This is first in series of features that has been put together to promote the idea of innovation as a pillar of Pakistan's economic growth. I shall start from pitch as to how this novel and seemingly First World concept could apply to the country like Pakistan and then move forward to throw in some real can-do measures, which could turn the tide of this loitering country, given it has conviction to mend its fate.
One guiding principle that forms the basis for such a discourse is the understanding of innovation in broader context, then just the confines of technological fancifulness. It should rather be construed as growth that stems from broader innovation 'encompassing products and processes' precipitated by breadth and depth of people and not just the confines of R&D facilities. Thus the issue is not just how to enkindle formal patentable innovations from research facilities but how to design incentives to spread creativity economy-wide.
For sustainable growth, the country's existing traditional/non-traditional sectors would have to be steered away from the orthodox brick-and-mortar modus operandi if we do not desire to be desolated in the quickly shifting global frontiers. Such shifts, though ought to unlock opportunities for prepped-economies but pose grave threats for pampered ones those who 'by reasons whatever' are corroding their own narrow belt of competencies.
Our devil doesn't lie in our circumstances, but it lies in the country's historic set of priorities. Every time we gush into growth mode, it's either the hardware or only the hot air "stock, real estate" we focus on, without ever considering the software "intellectual capacity" as the driver of growth model. How would a 3 GHz computer perform if run on Windows 95? It would simply halt!
Thus in today's scenario when the country is losing market competitiveness faster than ever, there needs to be a concerted effort to rescue the eroding edge (Pakistan in 2009-10 lost 22 points in Global Competitiveness and ranked lower than Ethiopia) not by embarking on mushrooming R&D facilities everywhere "as we did with IT" but by innovatively utilising and exploiting current set of resources and opportunities. How hard is it to set up a national website where Hyderabad could sell online its Ajrak and Swat its famous shawls to the world or for that matter set up a car-pooling arrangement online or on cellular network to solve burgeoning transport problems of people going to similar office blocks! Both of them costing couple of thousands, but the point is; do we really need complex R&D facilities to solve our everyday problems? No What we need is the re-wiring of mindsets, we don't have to invent to move forward, what we need is to re-invent our thinking to see possibilities beyond the confines of improbable.
We need "idea factories" in which idea generation should be purview of every citizen, from challi wala to the country's chief executive, only then would there be sustainable development' decoupled from the lurches of national or natural turbulences and cataclysm.
We as a society must embrace these small steps because we lack required critical mass essential for competing at advanced fronts. It doesn't mean, however, to lean backward, rather we should learn to earn strategic partnerships not just in the realm of security but in modern technologies.
South Korea during the 60-70s didn't have the knowledge bedrock to start challenging Europe and Japan, it thus started off partnering and acquiring critical know-how. Such a head start made it gain pace and in fairly short time the country shifted from being an adopter to trend setter.
Pakistan has also learned to partner but in narrow domains see if we can jointly produce a 4th generation fighter jet, world class submarines, stealth frigates and master the 'exclusive' nuclear technology, why can't we reverse engineer this "classified know-how" into something that is daily life economy-wide productive. Obviously, we need an open innovative mind and a will to succeed against system' to turn car engine into stone crusher.
(The writer is an IBA graduate and is policy consultant with the Planning Commission of Pakistan)
Comments
Comments are closed.