sri Lankan govt had no other option but to approach the Chinese govt and  companies for help.

In the sudden elections announced by  President Rajapakse, his deputy turned foe, Sirisena became the new President of Sri Lanka in 2015. (in picture courtesy Reuters, Rajapakse is seated on the left with Sirisena). In the financial problems that ensued, Sri Lankan government decided for a bail out after approaching the IMF and decided to lease the port to an experienced company. The lot fell on Chinese Merchants who infused $1.12 billion into the port and was given the rights to operated the port for a 99 year lease.

 

Under the garb of a debt trap getting the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka in its control, it is feared, the Chinese, like the European colonial powers of the 17-18th century, is surreptitiously expanding its neo-colonial aspirations.. 

Now that an important port has passed over to Chinese hands which is also in the Indian Ocean, how will this translate to better ocean movement for sea based traffic ? The US and India are worried beyond the supply chain borders as they feel China could effectively strangle global sea trade and progressively control sea and land trade across Asia and Europe, following the One Border One Road Initiative of 2005.

As per Chinese leaders, this is part of the OBOR, One Border One Road initiative from Chinese President Xi Jin Ping, to partly revive the old Chinese silk land route 2000 years back, connecting China with Europe. 

On OBOR : The longest train journey on the OBOR route was completed over 17 days in January of 2017 covering 8000 miles from Beijing to London.  (click here for my earlier writing on the OBOR initiative from China). The Hampantota port is surprisingly part of this OBOR.

The Sri Lankan government under Rajapakse and later Sirisena may have carried out the work in right earnest, but the economic burden from poor traffic resulted in port control changing hands with China winning the bid to run the port and taking lease of the port for the next 99 years. 

The world does not have a clear picture where the global maritime trade is heading to and who will have the final control over trade on the seas of the world in the next hundred years. Is China expanding globally and taking control of ports for a good reason or otherwise, only time will tell.  We have to wait and see. In the mean time, it will be great opportunity and low costs for global supply chains between Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. 

George.. (pictures courtesy New York Times, Atlantic.com and Google Maps)

Ref : 

1. Deborah Brotigam and Meg Rithmire, The Chinese debt trap is a myth, The Atlantic, February, 2021 (click here)

2. Maria Abi-Habib, How China got Sri Lanka to cough up a port, New York Times, June 2018. (click here)

How big is the Solar trash problem ?

We have been seeing very fast introduction of solar energy by installing solar panels across the world.

In 2019 China, US and India continued to the world's largest solar energy generators with 205 GW, 76 GW and 43 GW installed solar capacity in the respective countries. Most of these installations have begun generating energy only by mid 2000.  Given the panel life of 25 years, we can expect a great disposal problem of solar panels into the future.

US saw 13 GW home solar installation in 2019 which jumped to 19 GW in 2020. In US with almost 19 GW of domestic solar installations, it is feared that by 2025, because of early replacement there would be almost 315,000 T trash generated. 

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) predicts that the e-waste generated by renewable energy sources by 2050 would be to the tune of 76 million tonnes (Ref HBR June 2021, The Dark side of solar power by Atasu, Durran and Wassenhowe click here).

With costs dropping every year and efficiency on new panels increasing by 0.5% every year, (on fixed panels efficiencies reduce by 1% every year becauseoftheprogressive deteriorationof the glass coatings) people preferring to replace less efficient panels with more efficient panels at low costs is high. The present efficiencies of solar panels are between 18-19 %.

The figure on the right (taken from HBR June '21) is an indication of the trash which is generated in US domestic installations with old installations serving their life in green colour against early replacements in red colour.

Since the financial returns from early replacement is attractive for domestic consumers, they tend to do early replacement and this is going to generate the maximum solar trash.

On an average about 90 tonnes of solar equipment are needed for each MW of solar power generated. Considering about 19 GW is the total domestic solar power generation in US alone, imagine the weight of solar panels that would have to be disposed in the next 5-10 years. Over the next four years it is going to be 315,000 tonnes.

With all this data how much of the solar trash are we ready to do green processing or help enter the circular economy and how much would be disposed in landfills. 

The initial deign of these solar panels should include materials that are not bound to create great environmental damage. The government should provide subsidies for green disposal. Manufacturers should be given the responsibility of disposing of the end of life products to ensure green power generation across the country.

Circular economy measures to extend the life of the products is a sure way to handle the trash problem and make it manageable in the near future.

George.

Garbologist Jabir Karat ..

A TED talk on Green Worms .. 

https://youtu.be/Il4G5vePR-8

This is a TED video of a waste management, garbologist expert in trashonomics, an ecopreneur, waste recycler Jabir Karat. 1 crore turnover monthly working out of kerala, TN, Kar, Andhra, Goa. 

He handles 8.5 lakh kgs of waste daily and employs 220 people. Out of 100 kgs of dry waste he handles, he recovers almost 97 kgs of products which he sells on average Rs 8 / kg. (with unbelievable recovery rates of 97%, not great rocket science ..)

There are many scrap collectors, but he is not a scrap collector but a waste collector, still lower status ..

A TED talk on Green Worms .. 

https://youtu.be/Il4G5vePR-8

His second TEDx talk .. 

https://youtu.be/O1KYOFM6xNQ

George 

Akio Toyoda's advice to the centennial batch at Babson College, 2019.

It was great listening to the youtube video of Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota Motors co. He is a third generation Toyoda family member to lead the company.

These are his advice of 15 interesting points for the passing out 2019 MBA batch from Babson College (click here).

1. Find out what makes you happy

2. Don't screw it up, be positive and look up to it

3. Don't take it for granted, one has to work hard

4. Embrace change, don't run from it.

5. Do the right thing, the money will follow

6. Try new things even if you are old

7. Never give up being a student, keep learning new things

8. Find people who inspire you, follow them

9. Be a global citizen, respect all people

10. Care about the environment, the planet

11.Try to understand other parts of the world

12. Don't worry, be warm to others

13. Decide what you stand for, the values and your interests.

14. Find one's own guiding light or values let it inspire every decision one makes

15. Follow the Toyota way of integrity, humility and respect for others.

I am sure students around the world will find this advice by Akio Toyoda worth following.