Geoff's blog

Asia sets the pace

Geoff Mulgan - 19.12.2011

A few weeks ago I was in India for the Global Innovation Forum. India has huge ambitions in innovation, stretching from launching satellites to village-level sanitation projects. 

The head of its National Innovation Forum, Sam Pitroda, who's collected some of India's sharpest business leaders on the Forum, put their defining idea sharply: capitalism directs the best brains to solve the problems of the rich who don't really need it, rather than the poor who do. They're creating a $1bn inclusive investment fund, and a host of fascinating plans including providing a universal identifier for all adult Indians, a project run by Nandan Nilekani, of Infosys. 

A particularly impressive project was the Narayana Hospital complex at Health City in Bangalore, which applies the Toyota approach of scale, flow and transparency to the hospital, combined with very labour intensive care. It's all done under the watchful eye of its head, Dr Devi Shetty, who continues to practice from his desk.   

Spending time in India it's clear that the developing world is moving ahead in seeing innovation in three dimensions - science and technology, economic growth and social progress - rather than just about R&D and patents. NESTA is doing a study on the Indian innovation system which will hopefully be out in the spring, and explain what it's doing well and why. 

On the same trip I spent some time in Singapore for the Lien Centre for Social Innovation's Social iCon conference, which confirmed just how much Asia is now setting the pace. We held another pathfinder for the Global Innovation Academy there, with a brilliant group of NGOs and civil servants from across the region. The Academy is taking shape with a distinctive curriculum and approach, training groups from across the sectors in the practical skills of social design, finance and growth. There are ambitious plans for scaling it up next year.