'Innovations are game-changers'

Innovation should be something that satisfies two basic criteria – fulfil a basic need and should be replicable at economically viable cost, according to KV Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank Limited.

Delivering the 10th anniversary address of IKP Knowledge Park on ‘Engaging innovation to be a knowledge-driven economy’ at International Knowledge Millennium Conference 2009, Kamath said innovation could be evolutionary (incremental advances in technology and processes) or revolutionary (discontinuous, disruptive and leading to behavioural change).

“Innovations are game-changers. For instance, the communication revolution is the last big disruptive phenomenon. Information technology and mobile innovation improved productivity, integrated economies, enabled high-speed responses and democratised knowledge. Democratised knowledge is probably the biggest change that happened to the whole communications scenario,” he said.

Stating that education is the key for innovation, Kamath said estimates indicated that attendance rates in the age of 5-14 dropped nearly half and 86 per cent after the age of 15 years.

“An innovative approach needs to be adopted to identify domains that have major job potential and codify knowledge into defined employable skills. We should use technology to deliver knowledge and skills through a public-private partnership mode,” he said.

Earlier in his inaugural address, chief minister K Rosaiah said the Andhra Pradesh government had identified the biotechnology sector as a major growth engine and now the state had emerged as one of the major biotech hubs of the country.

“India and Andhra have a long tradition of diagnosis and product development in traditional arts and science of medicine,” he said.