Keep it Simple! Innovate to Create Scalable Impact

Abstract:

"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains", Steve Jobs. 
 
India is a land of seemingly complex problems, each of which provide a unique opportunity to bring in fresh thought, imagination and innovation. Oftentimes, in thinking of solutions to problems, we focus a lot on answers whose complexity in thought and execution, usually undermine, honest efforts made to solve them. Taking specific examples in the heathcare space, Anand's talk will attempt to bring the focus back to how we define the problem; and that being more important than the solution itself; especially when we want the solutions to scale in a context like India. Constraints posed by a developing nation context, like access to healthcare infrastructure and skilled resources, low purchasing power, lack of centralized insurance, often help redefine the problem statements, leading to science, technology and delivery solutions that are far more innovative and hence disruptive globally.

About the speaker

Anand Sivaraman, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has a diverse experience in designing and bringing to market products at the intersection of Technology and Public Health. Anand is currently the Founder-Director of Remidio Innovative Solutions - a company that has designed smartphone based technology solutions in retinal and corneal imaging in ophthalmology, that allows non-ophthalmologists to help screen for preventable blindness. Anand strongly believes on the need for bringing back simplicity in the way we think about products and their use, and how some radically different product ideas can evolve when one views the constraints at the bottom-of-the-pyramid, not as a challenge but as an opportunity to Innovate. In a world of too much information, ambiguity and opportunities, simplicity, which is often ignored, is an expedient path to successful innovation. Considering the limited resources we have, thinking beyond the conventional, defining problems locally and then executing them on a global scale is what Anand thinks is crucial for India.