No more over head power lines

                  Abundant solar and wind power lies across America’s vast plains and deserts, but getting that distant renewable energy to cities without wrecking vistas and raising lawsuits over transmission lines is a sizable hurdle for green-leaning utility companies. Thousands of miles of towering electrical lines will be needed before big alternative-energy projects can take hold. Yet such power lines portend years of legal snarls over the not-in-my-backyard problem.
Into this fray comes Phil Harris and his pioneering plan to use underground superconducting cables that will be both hidden from view and more efficient than traditional lines. Mr. Harris wants to build a virtually invisible network that would create a national renewable-energy hub located in the Southwest.
Today, the nation’s power grid is in three disconnected pieces – Eastern, Western, and Texas. Harris’s project, called Tres Amigas, would use superconducting cable to provide the first large-scale commercial trading link between those big grids – opening up new markets for renewable wind and solar power in the American East and West.
These superconducting cables contain special materials chilled to superlow temperatures, allowing electricity to flow efficiently, with no resistance. The only lost energy goes toward refrigerating the cables. While Harris’s “hub” would run in a loop, it would demonstrate the potential for superconducting power lines that could travel long distances and eliminate the 7 percent of electricity wasted by ugly, above-ground transmission lines.
In papers filed in early December with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Tres Amigas outlined its plans for a $600 million, 15- to 20-mile triangular-shaped hub near Clovis, N.M., constructed using superconducting cable.
Such a trading hub could spur investment in wind and solar power development in many states around the region, say officials with Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM). The company is weighing construction of a new “wind collector” transmission line to connect new wind farms in the east-central part of the state with Tres Amigas, if the new transmission hub is built.
Today, PNM has “no significant ability” to move power to the eastern US or to Texas, says Greg Miller, lead engineering and operations director for PNM. While power lines that run west to California remain congested, Tres Amigas would open up the other two markets – allowing development of New Mexico wind power.
“We have very rich potential for renewable-energy development, particularly with wind in the east-central part of our state,” Mr. Miller says. With at least 10,000 megawatts of wind power development currently waiting for transmission lines to be built, “we think [the hub] could be the trigger that will allow us to move forward.”
The supercooled cables from American Superconductor, the nation’s largest maker of superconducting cable, are already being used in small projects by the Long Island Power Authority, American Electric Power, and National Grid. Perhaps two dozen locations worldwide rely on superconducting cable, but often it is to connect key stations less than a mile from each other.
Tres Amigas would be a “game changer,” company officials say.
“What we’re starting to see is a new phase in commercialization of superconducting cable – not just in this country but globally,” says Daniel McGahn, president and chief operating officer of American Superconductor in Devens, Mass.
A tour of American Superconductor’s factory found the company creating flat metal tape out of “high-temperature superconducting” (HTS) oxide materials and costly silver, then slicing it into thin flat strips. The strips wrap around a pipe carrying liquid nitrogen, which cools the cable to minus 346 degrees Fahrenheit.
At that temperature, electrons that ordinarily move randomly, losing energy in bumper-car-like collisions that generate heat, shift to highway mode. Electrons then move in pairs in one direction, generating no heat and losing no energy.



An extract from Christian Science Monitor,

When would India start encouraging its in-house Innovations?

Bangalore: For centuries the Indian mindset has been about following the West. The 'I' in India always meant Imitation. But now Innovation has become the new mantra for all young Indians. But has the efforts of new innovations really paid off? In fact you could say "No" as only 12 to 14 percent (35) of innovations out of 250 were approved and were given patent.

Out of 35, 5 patents were given by the U.S. Government. The U.S. patent office did not charge innovators any patent fee when they heard that the innovations were from people who had no formal training.

There are several innovations that happen in the country and go unnoticed, and then there comes an NGO which nominates the individual, the individual wins a prize for his prized innovation and he and his revolutionizing innovation is forgotten in the same village where it had originated. Since many of these worthy innovations lie cocooned in their respective villages, hardly any of these breakthrough technologies see the light.

Why is that, in India, there is a congenital failure to identify innovation and creativity? Despite the lack of education, power and money, young guns have fought their way with limited resources and found a better and cheaper solution to address our problems, but still government shuts its doors away and discourages budding talents.

One such instance that has been ignored by our so called government is that of Chandrasekhar Panda and Saswat Swain, the two young minds of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) who have designed the first ever 3G technology-based data card that will provide high speed internet at a very low cost for rural people.

The 3G data card, named "iWEBLEAF", has been designed in such a manner that it can work on the spectrum of any telecom operator to provide high speed internet service all the time. They have developed the card in such a way that it is both Wi-Fi and 3G enabled. The data card currently has the capacity of providing 7.2Mbps speed on the 2G GSM SIM card besides providing internet access at 21.1Mbps.It also acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot hub, which will enable the end user to connect around 300 laptops and 30 mobile phones to the internet without using any cable connection.

This invention can be a breakthrough in providing mobile broadband connectivity to the people of the state.In India the biggest challenge for the telecom authority of India is to provide broadband in rural villages and remote areas of the country. The goal of the project is to drive a 'highway' of high-speed internet, which would unite 410 rural regions, where private telecom companies do not develop broadband internet infrastructure due to low demand.

"By using only 3 to 4 data cards, an entire village with around 150 families can be provided internet connectivity with a net spending of just Rs 900 per month. Similarly, an urban user will get high speed internet at just Rs 99 per month," said Panda.

"Using this data card, a person can get to view more than 150 television channels, free of cost without using any television tuner or additional gadgets. The user can also switch to different networks within 2 days." said Panda.

Currently the data card is priced at 1300. It can be used by both pre-paid and post-paid customers and the tariff plan that they offer is 274 per month for unlimited download and 99 for 2GB of download.

The data card price is expected to reduce to 900 if the State government extends its support. The one disadvantage of the innovation is that, the data card is completely depended on a telecom operator's spectrum and no telecom operator would like its customers switch to different operators so frequently.

The young lads are in talks with local operators in State and are hopefully expecting a positive response from them.

Though our Honorable President, Pratibha Patil has extended her support for the project, the State and the Orissa Government have not taken any action towards the R&D setup and budget plan of the innovation.

Around six lakh students graduate from technical institutes every year in our country and why that none of their 'innovative' project works is not considered worthy of a patent?

In a government polytechnic college in Latur (in Maharashtra), three young girls have built a black box for automobiles that is used by Insurance companies in U.S. to know if the car was met with a genuine accident or not. How many people in India know about this? Should not such products be developed and sold in a mass scale?

There is no acknowledgment from any quarter. These Indian Technical Institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics have mass talent at grassroots level. So, the government needs to look into the development of these institutes if they want to encourage rural ideas and also needs to harness low cost technologies which will help India achieve the stand of a Super power nation.

source: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Is_India_ignoring_its_Inhouse_innovations_and_potential_innovators-nid-75326.html?utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Subscriber

Young innovators connect technology to society

Most of the modern day innovations eye the rich, the affluent and the technologically well-read. The current generation of India's technical students has shown their mettle in the world stage where their technological innovations are considered to be the best.

But India being a nation consisting one third of the world's poor needs more innovative ideas and concepts directed towards improving the human conditions of the less privileged and the downtrodden.It's here the creation of three young innovative minds from the Sinhagad Institute of Technology gains its significance. They have created the S.N.A.P. Eyewriter that costs only 750 which can make the mouse obsolete and come to the aid of quadriplegics and paralytics, reports the Pune Mirror. Nitesh Prakash, Sumit Kumar and Paras Kumar all third year Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering students of SIT, took up a social cause for their collage project and came up with an eyewriter which will use the eye as an interface to point to icons or even write on a screen.

Inspired by Pranav Mistry who has worked on the Sixth Sense technology, the boys also consulted James Powderly who lent them an open source software that they needed for the S.N.A.P Eyewriter. To make the price cheaper, they bought a locally made camera and used regular film.

The S.N.A.P. Eyewriter, uses a spectacle to navigate the computer screen. The students used a camera, Infra Red (IR) LED transmitters, an IR filter, eyeglasses and wire for hardware. The software detects and tracks the position of an eye and uses a calibration sequence to map the tracked eye. It also has an eye-drawing software which creates strokes on the screen. Although it works separately now, they have plans to release a combined version too.

The project report by the trio details the use of this device. It can be used for paralyzed people, who cannot move any other part of their body except for their eyes. It is a great relief for the paralyzed as it adds a recreational purpose to it whereby gaming experience can also be enhanced by replacing the mouse pointer with the eyepointer. On the future plans, they say the system can be used not only to write or draw but even to operate a wheelchair and any other robotics could also be controlled with it.

This is just the beginning by the youngsters, but this is really an eye opener for the economically privileged students in the reputed technical schools who can change the so-called 'undeveloped and poor India' image by their innovative ideas. We have organizations such as National Innovation Foundation working towards eradicating poverty and degradation from the Indian soil. The recent innovations such as solar lamp and water filter have helped the poor to a great extend. What we need is the bright minds of India that can connect innovations with society and enterprise and which can impart the scientific and technological knowledge to the masses, the illiterate and the needy.

Value Innovation and Toyota’s Crown glory

"What consistently separated winners from losers in creating blue oceans was their approach to strategy. The companies caught in the red ocean followed a conventional approach, racing to beat the competition by building a defensible position within the existing industry order.  The creators of blue oceans, surprisingly, didn’t use the competition as their benchmark.  Instead, they followed a different strategic logic that we call value innovation.  Value innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategy" (from page 12 of the book Blue Ocean Strategy, co-authored by Professor W. Chan Kim and Professor Renée Mauborgne).

Last week Toyota revealed the newest iteration of its Crown sedan, the first car created under its Value Innovation (VI) program. Toyota is focusing its strategy, aimed at saving the car maker over US$ 2.8 billion per year, on Value Innovation—the core ingredient in any Blue Ocean Strategy. 

As Yahoo! news reports:

Toyota began work three years ago on the ambitious plan, called "VI" for Value Innovation, which seeks to lump some of the tens of thousands of car components together to form modules and systems. Analysts have been keen to see the fruits of the scheme for hints to its impact on the car's price, features and eventually the competitiveness of parts suppliers.

The 13th incarnation of the high-end Crown series features many examples of cost-cutting measures under the VI plan, enabling Toyota to cap the car's price while packing more safety and other features compared with the previous generation, the company said.

"We were able to enhance the car's cost performance through the VI efforts," President Katsuaki Watanabe told a news conference.

The VI plan will be built into each new model that Toyota rolls out going forward, and Watanabe has said he expects it to help the company achieve annual savings of at least 300 billion yen (US$ 2.8 billion) from the business year starting in April.

Source: http://blueoceanstrategy.typepad.com/creatingblueoceans/2008/02/value-innovatio.html

Is Innovation Necessary to Survive?

Does your product need to be innovative in order to succeed, or does it just have to be unique?

Can you be innovative in other ways rather than offering an innovative product?

Sure you can! While innovation can help with marketing and lead generation, it can also make you leaner, more flexible and more creative.

While innovation might not be a necessity under normal circumstances, this economic environment requires you to innovate in order to stand out.

Below are different ways you can innovate in order to be as competitive as possible.
Product or service innovation
Innovative products are those that might:
• Have distinct features and benefits
• Perform a task in a new or inventive way
• Utilize new or experimental technology
These products normally carry a larger markup because they attract consumers who are willing to pay steep premiums for newer technology. The benefits of offering innovative products include enjoying large margins and high-paying customers. Also, you may often be regarded as an industry leader.
The down side to innovation is that you always have to innovate in order to continually enjoy these benefits. This can be very costly.

You don’t HAVE to innovate. Instead, you can have another Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Innovation is only one type of USP, but there are also many others. Creating a different USP is a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition while also attracting many targeted customers without the expense of innovation.

Innovative management
Your business can have innovative management through:
• Management training
• Finding new ways to motivate employees
• Granting autonomy and empowerment
• Allowing your employees to self-manage
You want to come up with unique and creative ways to lead, control and organize your staff. Being innovative through management can save you money, improve the workplace culture, encourage openness and even raise productivity. In turn, this can make you more competitive, adaptive to change and have cheaper operations.

Innovative marketing
Your marketing strategies could be innovative with:
• Unique marketing messages (ie: Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads)
• New channels of marketing (ie: ads in Video Games)
• Who you advertise to
• Creative ways to retain customers
The benefit to innovative marketing is that you’ll find new and effective methods to attract customers in ways that your competition has never even though of.

Innovative processes and manufacturing
If you can find a new way to create a product, run a department, or even measure the output of a process, you are innovating. This process innovation should usually result in less resource usage without sacrificing output quality.
This innovation may result in simplified production, higher quality products and/or lower production and overhead costs. This can often give you the option to either reduce your price, or enjoy a higher profit margin.

Innovative culture
Google is considered extremely innovative in its workplace culture. Between the Wi-Fi enabled buses they send to pick up their staff, granting their employees time to work on any project they choose or even the casual work environment they provide, Google’s reputation for being a great place to work has quickly become legendary, all thanks to their culture.
Because of their well renowned culture, they attract top talent and always have a large pool of applicants. This allows them to hire quality employees who can keep the company humming at and incredibly efficient level.
By having your own innovative culture, you too can attract superstars. These kinds of superstars can do wonders for your company’s success, and can help it to grow even faster than if you were running it by yourself.

Innovative office environment
Having a green work environment, aesthetically pleasing interior decorating, ergonomically friendly offices and desks or even something as simple as providing a means to work from home are all examples of ways you can innovate.
Providing an innovative physical work environment can be a great way to increase productivity and boost worker morale. This can ultimately improve the quality of your output while decreasing your level of input.

Innovative use of technology
Twitter has gained an enormous amount of popularity in the past month. It has proven to be a great communication channel, marketing channel, blogging channel and in my opinion, the best social network medium out there.
This is just an example of ONE innovation that individuals and companies are all taking advantage of. Innovative uses of technology can save you time and money when communicating, marketing, managing, motivating, manufacturing or in pretty much any business process.

I think a great example of innovative uses of technology was in President Obama’s election campaign. He utilized Twitter, Facebook, Text Messaging, all of which allowed him to more intimately target and market to the demographic of students, twenty somethings and the technologically inclined. No other presidential candidate has ever used technology to the extent that Obama had in a campaign.
While I can’t say if this was the deciding factor in his campaign, it certainly helped and it certainly was successful in getting him a lot of support from this demographic.

Thus, finding innovative ways to use technology will allow you to better communicate with and relate to your demographic. Also, it can reduce any business expense or improve product or service quality.
Are there any other ways businesses can innovate in order to become more competitive?

‘Innovation has become necessary tool for growth’

“Innovation will be the necessity for social and economical growth of the nation in future. We live and die through relative innovation. The world has changed because of innovation only. Science is responsible for all the innovations we feel around,” remarked Srinivasan K. Swamy, President, All India Management Association (AIMA), New Delhi, while delivering his lecture to the members of Ludhiana Management Association (LMA) at Hotel Park Plaza here on Wednesday evening.

Swamy was accompanied by Uma Oberoi, Director, AIMA. The topic of the lecture was “Innovation”. Dr. K.N.S. Kang, General Secretary, LMA, welcomed all the guests, members and speakers on the occasion. V.K. Goyal, Senior Vice-President, LMA, explained the activities of the association to the president of AIMA and introduced the speaker to the audience.

While introducing the topic, Dr K.N.S. Kang, General Secretary, LMA, said, “Innovations can take place in all the business activities and there is a dire need at present to innovate products, processes and marketing in the field of business. Today’s organisations have already innovated new methods of HR management as well. Innovation will be life-blood of the business in future”

Swamy said that inventions were indeed different from innovation, unless the invention was not offered to the public. If the invention improved some product, process or service for the public, then that invention transforms into an innovation. Science is mainly responsible for all inventions which are finally transformed into innovations. Swamy said that broadly saying there were four types of innovations, which lead the business world namely fundamental innovations, outstanding innovations, relative innovations and process innovations. Swamy said the business organisations should stress more on relative and process-based innovations which can enhance the business competitiveness.

Swamy said that telephone was a fundamental innovation and internet/fax/SMS facilities in mobile telephones were an evident example of outstanding innovation. Swamy quoted an example of Apple Computers which gave cut-throat competition to Sony, IBM, HP etc. by introducing relative innovation in computer manufacturing.

Swamy gave example of Tatas, Hindalco, Hero group for their excellence in process innovation. He said that these companies had innovated the business processes and as a result had become leaders of the market. At the end of the lecture, Swamy explained the objectives of AIMA and its activities.
While delivering his presidential remarks, Anil Kumar, president, LMA, thanked the speaker, guests and members. Kumar said the future of many businesses would depend on their ability to innovate. Kumar stressed that the process-based innovations should be encouraged more by the industry.

Source:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/innovation-has-become-necessary-tool-for-growth/374544/1

Titan Innovation Bazaar

Titan Innovation Bazaar

Edison once quipped- "Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration." Looking at the recently held Titan Innovation Bazaar, I got to see for myself what perspiration means. The word 'Innovation Bazaar' was first used by Mohanbir Sawhney and Satish Nambisan in their HBR article titled - A Buyer's Guide to the Innovation Bazaar. Here the authors defined an Innovation Bazaar as a marketplace where one could trade raw ideas, market-ready ideas and market ready products. It reflects from the fact that often several brilliant ideas never see the light of the day due to lack of sponsorship or proper shaping. Hence it is an imperative to connect ideas with - capital and talent.

Inspired from here, I played with this Idea in the form of an Innovation Bazaar at Wipro. These would be two day events where engineers and creators from across Wipro would come over and display their creations. Co-Wiproites would walk-by and get inspired. Though the core intent remains to allow 'cross-pollination' of ideas, the Bazaar helps the leadership team to pick up bright ideas to be commercialized. Having hosted over half a dozen Innovation Bazaars, am convinced of its utility.

The Titan Innovation Bazaar was unlike any I have seen at Wipro. Apart from the scale and commitment level, what was really impressive was the roster of jury members. Imagine a panel consisting of ace designers; serial entrepreneurs; academicians; scientists; inventors; and leading practitioners; assessing and engaging with an enthusiastic lot of Titanians. To be specific it was- Prof. S Balasubramanian, Deepam Mishra, Michael Foley, Yogesh Dandekar, GS Sridhar, NM Bhatta, Ravi Arora, S Jayashree and yours sincerely. There were also audience poll to pick up choice of innovations.

A little bit about the Bazaar:

There were 380 innovations narrowed to 119 for the actual event. These 119 innovations were spanning across Manufacturing Process, Supply Chain, Services, Product Design, Marketing and Retail Innovations. There was a mixed bag of Implemented Innovations as well Work in Process Inventions. Few you can't cease wondering at! From 9 30 AM till 6 30 PM, both on 10th- 11th Sept, there were a battery of over 250 Titanians from across Watches, Jewelry, Eye ware and Precision Engineering that held their booths. Titan being Titan, there was no dearth of impressive displays, posters, videos, demos, live products and other essential artifacts. It was truly an incredible experience. The jury would vouch for it.

This apart, there was a special movie (in-house production) on innovation made exclusively for this event which kept delivering the message of 'why innovation' and 'how innovation' to all the hosts and guests. There were also some world famous innovations on display.

In all, a fantastic event. A true celebration of human spirit of sharing, learning and collaborating. While I was traversing though the booths, I couldn't stop admiring the dedication people had to share. They won't let you pass by unless you hear them thoroughly and also pose a few questions. Truly am amazing spirit.

I wish the same could traverse through other organizations, across India. If only we could adopt best practices from each other, we would be a far better nation. We have massive talent hidden in pockets, we need many such Innovation Bazaars to knit this talent.

Well done Titan!

EXTRACT FROM Mr. Pavan Soni's Blog