The Need For Ranchoism (read: Innovative Spirit) in the Indian Industry and Academia
On a personal note, I have watched 3 idiots atleast a dozen of times, and am always ready to give it one more shot. The movie gives me an amazing feel on how an innovator thinks differently, and how the quest for knowledge and its application drives him to do things which others (like me) just dream of doing.
I love the quote when Farhan says,
Today my respect for that idiot shot up. Most of us went to college just for a degree. No degree meant no plum job, no pretty wife, no credit card, and no social status. But none of this mattered to him, he was in college for the joy of learning, he never cared if he was first or last.
After watching the movie I have always questioned myself, can “Rancho” really exist? Can the young engineers of today’s India be innovative, and persistent enough to break the social barriers and do something they just love so much when they enter into their engineering education. As I delve deeper I start hearing that the Indian economy and educational system doesn’t seem to be structured in a manner to inculcate innovative spirit in the heart of a young dreamer, and then the typical journey of an engineer from a young and passionate science student to an IT job oriented graduate makes me feel something is not going right – something needs to change.
India – now seen by the world as the new land of the dreams - is providing immense opportunities to young and passionate people – the economy is buoyant – there are loads of problems to be solved -the capital has started to get accessible and more importantly people have started accepting failure as an attempt to achieve brilliance. In the current scenario a thrust in the right direction by evangelists and leaders of academia and industry could really pave a golden path for India in the coming decades.
As an evangelist of Innovation in the industry and academia – we, at ASME India Section, decided to bring the leaders of industry, academia, and the government to a common platform at the ASME India Innovation Conclave to discuss how a future generation of innovators can be bread, groomed, and molded as heroes of the 21st century. Do visit us at ASME IndiaConclave and stay tuned to hear more from the speakers at the conclave and to know more about how Ranchoism can transform India and the world.
About the author:
Abhinav Shashank, CEO, InnovAccer, an innovation management and acceleration company
