From invention to innovation

I am a founder member of the National Innovation Foundation, by the invitation of the Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Maximus Ongkili ( below ).

Recently we had our first AGM when the newly appointed CEO gave a full briefing on its the activities and strategies. On the same foundation sits Tan Sri Dr Augustine Ong, who is, I believe, the founder president of the Malaysian Invention and Development Society (Minds).

Next week, Minds is hosting their annual creativity and invention event vide an exhibition and conference called ITEX10.

My rhetorical question and reflection this week therefore is, where and when does an invention become a societal innovation?

An invention, strictly defined, is a brand new value proposition which no one else has done before. One can use technology, or culture, or pure intelligence to make that proposition. But, whatever that value is, the proposition must be clear and have an appeal to immediate users or consumers. Otherwise the invention remains just that; a good idea on a bookshelf!

Even religions can become good ideas left on the bookshelf, if not practiced and demonstrated in life.

It is said that when Thomas Edison first went to the bank to \”sell his invention,\” he told the bankers that he found a new way to \”put lightning in a vacuum.\”

Do you think that the bankers, or the then angel investors, or venture capitalists, would have funded him until he learned better communication capabilities? Or learned to sell the real value proposition to the real users or real risk-bankers of the mezzanine kind?

Today, every idiot in the world funds Edison\’s genealogy of innovations without thinking; because it is applied pure science! The rapid move from an invention to becoming an innovation is still not often well understood in most societies, except maybe in the Silicon Valley.

Multimedia utopia

When Kenichi Ohmae sold the idea of a multimedia utopia to then PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad ( below ), in 1995, he described the idea of a \”utopian world wherein multiple forms of media would interact to create new virtual value content then unknown to the world.\”

Last week, even the information ministers of ASEAN have agreed that content is king; even if they do not quite know or fully understand what such multimedia related content is or can be in the distant future! Our infamous minister who condemned the twitter and cellphone technology as western inventions; is also slowly getting educated!

Absurdity however is not reserved only for fools! Even those with PhDs can remain fools!

Therefore, we must encourage and motivate local university lecturers and professors to undertake both inventions and innovations that create value within our local context. The Minds exhibition must thus grow and become the platform for the best ideas and then to translate and communicate such ideals within an Asian context.

There is no need to send hundreds of local lecturers to Geneva for such competitions anymore; unless they are inventions which have already won awards here in Malaysia, and then at the Asian level. A ‘jaguh kampong\’ should only go and when they could become a ‘jaguh dunia\’ but always premised on winning local and national competitions!

Now, what does all this have to do with Malaysia and the multiple level crossroads we are now at?

Frankly, to my mind, the NEM is the first and somewhat most comprehensive economic master plan for moving forward since the days of the Second Industrial Master Plan (IMP2) and the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) agenda; that I have seen.

All others may have had such form with big announcements but without substance or content. Even the NEM faces the same big risk of translation or execution; which was the cause of failure of both the (IMP2) and the MSC agenda.

The IMP2 failed because the then minister did not agree with the original agenda that the IMP2 Cluster Development Council be chaired by the then PM.

She decided to chair it herself although she did not fully understand or agree with the cluster development methodology or philosophy! Maybe the failure must also be shared by the civil servants who gave more lip service than real content or substance.

Political gerrymandering

The MSC also failed because even the PM could not find the political clout to push through the original one-stop decision centre model for MSC approvals. Instead it was reduced into a political platform called the Implementation Council where political gerrymandering was applied in very fine forms.

When Ohmae sold the MSC idea and ideal to Tun Dr Mahathir, it was grounded on the premise of Malaysia having the political clout to \”reform all the seven multi-media requisite laws to enable e-commerce and knowledge content development.\”

But, sorry to say, the only bill which became law in the spirit of the MSC was the Multimedia Development Act; which even today has been reduced to only becoming relevant for \”control and restriction\” rather than development and facilitation of multimedia content. Even the word \”multimedia\” is today only left with one University and one commission; without even a ministry with the name!

What then can we learn from all our past failures? Unless Najib Tun Razak ( left ), goes back and learns from his own father, whom I call the Father of Development of Malaysia, he is destined to fail! He cannot merely learn from his political masters because even they could not find the political will when needed.

The answer to good and excellent implementation lies in what is today called the Implementation, Coordination Unit (ICU), which was called the Implementation, Coordination and Development Administration Unit (ICDAU) or in times past.

We were then home of the National Operations Room. In the days of Tun Razak most CEOs feared being invited to the National Operations Council for a review of their performance and progress of development.

Instead, today I hear, that the state development officers on the ground tell their senior federal officers in the \”opposition states\” not to collaborate with the state governments or give the kind and quality of information and knowledge to foster or deliver development!

Whither Malaysia and her development if this is true? Whither the son of the Father of Development; if implementation of the NEM fails in such mundane and basic ways? May God truly bless Malaysian development under the NEM.