Articles

July 7, 2017

Child-like Innovator-entrepreneur Mind-set

07th July 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

By R. Gopalakrishnan, Author, Corporate Advisor and Distinguished Professor of IIT Kharagpur, Email : rgopal@themindworks.me As I write my 50th Innocolumn for Business Standard, I reflect on the soft side of innovation and entrepreneurship. . Entrepreneurs are like the repeat Everest climber, George Mallory, who when asked why he persisted, replied, “Because it is there.”
June 9, 2017

The two ends of the innovation chain

09th June 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

R. Gopalakrishnan, Corporate Advisor and Distinguished Professor at IIT Kharagpur rgopal@themindworks.me Perovskite is mineral calcium titanate, discovered in the Ural Mountains in 1839, the same year that Jamsetji Tata was born. 168 years later, perovskite is at the heart of a very exciting solar technology.
May 12, 2017

It takes long from invention to commercialization

12rd May 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

R. Gopalakrishnan, Corporate Advisor and Distinguished Professor at IIT Kharagpur rgopal@themindworks.me I have been struggling with the nagging question about how long it takes for an invention (when an original idea has been articulated) to become commercial (when it is widely sold in market).
April 14, 2017

Time from conception to commercialization

14th April 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

R. Gopalakrishnan, Author and Corporate Advisor, Email : rgopal@themindworks.me My last anecdote was about how it took fifty years between conception and commercialization of the ball pen, an apparently simple innovation that is basic to our lives now (BS, 3rd March 2017). The article drew a noteworthy response from an IIT contemporary
March 3, 2017

Fifty years between conception and innovation : The ball point pen

03rd March 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

R. Gopalakrishnan, Author and Corporate Advisor, Email : rgopal@themindworks.me Pen maker John Loud got a ball point pen patent in 1888, Anton Shaeffer in 1901, Michael Brown in 1911, Lorenz presented a prototype ball pen in 1924,
February 3, 2017

Promoting curiosity in business

3rd Feb 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

By R Gopalakrishnan, Author and Corporate Advisor “....Men of business are not often at home in the world of ideas; it was Jamsetji’s distinction that he lived in both worlds, the world of ideas and the world of action.
January 2, 2017

Setbacks can spur leaps forward

02nd January 2017, BUSINESS STANDARD

(Nobody consciously seeks setbacks, but if a setback should happen, you can take a creative leap forward). I wish my readers a happy new year, full of ideas and curiosity.
December 11, 2016

Twenty million connected farmers

11th December 2016, BUSINESS STANDARD

India has over 140 million farm holdings of which 20 million account for 80 percent of the area. Imagine a community of these twenty million farmers connected digitally—as change agents, as leaders,
December 9, 2016

The hazardous life of a concept: birth control

09th Dec 2016, BUSINESS STANDARD

R. Gopalakrishnan, Author and Corporate Advisor, rgopal@themindworks.me In my last column, I had likened the fertilization of a concept in the brain to the development of a foetus in the womb.