INNOVATIONS FROM THE EDGE - KPIT

1. Introduction
Innovation seems to be a buzz word around all the
industries. We understand the meaning of
innovation very well but the question is do we
really understand how innovation happens.
Innovations could happen due to some necessity,
or the person working on a problem is a creative
person, or out of sheer luck, or just a combination
of all of the above. Whatever the reason,
innovations happen all around us. Innovations are
of two broad types. One category of innovations
is commonly referred as incremental innovations
since they build on top of some other innovations.
The other category of innovations, are what we
call innovations that happen at the edge. In this
article, we are going to discuss innovations
resulting from the edge. We will discuss what we
exactly mean by “edge” and why one should strive
for such kind of innovations.
II. Innovations from the Edge
Edge is the boundary or a crossover between the
organizations, domain, technology, market and
geographical areas [10]. Edge is a place where,
most disruptive innovations take place, many
path-breaking solutions to customer's problem
are found, and environmental friendly solutions
are unearthed. Therefore, the next question could
be “If there is a huge potential of innovations on
the edges, what prevents people from working on
the edge”. The reason behind this is high risk
associated in working on the solutions using cross
boundary technologies. It requires more
investments without a fixed, proven path and
there is no guarantee of success [11]. However,
the magnitude of success out of the innovations
from edge is very high and that is a motivation for
researchers to think beyond the boundaries of
company, beyond their comfort zone and most
importantly beyond the technology areas.
Jaipur Foot
Let us take an interesting example of “Jaipur foot”
which is the artificial limb for disabled people. One
can visit their center for consultation in Jaipur,
India. After giving necessary inputs, a person can
walk out with an artificial limb in just few hours.
How is it possible to make the process so simple It
becomes possible because of the use of
technologies from different domains and
collaboration. This discipline is called as
biomechanics. The process involves chemistry to
select the right material, mechanical engineering
to design coupling and screws, and last and the
most important, human psychology to understand
the needs and emotions of disabled people.
Biomathematics
During your high school days, when you were
studying biology and mathematics, did you think
that there is some relationship between these two.
The two look like North Pole and South Pole and
share no commonality at all. So, what is
biomathematics Well, it is a branch that deals with
biology, mathematics and computing all in one.
Why do you need these fields to come together
Well, biology consists of data rich information set
like genomics, which becomes easier by using
analytical tools. Mathematical tool like chaos
theory can be used to model nonlinear concepts in
biology, which was not possible earlier. Evolution of
computing technology inspired to simulate
complete biological systems for understanding it
better and in less time. Hence, research of
theoretical biology can go places by collaboration
amongst mathematicians, engineers, biologists,
physicists, geneticists, zoologists and other
branches that are on edge of above-mentioned
branches [14].
Ecosystem Modeling
Ecosystem modeling [13] is the mathematical
representation of ecological system. This
mathematical model can further be used to
simulate real system to produce more information
about the ecosystem that otherwise is not possible
without waiting for long duration. Such simulation
can be used in other domains. Some of these
domains include agricultural management,
wildlife conservation, computer science, and
mathematics. Ecological model is one of the finest
examples of cross-domain innovations since it uses
mathematics, modeling and simulation to solve
problems in different disciplines.
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TechTalk@KPITCummins, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2012