What Engineering would be most crucial for the 21st century? Chemical Engineering? Computer Engineering? Electronics Engineering? No. None of these. It will be ‘Gandhian engineering’, which is all about “getting more from less for more and more people of the world”!
Getting it for billions of `have nots’ means making products and services available not just at `low cost’ but at `ultra-low cost’ – and that too at the same level of performance!
For instance, can we make a laptop costing $ 2000 available at $ 200? Can we make a Hepatitis-B vaccine costing $ 40 per dose available at 40 cents per dose? Can we make a psoriasis treatment costing $ 20,000 available at $ 100? Can we make a comfortable, safe and fuel efficient car available, not at $ 20,000, but at $ 2000? Can we make an artificial foot costing $ 10,000, made available at $ 30? Can we make a high quality cataract eye surgery made available, not at $ 3000 but $ 30?
All these sound impossible. But all these have been made possible. And that too in our India!
Such innovations should not just be `affordable’ but `extremely affordable’. For achieving this, one cannot rely on just `incremental innovation’ but `extreme innovation’ or `disruptive innovation’. The lecture will discuss the drivers for such a type of innovation.
We will finally make a case that Gandhian engineering will provide the solutions for all the manmade problems of the 21st century, from global economic meltdown to global warming!
Getting `more from less for more’ will be the new Mantra for the twenty first century.
The description of his lecture sounds so interesting. I will try to get the full lecture after the event. Till then you may read his interview on the same topic
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