Posts from — November 2008

One of my initiatives at this time is to point out the value, for Western companies, to embrace global innovation models. Technology now permits global R&D. The emerging companies have both the talent and the markets. Western companies who are slothful will miss a wonderful opportunity to leapfrog their abilities.

There is considerable skepticism about whether innovative products and technologies can emerge from India and China. But as we watch the Big Three automotive giants in Detroit falter and flounder, I must remind you that there was considerable skepticism in the 1970s whether Toyota and Honda could make a world-class car. And in the 1990s I heard the derisive term “code-monkeys” used to describe the armies of programmers enlisted to fix the Y2K bug and write the early dot com boom websites.

If you look closely there is much opportunity to leverage India and China for open innovation and for R&D. I recently gave a webinar hosted by one of the world’s leading research universities, Caltech, on this very subject.

Here is an excerpt from an attendee who is a regular blogger..

1) I always gather useful information and insight from Bagla’s presentations and appreciate his reflective approach to topics. This is a topic of particular interest for my research, and I am glad to have access to Bagla as a resource.

You can read the entire post at this link.  Do you want to listen to the webinar? You will need to visit my company’s  research and development and open innovation website and scroll to the bottom of the page for a link.

HSBC bank and their advertising agency have taken my ideas into the realm of what one might call Urban Legend.

In the marketing chapter of my book (Doing Business in 21st Century India) , I quote Micky Pant, formerly a Unilever executive, who was surprised to learn that 70% of washing machine sales in India at one time were into the state of Punjab, which accounts for less than 8 percent of India’s population. But these washing machines weren’t being used for clothes and Lever’s detergents weren’t going to have a market here.

In fact, Pant’s team found that the machines made for great lassi-makers. Lassi is a popular blended yoghurt drink, and a favorite among Punjabis.

So imagine my surprise when I find a full page  HSBC bank print advertisement describing this novel use of washing machine.  And then I received a You Tube video from a reader, take a look below. I guess items from my book are crossing over into urban legend territory.

And there is already buzz on the net about this. This site offers some testimony from those who have seen washing machines used in this manner. In fact one post-er claims to have seen washing machine used to knead dough in Gujarat.

The Indian word for this kind of innovation is “jugaad” roughly translated as the nautical term “jury-rigging“

“Aditya,” the lunar probe from India’s first unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 has landed on the moon and started sending its first images. Its landing on the Moon’s South Pole at 7:10 Pacific Time was aimed to kick up some dust, which instruments in the craft will analyze. It has already started sending images to the mother ship according to the Indian Space Research Organization.

The 80 pound probe,with the Indian flag painted on its four outer sides carried three scientific instruments: a radar altimeter to keep track of the probe’s altitude as it made its descent, a video imaging system to take pictures once on the surface and a mass spectrometer to identify the particles the lander kicks up when it lands.

A principal objective is to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future. It is thought to be more plentiful on the moon, but still rare and very difficult to extract.

At 3:21 am Pacific Daylight Time on November 8, India’s moon probe was successfully inserted into orbit around the moon.

The Chandrayaan-1 probe  liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon.

India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.

The two year mission of this probe includes 11 instruments. One is a device that will impact the moon, carrying telemetry devices as well as a flag of India. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from moon’s surface.

In separate news,  India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced plans to place a human on the moon by 2015.

• Do you feel like trying a quiz about India. Here is a link to one I created, along with my publisher.
• And if you are a member of Facebook, we now have a page for my book. I have 33 “fans” already.  Would you like to become a fan too