NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - The Role of Passion in Successful Innovation - Comments

roll of passion

Chandra Shanker Srivastava — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:45:55 -0400

Thankes Mr Arun Sharma for including my project in your blog.

Identifying skills in Social Entrepreneurs

Simon — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:57:25 -0400

Hi, I used your post here, Arun, to elaborate soem questions on my blog here: http://bop-manager.blogspot.com/ Here's my post/Comment: However, there is another point I want to add. Grant-making institutions award innovations but not the "Innovativeness" of the organization itself. For NPOs its often better to start a new organization to secure funding than a grant maker would invest in the existing organization itself rather than in the innovative basis/Fundament of the existing NGO. Of course there are organizations like Ashoka, AcumenFund, Echoing Green which support the person/entrepreneur financially and organizationally. However, they are mostly in the early beginning of the growth of NPO and to secure their sustainability, NGOs need to secure funding from different sources anywhere. (There is also a book about this dilemma out there! I need to google it!) Another point, I like to add, comes from a recent lecture about online start-ups with two German entrepreneurs doing a case study with us. Click here to see their venture. They explained that ordinary, common venture screening process and mechanism do not work for Internet start-ups. So financiers and business angels look at the team, the idea and the life-cycle of the invention. If the start-up has a great idea and great team, they will get 500,000€. If they have also a prototype, they get 1 Million €. He also cited the example of business angel who said to the entrepreneurs:" Your team is great, your idea so lalala. But I have another idea in my pipeline. How about working on that, and drop (your) idea?" This leads us to some questions: - Can the team be separated from the idea? Is their an social invention database and pipeline? - Can their be "Team social entrepreneurship" or even "organization social entrepreneurship"? See also my paper here for an exploration of this topic, titled "What is social entrepreneurship?". - What methodologies do you use to screen social entrepreneurs? - What methodologies do you use to screen social ideas? - What are the differences between the last two questions? Are there any? - How do you secure the communication with NPOs, social entrepreneurs? Are there different approaches needed if you are from the private sector, Government, social sector? - How do you secure "Innovativeness" in your organization? How in your partner?

Passion of the innovator to reach commercialization

Ashok — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:51:23 -0400

Arun, Keep up the good work you are doing with L-RAMP! Perhaps it is very rare to find people - like the CEO of Servals - an innovator who can also make it successful commercially and scale it up. Is there a way that L-RAMP can team up an innovator with another person/organization who can scale it up commercially? Alternatively, if L-RAMP can help the innovator with protecting their IPR (once they have developed a pilot batch of their product), then it can be licensed to any taker.

You have a great idea - but are you the only one who thinks so?

Melanie Page — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:34:33 -0400

That's true. When entrepreneurs come into our offices at the Sussex Innovation Centre, we put a team around the entrepreneur to help make the idea happen. Usually these entrepreneurs are excited about their idea and assume the world is with them. I like this quote from Buddha 'The man with no opinion is the most powerful' as it allows the person selling their idea to put their ego on the back burner while they think about their customer. The sooner we get our new MDs thinking about their customers, a) the product/service/technology will develop in line with demand, b) whether these is a market at all will be found out and time saved if not. So, think carefully about what you are selling - is it really a problem? Great...is there money in it? (from Government, customers, partners)...better. Then, make a plan and fill the skill gaps you have (be honest) in finance, marketing and operations.

non conventional energy

chandra shanker srivastava — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:21:21 -0400

Now a days most required thing in this world is energy there are several ways available to generate energies, but most of ways to generate energies is lead to us in a great danger of global warming so we should develop a way which will not increase pollution, our motto should be generate energy as much as required and in any time it required along with non polluting our environment and we all know that we can not create energy the only thing we can do is convert the energy from one form to another . Sea waves and gravitational force are full of energy if we convert them according to our requirement then that will be a great achievement. My dream project is on the basis of this simple principle. I am an individual innovator and doing research work on non conventional energy recourses, energy conservation and improvisation of existing system for last 20 years. In this regard I have worked on many projects and completed successfully some are appreciated and accepted by various Govt. Organization for further working but unfortunately due to red tape of Govt. Dept.they did not work these projects till now, related documents are enclosed herewith for your information. I have faced so many hurdles but still I am working on my concepts and developing techniques for energy storage. My concepts on energy generation is very unique, special and simple. In alone system we can convert any type of movement into energy and store as fuel for a long time and transport it very easily. We can generate power in huge quantity whenever and wherever we required I have developed an ocean wave converter (O W C) by which we can convert the power of ocean wave with help of gravity into energy and stored it as fuel for further use. If we install above OWC units in sufficient quantity, we can store very high volume of energy round the clock and use this fuel (energy) on-line or after storage for operating a big ‘Power Generation Plant’ for generating electric as per our requirement without polluting environment .

The Role of Passion in Successful Innovation

Derek Newberry — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:31:49 -0400

Guest blogger Arun Sharma is Scouting Lead for Innovations at the Lemelson Recognition and Mentoring Program (L-RAMP). He is also a writer for L-RAMP Blog, which explores trends in social enterprise, innovation, technology and poverty alleviation.

By Arun Sharma

At L-RAMP, we come into contact with many different innovators having ideas covering the spectrum, from new ways to make roads to new ways to make banana chips. This fascinating mix of people share the common trait of being intensely passionate about what they have created and impatient about getting their products to those who can benefit from them.

Of all the characteristics which make up an innovator, it is this intense passion which I find to be most commonly held and it is this passion which can be a great asset or a great hindrance to an entrepreneur's chances of taking his product to market.

When an innovator contacts me, it is most often through an unscheduled telephone call or walk-in visit to our office. As I draw myself out of whatever I was doing at the time, I bring myself into his world and try to understand the new device/model/technology which he is explaining. After hearing him out, I try to better understand his innovation by applying some of the analytical methodologies we have developed which aim to, among other things, determine how well the innovation meets our three core criteria of:

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