Academia-Industry-Government (AmIGo) Model of Partnership

Academia-Industry-Government (AmIGo) Model of Partnership

Academia-Industry partnerships are widely known. They are mostly profit driven and based on formal agreement between an individual or an institution with an industry. The intellectual property that transforms into marketable product can either generate independently or be anticipated and funded by industry. 

Whilst it is not a crime to generate profit, a more inclusive approach would be Academia-Industry-Government (AmIGo) model of partnership. The element of profit is safely embedded within the AmIGo model. However, a share of it goes to the Government. 

The Government, takes intellectual output from academia and reach out to develop products/solutions with entrepreneurs (jointly or otherwise). The academia, in turn, will be motivated to find innovative solutions for socially relevant challenges. They will be forced to think out of their disciplines (i.e. encourage trans-disciplinary thinking/ collaborations). The entrepreneur gets a well defined goal to work towards. S/he will also be able to seek counsel of experienced Government professionals and there-by reduce the element of risk. The society stands to benefit by adopting the product/solution and even contribute through a feedback mechanism to improve it. 

AmIGo can also be a means to:

• Revive sagging Government owned enterprises.
• Increase revenue flow to Government coffers (for services provided to citizens).
• Enhance transparency.
• Foster socially relevant innovation
• Nurture entrepreneurship.
• Create employment and
• Enhance academic output (trans and inter-disciplinary research; patents filed/ granted)
• Provide facility for societal (user) feedback for improved deliver of Governmental services. 

Such partnership models will be pivotal to ensure timely delivery of indigenously developed products and solutions to make our cities 'smart'.   

Will you cut down a tree that speak with you?

Need for a Paradigm Shift from Capacity Building to Empathy Enhancement for Successful Conservation Efforts

A lot has been said about and invested to build and enhance human capacity for successful biodiversity conservation. However, with consistently fading ground realities, it does not require high intellect to gauge utility of these investments. It leads to think, whether capacity enhancement is the right goal. 

I would prefer to replace 'capacity building' with 'empathy enhancement'. The phrase 'capacity for conservation' implies an acquired attribute. Even with the most massive effort, acquired attributes will be gained by an insignificant number of people, compared to the population whose daily activities cumulatively erodes natural wealth. It is important to realize that most of these people do not have a viable and long-term alternative in front of them. Hence investments made to educate to appreciate and alter human behavior into a sustainable trajectory will either be 'partially' successful or re-emerge as some other issue. In most cases, people will not welcome 'new-issues', but would accommodate 'older' ones, as they are used to it since childhood.

However, if efforts are made to build empathy towards something, chances are that it will get protected. Ability to communicate with, or understand signals of other organisms is the best way to instill empathy towards it. Human behavior to domesticated animals and pets are classic cases that exemplifies the above statement. For this we need to understand what plants and animals try to convey through their flowers and sound.

Will you cut down a tree that speak with you?     

Paris Accord, POTUS & Horse Latitudes

Humanity is today facing one of its biggest threats - Climate Change.  It can be viewed as a polymorphic organism that props up in different forms at different locations. Beneath water, it manifests as bleach, at the surface, it expresses as elevated temperature, level rise, etc. On land, it is shortened winter, droughts or deluges. Climate change is neither the first, nor will be the last test for humanity. On many occasions during the course of human evolution, humanity found itself pushed to the wall. At every instance, we devised new ways to scale seemingly insurmountable walls. However, today we acknowledge climate change as a contemporary challenge and have agreed to pool wisdom, knowledge, information available at our individual and collective disposal and strive to come out with flying colours. A formal accord towards synchronized efforts to overcome the challenge was agreed to at Paris in late 2016. It was hailed across the world as, unprecedented.      

      

The Paris accord was a timely collective step in the right direction. Finer interpretation of supporting technical documents reveals that we have understood the challenge to a reasonable depth. Climate change is different from other challenges faced by humanity. Its dual form; of being both creeping and abrupt, necessitates us to redraw new and dynamic strategies to counter it. Prioritizing wealth (over money) was identified as the central, non-negotiable principle of the Paris accord.

As for almost all global scale efforts, the United States of America (USA) - militarily the most powerful nation on Earth – was looked upon as the leader and POTUS; the captain to steer the accord to its logical objectives. I do not view POTUS as an individual. It is one of the most powerful offices’ on the planet. Common man in any nation on this planet holds POTUS in high esteem. Hence the conventional ideal of chivalry viz. morality tied to honour, service, and respect was expected from it.

As the captain of the ship (Earth), POTUS was expected to go down with it. However, with the unilateral declaration to withdraw from the Paris accord, POTUS has behaved as a captain who has abandoned his ship at time of emergency. The only measurable consequence of this withdrawal is the steep plummet of the image of POTUS. The 21^st century world is different. It has many nations with towering leaders, who are competent to steer the ship successfully forward. 

As said in the Gita; Whatever Happens, Happen For Good.

Looking back, after a couple of years, we may claim that in mid-2017, our ship crossed the Horse Latitudes!