An innovation expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be visiting the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), in November to promote the importance of user-based innovations in creating successful companies.

“India and Indians residing worldwide have a wonderful record as innovators and entrepreneurs. I believe users tend to be the real developers of many important products. Recently, research by my colleagues has shown that many new companies are started by users who become entrepreneurs. Learning about how user innovations foster the creation of successful new companies will be very useful information for IIM students and others in India,” says Eric von Hippel, professor and head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of Engineering Systems at MIT.

It will be his first trip to India, which he also intends to use “to forge closer contacts with my colleagues at IIM-A, who have very similar research interests”.

The lecture is part of a two-week long ‘Inventors of India’ workshop by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A. About 70 inventors and innovators of all ages and technical background are expected to be present at the event. Premier institutes could also be called to participate at the workshop.

“Eric will participate and may give the inaugural address at the workshop. In addition, he will interact with the faculty and students and explore possibilities of collaborative research. Apart from visiting some grassroot innovators, he will interact with our incubatee companies as well. Several things are being planned and we are quite excited about his visit. Also, we may ask institutes like National Institute of Design (NID) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), to pitch in,” says Rakesh Basant, chairman of CIIE and a professor at IIM-A.

An expert in Principle of Developing Economics, Eric has made two of his books available openly on his website at no cost to the reader: Democratising Innovation, published in 2005 by the MIT Press, and Sources of Innovation, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press. Leading companies in the world have used practical methods based on his research.

Hippel is also expected to meet grassroot innovators at SRISTI, an NGO founded by Anil Gupta, a professor at IIM-A. Incidentally, Gupta too would be lecturing at MIT as part of the Amy Smith’s International design and development course on July 16-17.

More : business-standard.com

The National Academy of Sciences, a private organization established by Congress in 1863 to advise the Federal Government, has elected 60 new members. The election brings the number of active members to 1,683.

The academy also named 15 nonvoting foreign associates, bringing their total to 298.

Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded an American scientist or engineer. The academy said election recognized “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Following are the new members and their affiliations at the time of the election. New Members

Yakir Aharonov, professor of physics, Tel Aviv University, Israel, and University of South Carolina, Columbia.

Paul G. Ahlquist, professor, Institute for Molecular Virology and department of plant pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Bishnu S. Atal, head, speech research department, A.T.& T. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J.

Bruce S. Baker, professor of biological sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.

Ransom Lee Baldwin Jr., professor of animal science, University of California, Davis.

Denis Baylor, professor and chair of neurobiology, Stanford University.

Malcolm R. Beasley, professor of applied physics and electrical engineering, Stanford University.

Klaus Biemann, professor of chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Claude R. Canizares, professor of physics, head of the astrophysics division and director of the Center for Space Research, M.I.T.

Charles P. Casey, Helfaer Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin.

C. Thomas Caskey, chief of medical genetics; professor of medicine and biochemistry; director, Institute of Molecular Genetics; Henry and Emma Meyer Chair in Molecular Genetics, and investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.