Being A Proposal For Innovation Teams

No, no, no! Science parks? The concept is all wrong. Science parks not, Science stops not. If it doesn’t change, if it stays as is, it’s not Science – it’s Status Quo. Or Art. That goes whether you are in Los Alamos (a nuclear weapons town), Los Baños (a university town), or Las Vegas (a gambling town). You will find science in all those towns furiously working, not hibernating. Science goes on!

My conclusion? Whoever thought of ‘science park’ was thinking with his mind adumbrating, dictionary out of sight. The American Heritage Dictionary tells me a science park is an industrial zone, a manufacturing quarter. Science doesn’t stop there – it produces, reproduces, multiplies goods, industrial or consumer goods, things to eat, employ, experiment with, exploit, exhaust. Consider: a park is an area of land set aside for public use; reconsider, a science park is not for public use; rather, it is for private use.

Embarrassing! The ‘science park’ is an error in logic, I must say, not simply in grammar. Still, I just surfed the Internet, with these search entries – “science park” Philippines – and I got 70,400 English pages under Safesearch. I see Science Park of the Philippines Inc (Mitsui & others), UP Diliman Science & Technology Park (Quezon City), Light Industry & Science Park I (Cabuyao, Laguna), Laguna Technopark, Laguna International Industrial Park, Light Industry Science Park II (Calamba City), to list a few.

So, science park is a bad idea whose time has come!

Still, I’m not comfortable with the term. So I now suggest a compromise; I’d like to call it by its acronym, spark, and I’ll tell you why. Spark is synonymous with vigor, flash, energy, generator. To spark is to trigger, to set off, to begin, to launch. So we have this new definition: A spark is a zone assigned and designed to trigger and enable the launching of science-based industries.

So, let me call the Agri-Science Park of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) the Agri-Spark, the Science & Technology Park of the University of the Philippines Los Baños the Spark of UP Los Baños. And now I can tell you that this has indeed sparked a new idea in me: the Spark of UP Los Baños ought to be patterned after the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT if UP Los Baños knows what’s good for her.

By our definition, the Spark of UP Los Baños should be not simply a learning place, a gathering place, but a launching pad for new enterprises, new industries, innovations. The Spark, wherever it is, should trigger off the creation of new teams made up of private interest, science and public service.

That’s exactly what the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT is in its campus in Andhra Pradesh, India. A model spark that UP Los Baños ought to learn from to emulate in her own campus. The learning curve shouldn’t be too steep, should it?

Out of separate pieces called Hybrid Parents Research Consortium (HPRC), Agri-Business Incubator (ABI), Ag-Biotech Innovation Center (AIC), Bioproducts Research Consortium (BRC), SAT Eco-Venture, arose the concept of the Agri-Spark of ICRISAT, which was set up 2003 December as a flagship initiative of the institute (agri-sciencepark.icrisat.org). The initiative signed an agreement with the Government of Andhra Pradesh to become part of the Genome Valley project, positioned as the agriculture-biotech hub of the Valley. Through the initiative, ICRISAT proposes to transfer technologies, enter into joint ventures with the private sector, to develop and commercialize innovations and knowledge; it is designed to ‘act as the umbrella for all the partnership related work done at ICRISAT in order to integrate the approach into one framework.’ It must be noted that the initiative is ‘to ultimately benefit the poorest of the poor.’

That is a given; whatever ICRISAT does, it must ultimately improve the lives of the very poor in the semi-arid tropics where millions of families eke out their living under deprived conditions and circumstances.

That said, there is one other thing I would like to mention here, and it is about ICRISAT often using partner, partnership, partnering when it comes to working in tandem with other institutions, groups or sectors. That’s a good habit, and it does underscore the value of co-operation. But I prefer to use another term, which ICRISAT uses every now and then to refer to her own group: Team. To me, partnering is limited in concept that teaming is not. Everybody knows what’s a team, as in basketball team. That is why Team ICRISAT is a powerful idea whose time came when William Dar became the institute’s Director General in 2000.

Team ICRISAT is what I call an innovation team.

Speaking of the model, the working framework of the initiative that I’m referring to here as Agri-Spark, ICRISAT says ‘it has reached a stage wherein this concept can be easily replicated, customizing to any given geographic location.’

Icrisat is ready to set up such initiatives ‘through strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships in the developing countries to create such vehicles which will boost public-private partnerships.’

Now then, UP Los Baños can do worse than reproduce the spark that ICRISAT has emitted using science with a human face in pursuit of the Grey-To-Green Revolution. (I will note here with pride that the Captain of Team ICRISAT is a UP Los Baños alumnus, with a PhD in Horticulture; he comes from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur.) What will it take the University to do that? Some entrepreneurship, some risk-taking, some planning, some leading, some reorganizing, some controlling. I’m hopeful for the University, my alma mater (I’m BSA ‘65), but she will have to learn appropriate corporate visioning, missioning, strategizing; above all, to reinvent herself.

Can UP Los Baños reinvent herself? She can. All it takes is a will. I’ve been in and out of UP Los Baños for the last 40 years; do I think the current leadership has the political will? I hope so.

And she can begin by declaring her independence from the University of the Philippines System and designing her own future as the State University of the Philippines, self-reliant, self-propelled. She needs to be innovative.

Further, I envisage the State U as embracing financial independence in the model of Robert Kiyosaki, the inventor of the concept of financial independence. How? That is for me to say and for UP to find out!

I have read 4 of Kiyosaki’s books: Rich Dad, Poor Dad; Cashflow Quadrant; Rich Dad’s Guide To Investing; Rich Kid, Smart Kid. He makes sense, practical sense. What applies to the individual should apply to the institutional. (You may ask: So, if I’m so smart, why ain’t I so rich? I prefer to handle the treasures in my mind as you can see, and know that I am in fact wealthier.)

‘A large part of Kiyosaki’s teachings focuses on generating passive income by means of investment opportunities, such as real estate and small businesses, with the ultimate goal of supporting oneself by such investments alone’ (Wikipedia). Now a millionaire many times over, Kiyosaki has shown that investing in real estate makes a lot of sense – and a lot of money.

So, what’s that to UP Los Baños whose style is cramped with lack of funds? A house and lot is real estate; inside and outside the campus, there is a dearth of dormitories and residences so much so that even cramped one-room affairs are paid for almost willingly by occupants. I know; for the last 40 years, my big family and I have stayed in as many residences as the number of my children: 12. Los Baños is a university town, and there are many of us who don’t own homes, let alone home lots.

If she does not want to engage in real estate the Kiyosaki way, UP Los Baños can teach the Kiyosaki formula for financial independence. With thousands taking such short courses, UP Los Baños should become financially independent herself in only a handful of years. One of the big surprises of the Kiyosaki approach to real estate is that you don’t need any capital at all – you just have to know the principle of it. Go read his books! He has a website: http://www.richdad.com/.

UP Los Baños, if not Kiyosaki’s scheme, it’s time to innovate anyway and raise funds, not simply raise consciousness. ICRISAT was a loser, funds and all, when William Dar assumed headship in 2000. But the Captain built his team and in the process ICRISAT, and now enjoys a surplus of world attention, not to mention a surplus budget.

If the older Captain from Los Baños can, I don’t see why the younger Captain in Los Baños can’t. I ask, ‘Where’s the Spark of Los Baños?’

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under creative photography, creative thinking, creative writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.