Forums | Keynote 2 Tuesday evening 8KEc

20 May 2018, 12:13

In lesson 12, we'll be looking at Navi Radjou's TED Talk, Creative problem-solving in the face of extreme limits. Before watching the TED Talk at home read about Mr. Radjou on page 128. Then, consider the following question and post your thoughts by Monday evening to the forum. Then, aim to reply to at least one other student before class. 

1. What is the difference between invention and innovation? Can you think of examples of each?

2. After watching the TED Talk, do you think that frugal innovation is Switzerland is necessary? You might find this brief clip from Uni Neuchâtel interesting. 

21 May 2018, 23:10

The difference between invention and innovation in my view is the matter of a somewhat academic discussion. They are both the children of the same fascinating human activity that is imagination and creatvity. They only differ in the scale. The creation of Facebook may have been considered an invention at the time, since it was to some extent revolutionary, whereas Instagram (as far as I know) evolved from the development of facebook, thus rather being an innovation on the social media market. However both probably took considerable imaginative power to be conceived in the creators' minds.

Though being a bit of a buzzword (in the more negative sense...), frugal innovation as Mr. Radjou describes it, is an extraordinarily creative and brave way of innovating. Therefore I do not believe there should be any geographical limit to it's application. Switzerland would benefit in many ways from frugal innovations, as Mr. Radjou explains for other "Western" economies. The difference compared to a developing nation is that we have more of a choice whether we want to stick to the expensive, resource-devouring "regular" innovations producing top-of-the-line products, since there are enough rich customers ready to buy them...