Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Prof. Rohit Srivastava on Why India Needs 10x Innovation to Beat China (#059)

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Prof. Rohit Srivastava on Why India Needs 10x Innovation to Beat China (#059) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that our country has is manpower, which no other country, and I will say this, you know, putting my sort of hands down on this thing, I went to the US, I got an education from US.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Indians are the best.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they have the best training possible, they have the best brains possible, but they are not seeing the opportunity that this country has to offer.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there are few of us who started coming back in the early 2000 from the US who found mentors like them who saw that there is an opportunity in India to use the limited resources that India has to offer and in fact create a bigger sort of impact.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that we've done, we've learned from these people.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: They have shown us how even you know a$50,000.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm just talking in terms of dollars because you know this conversation might be uh anywhere in the world, but just a$50,000 can lead to a product.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another edition of ContraMinds.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: In this episode, we have a very distinguished guest, Professor Rohit Srivastava.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Rohit Srivastava is the chair professor of applied biosciences and founder of the NanobIOS lab at IIT Bombay.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Professor Rohit Srivastava is at the forefront of healthcare innovation in India.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: His life passion is to build affordable medical technologies in India, for India and take it across the world.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's been widely recognized for his work and been awarded the Shanti Surub Bhatnaga Prize and the Vigyan Shri in 2024.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: What makes Professor Rohit Srivastwa unique is he is an academician, a co-founder, and a researcher rolled into one.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I started my conversation with Professor Rohit Srivastava on who were his mentors, what is the inspiration that he got from them, and what are the lessons he learned from them.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Then he spoke to me about the 10X impact, the theory that motivates him and the work that he does.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: He explained that in detail to understand the reasons why he was doing what he was doing.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: We then spoke about the need for uh patents rather than research papers from academicians and how his focus is on building patents.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: He explained the power of patents and how it can take India into the global market and be a leader in innovation.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: We then talked about the importance of interdisciplinary thinking and how he's taken it to a new level at IIT Bombay.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Over to my conversation with Professor Rohit Shivastawa.
• 2:49
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• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you very much for the question.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a very, very important question in anyone's life because when one moves forward, one tends to appreciate the role of mentors more and more because that is how you have reached where you have, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when I came back to India, I had only one thing in my mind to work for India.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you really want to work for India, you have to find people who have worked for India all their lives.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I picked my mentors.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I may not have worked under them, but there were three people who made a huge impact on my life and career.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in the order that they did, this was Professor Manjusharma, who was the former uh DBT secretary, and then of course she went on to get several recognitions, including the Padma Bhushan, uh Professor Jee Padmanavan, who was the former ISC director.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's also got several recognitions, including the Vigyan Ratna very recently, and Dr.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Renu Sarup, who was again the former DBT secretary, but then who was the chairman of BIRAC when I first met her?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So these were people who were doing what India needed at that time, and they were thinking ahead for India.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how my thinking changed, in the sense that if three of these people could influence so many people across the country, how could I, sitting in a place like IIT Bombay, access to so many students, access to an infrastructure which is unparalleled anywhere in the world in that sense, could also do a similar sort of uh work.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I got you know mentored by these people, sitting in the same committees, uh learning from them every day, and and figuring out what I could do different for India.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I picked this field, is because this is the only field I'm talking about education, I'm talking about technology development, where the more you teach somebody to become technologists, the more they become useful for the country and the country benefits.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So when you say uh work for India and when you're inspired by such people, uh one thing that I wanted to uh ask you is what made them work for India and what was the inspiration behind doing this?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because you can go outside India and do many things, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so what made them do it, and what did you see as uh say the character and discipline that they brought in and the passion and purpose that they had in their lives to inspire somebody like you?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Again, again, a terrific question in the sense that it's very difficult to answer this in a sentence, but I'll try.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people like uh Dr.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Manju Sharma, Professor Padmanavan, Dr.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Suru uh were forward thinkers, and that's what I believe this country needs.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: You have to think what the country will need 20 years down the line or 30 years down the line, and they were already thinking what or where the country will be in 2047.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is what the Honorable Prime Minister is now uh talking every day about to different ministries in the sense that we figure out where we want to be.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do we want to be as a developing nation or do we want to be a developed nation?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that put these people apart because they were thinking how we could rid India of all the imports.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that currently India pays, you know, at this moment we pay about 90,000 crores to import medical devices.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was more than a lakh crore, and it was more than 90% of all medical devices when I started my career.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: It has come down.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe in the next 20 years, because of the progressive thinking of these people, it can come down a significant amount.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: What put these people apart was their willingness to train younger faculty and younger people in the nation.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: See, this is something that I have rarely seen in people.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I'll I you know I'll I hope people forgive me for saying this, but rarely, you know, I have seen in senior uh very successful people where they tend not to help the younger generation.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I have seen that being opposite in these people, and of course, there was Professor Bhahan, you know, who was a secretary of DBT when I joined the country.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Many people you know at the at those times who have made significant impact in this country.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And very recently, Professor Ashudos Sharma, who just got the Padmashri, you know, people like them have helped so many people in their career, have made the career of so many of us, that all of us are now in tune with one vision, which is a Vik Sid Bharat.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we get there?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is something that all of us can contribute.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what I keep uh going to places everywhere around the country and saying only one thing.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: If I can do it sitting in a small lab like mine, with a very uh simple education like mine, uh, not even an IITN, how can people sitting in all these different places in India make a difference?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would they do, uh, Professor, to inspire people like you?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because the real challenge is uh, you know, we talk about infrastructure, we talk about funding.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: For example, when I was going through the research work for this conversation, uh, somebody like uh the US, a country like the US, uh the federal government pumps in like a hundred billion dollars okay, for RD, and we don't have those kinds of budget, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, when you really look at these people without budget, without the kind of backing and the infrastructure, uh, what made them do this and how would they really do this uh frugal engineering if I were to call it uh drive?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do they manage to do it?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Which is, I believe, one of the most important things that you must talk about in this conversation.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you know, since you brought out the term frugal engineering, let me again point out another person, Professor Anil Gupta, you know, who's who's the master of frugal uh engineering, he set up a network of people who come from the grassroot level, do innovation, and actually are able to take it forward.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: But because of people like Professor Anil Gupta.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when you when you brought out this point, is how that these people actually make it possible in a country like ours where funding is not that generous.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: It is it comes, it comes in pockets and in and places, but it's never in the in the tune of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that our country has is manpower, which no other country, and I will say this, you know, you know, putting my uh sort of hands down on this thing, I went to US, I got an education from US.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Indians are the best.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they have the best training possible, they have the best brains possible, but they are not seeing the opportunity that this country has to offer.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there are few of us who started coming back in the early 2000 from the US who found mentors like them who saw that there is an opportunity in India to use the limited resources that India has to offer and in fact create a bigger sort of impact.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that we've done.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: We've learned from these people.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: They have shown us how even you know a hundred fifty thousand dollars, you know.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just talking in terms of dollars because you know this conversation might be uh anywhere in the world, but just a$50,000 can lead to a product.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we've seen this happen with uh you know initiatives from BIRAC, from BIG, from startup schemes from TDB, DST, you know, and ICMR, where people are taught to use as less resources as possible, use maximum manpower available to us and deliver the maximum.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is something that I've learned from these people.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Taking uh you know leaf out of what you just said, uh as you build this uh you know prolific work of what you have done over the last many years, uh one thing that I can see, and I did read about this, is this whole passion of yours, and the uh you know, I I would say the mission of yours, which is to say paper versus patents, right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something that I saw something very, very different from any uh academician that I would have actually come across in the research that I did.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me this whole thing about uh you know the power of patents and the patent power that can add to what you are doing.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, you know, a question that I think every youngster should really pay attention to because each one of us is taught during our PhDs to publish, publish, and publish.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, no one is taught to patent, patent, and patent.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: When I came back to India, I had one person who I admired, and this person still works at MIT, he is the father of bioengineering, Professor Robert Langer.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: He at that point, when I came back to India, he already had 1,000 patents to his name.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in unparalleled, even today, he has not been beat by anybody else in the world.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I took that one leaf out of his book and said that if a person sitting in one of the best institutes in the world can file 1000 patents, can I sitting in the best institute in India file at least half of that number over my career?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is over a career spanning 40 years that Professor Langer has been working in this in the US, or maybe 50 years now.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: In you will not believe me, but in 20 years, we are already at a quarter of that number.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we've already filed about 250.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep saying to everybody, patents are what will make or break a technology in the future.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a patent around that technology, there'll be nobody who will come near you because India is the biggest market.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: We don't even need to go to the US, we don't need to go to Europe.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: If I can stay in India and make a product for India, protect it in India, I think that's the way to go for the future.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I do not want, I do not even want a product of mine to be sold in the US or the Europe.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even propagating for that.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: If it happens, very good.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: If it does not happen, I'm happy that it could make a difference for India.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to do that, you have to teach your students to first file the patent and then publish a paper.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'll give you an example.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: If I have filed 250, I have also published 250.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, more than that.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe 300 publications vis-a-vis to 50 patents.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: If that's the number that one lab can do in India, which has brought India to sixth in the innovation index in this world, because you know, in patent filing and innovations and and you know many other factors which are now coming out in the world, I think uh every lab has some contribution to make.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: If every lab files about 50 patents over their uh sort of career, I think India will be number one in the world in no.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: So when you talk about filing a patent, uh I I saw some interesting uh statistics uh around uh say the uh US universities.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: For example, the uh you know University of California uh you know was probably last year the highest in terms of filing a uh patent versus an MIT, which probably had about 402 uh patents, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh India, for example, when I looked at the track record since I spoke to you and since uh you know I started understanding this subject, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we were at uh between 1958 to 2017, uh, you know, our universities really uh you know filed only 392 patents.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then it started, you know, accelerating.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: And last year alone we uh you know we filed close to 90,000 patents, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so what does it take to file a patent and what is the mindset needed to have a patent-oriented thinking?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so one thing uh I think I need to make clear there has to be one innovative component in what a person is doing.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: That one component could be a process, it could be a product, it could be both, and that is how patents are filed.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if we were to work with an industry from the beginning, or we were to look at a uh a biodesign process where we look at needs coming out of hospitals and then filtering those needs to come to a uh you know a need that one needs to follow to get to a proof of concept, to a prototype, to a product, then I'll guarantee you that there'll be a patent out of this process.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have first of all figured out where the gaps are, then you have figured out whether those gaps are worth pursuing or not, whether they have a market.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And once you've done that, then whatever you do to bridge that gap will lead to a patent.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I have seen this happen for several countries, companies because most large companies like Google, like Apple, continue filing patents, and then you have seen that you know from data in these countries, you know, all the large or you know, companies continuously file patents, and they file patents because they know that these are innovations that are going to move forward into a product improvement in the future.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: For us, what matters is that when we give projects to our PhD students or our master's students, let's keep that one thing in mind.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Are we getting a product at the end of their work?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are we getting a new process at the end of their work?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: If either of this is true, then filing a patent becomes easy because the moment you file these as a claims in the patent, or you don't even file them, you just write a manuscript for it and submit it to a patent office, they will figure out the claims against what exists, they will be able to file a patent and you will actually get the benefit of it maybe for the next 15 to 20 years.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, one of the things that uh I want you to dive a little deeper is this whole product thinking, which leads to patent thinking, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because India largely is a services economy, right?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to move into a product economy, then what you're really talking about is really a patent thinking, because then you are actually looking at how do you file patents in your area?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know it's in biotechnology, so I understand that.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: But clearly, if you want to have a product first thinking, then you have to understand the market and then look at what are the products that can fill the need gap, is really what you're talking, and then it can become a paper.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the thinking is around product first thinking, is really what you're talking.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Am I right in understanding what you're saying?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right, absolutely right.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it starts very early in my lab.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Every student that we've taken so far have been given uh a need statement, and if they cannot find a need in the market, then we actually help them get there.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: But with that need, they always identify a product that exists in the market, which currently is being used in the market.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And can they make a different product?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can they make a product which has more innovation component in it?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Can they even reduce the price of this product?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even that could be uh an innovation.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in a country like ours, I think price innovation is a huge thing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about service economy versus product economy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, service economy is not scalable.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is this everybody knows, you know, you cannot scale that to uh to uh you know$10 billion,$100 billion.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to a point and then it has to stop because you have to keep getting people to do what you want them to do.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, product economy is always going to be scalable, and this is something that I figured out very early in my career.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I saw companies like Metronic, like G, like you know, Philips, people who were doing innovation vis-a-vis, you know, uh putting these products in the market, with every small innovation that they did, there was a new product in the market, and that new product was priced in a way that you had to be able to, you know, you even if you couldn't afford it, you had to find some way of affording it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I found that if I could break this channel, then there could be opportunities opening up for many, many people.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we did that with a couple of our products in the beginning.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: We had a urine analysis system uh which was mobile phone-based, which disrupted the market for the Clinitech machines because you know there was a monopoly around those machines.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: We had a glucometer product at one-fifth the price of Indian uh products, which again disrupted many of those players.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: They had to reduce their prices.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: We again had a hemoglobin monitoring product through Biosense, which was again priced in such a way or positioned in such a way that there could be uh very few players in that market.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we've tried to do that, you know, and and I keep saying to all my students, think of a product even before you start you know putting pen to paper.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I do not want you working on abstract ideas, I do not want you working on on uh you know paper output, review, review articles.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, I want you to think of how do you get a patent at the end of your four years.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there have been PhD students in my lab who've gone on to file 30 patents or 40 patents in three years.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: If that's the kind of output that one lab can get, I think you know it is infinite possibilities for India.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about the 10x impact, and I'm sure uh you know people who are listening to this podcast uh can get inspired by that framework.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to me about the 10x impact framework.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, once again, thank you for bringing that up because I learned this from uh uh of course we were doing it for many years, but I learned this from an alumni of ours, Mr.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Raj Nayer, and who very generously donated you know time, money for building a facility which we which can take uh products from lab to market through a GMP sort of manufacturing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'll tell you what 10x impact means.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we talked about how do we create 10 times the value of a product?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do we how do we reduce prices by 10 times?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: How do we uh re make the product reach 10 times where it is today?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: If those are the numbers, how do we create 10 times the number of startups I am thinking of?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: How do we file 10 times the patents that uh you know any lab does?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do we publish you know 10 times a regular lab?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do we uh sort of uh graduate 10 times the PhD students that any lab does?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Every uh parameter that you choose, I think 10 times.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: So today, uh if people have set up one, two startups, we've probably set up 20 startups, and and we've got those numbers to prove.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: If people have done 20 patents, we've got 200 patents.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere I have told myself, I have to stretch myself so that this country can see the benefit that this country offers, the flexibility that this country offers, the you know, the flexibility that our institute offers, the manpower that our institute can get and the country can offer.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can we use that for 10 times the impact?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, can I reach 10 times the patients with each one of my products?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: That is my next goal.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if I can make all these products tomorrow, if I am able to reach a million patients versus 10 million patients, I would like to go that 10 million patient route because that's where the impact will finally be seen.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I I personally think from what you are saying, uh when I look at data, professor, uh last year uh US uh you know filed about uh 500 320,000 uh patents, China uh you know filed about 1.4 million, okay, and India did about 90,000.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so which means that we can even create a hundred X impact given the scale that we can start thinking, and that's really what we are talking because uh what I what I read in an interesting way, uh which uh thanks to you, I got inspired.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Qualcomm alone as a company uh in India filed 3,482 patents, uh, which is higher than any Indian individual resident who filed a patent.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So which means that uh if you don't have that ambition, uh then we are not going to be able to compete and become a developed country in the next you know, by 2047.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: So which means that the ambition to have that 10x impact is something that's phenomenal.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks a lot for uh you know teaching me that and uh you know uh it helped me understand the perspective.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you very much.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I keep thanking the government because it's because of the government's vision is where we are.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if they have started thinking that India needs to jump from the sixth, as you say, you know, we are at the sixth in the patent filing to number one.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: If we have to get to where China is, each one of us has to think 10x, and only then will we reach there.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Contramind is a podcast dedicated to deep boarding people, minds, strategy, and culture.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: We interview and learn from high performers so that you can apply these lessons on your journey to becoming the knowledge worker athlete you are meant to be.
• 26:04
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• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are interested in revisiting past episodes or taking a look at our show notes from this episode, please visit us at www.contraminds.com.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to the show.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to me about your NanobIOS lab.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: What are the innovations, how many people work there, and how have you uh really built this ecosystem if I were to call it?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because I see you as a co-founder in some companies, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Not uh not very often I find an academician actually being uh called a co-founder in a company.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: So clearly there is a a very different mindset with which you are building those young minds.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to me about your lab and how uh you know what are the things that uh you know you build in the lab that you are uh actually working on.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start off with that co-founder statement and then go back.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I am a co-founder in 15 startups now.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, again I'm doing it in that 10x sort of numbers.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be at co-founder in 20 before I set an Adani industries.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's my goal.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to set up uh you know a holding company which will have these 20 companies under them, each one of them revenue generation, each one of them you know making an impact for this country.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's my final goal.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether I'll reach there or not, but that's that's something I keep in mind.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me go back to my to the beginning of this journey when I started out at IIT Bombay and uh I was offered positions at different IITs.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I chose IIT Bombay because I believed that we had an ecosystem which was uh in close proximity to industries and Bombay being the financial capital, I knew that there would always be uh companies which would come and uh partner with us, which would which would actually come and give us uh problem statements that we could then solve.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: I had not thought that far ahead, but this was my thinking at that time.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: When I did join this department, I was the 12th faculty to do so.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: So far, there was not, you know, anybody who had ventured into uh sort of translation.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: There were people who were doing that, they were, I won't name them, but so far there was not a successful product.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that a lab needs to be different and it needs to work on not just training people because that's what we have been uh given as a mandate in IIT Bombay, not just for educating people, because you know that's again a second mandate, but also in terms of creating an impact.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with these three things in mind education, training, and impact.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that I could do something different for this country, and that's what I am trying to tell to every faculty who joins IITs, ISCs, ISERS, you know, any IIC, any of these uh colleges, NITs, think different.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Think how you can use the current ecosystem and create an ecosystem for this country which continues giving back to this country.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want people to go out of the country, and this is something that I inculcate in my students from day one.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Most of my students, if you will believe me, of my 50 plus students are in the country, they are faculty of some or the other institute, uh, or they are working for India or they are working for a for some industry, but for India, and that's something I inculcated right in the beginning.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I want you to, even if you do go, you have to come back and you have to give back to this country.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: With that one thing in mind, um, we moved ahead, and Nanobias lab was set up.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: In five years, I had decided that I did not want to go a standard professor route, and you know what the professor route is.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: They become an assistant professor four years down the line, they are an associate, four years down the line, they are a full professor.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I said I'll do different.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So every year that you know went by from our lab, we had multiple PhD students joining our lab, and I kept increasing that number.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: IITs allow at most eight students to join a lab, and this is a standard number.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: We had 24 at a time, and I I continuously believed in flouting rules, not not for the you know, for doing anything bad, but for doing good for the country.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because I believe that the more people I train, the more benefit it will have in the future.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I think I have been proved right in that, but you know, time will tell.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with that first five years, we set up a lab where our focus was products, and we said that we wanted to build products, start small, maybe show one success story, and then I'm sure that over the years uh this one success story will lead to several successes, and that's what I keep telling everybody.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go after that one product that you think can make can be made with your expertise.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: And my expertise was engineering, my expertise was biomedical sort of interface.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I I chose a product which I felt could be in that interface.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I could make assays, which is developmental work, and I could actually make an electronics around it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we made a product, we put it in the market.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Over the last 10 years or so, we've put several products in the market now, based on that one.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we got every award in this country.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is what I'm really grateful for is that Nanobios lab today stands tall amongst every lab in the country.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the training that we gave these people, we actually made them think differently.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: That when you come in a lab like ours, day one, you're thinking of setting up a startup at the end of your career.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not setting up a startup, you're probably transferring the technology to somebody to set up a startup, and that's my goal, and that's the goal that I keep working on.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Even today, I'm meeting students every day and I'm encouraging them to set up a startup.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because it doesn't help me in the long run more than what it has done, but it helps us that we have now more and more student-earned entrepreneurs, we have more and more people thinking translation, we have more and more uh students of ours, ex-students of our training more and more students.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a cycle that will never stop.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if I can uh if I have played a small role in that, I believe that over the next 15 or 20 years, you will see many, many more faculty doing the same thing and being able to help our country much, much more than what I have been able to do.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a story.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if you look at our own education system, professor, uh, you know, uh it doesn't allow us this whole uh you know bit about the curiosity that's required, right?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh, you know, you are we have pretty much uh uh a culture where uh we are assessment oriented, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: You write a uh you write an exam, you uh you know, you pass an exam, uh you get your academic scores, that's really how it moves, right?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: So when you get these students, uh how do you uh transition them into this thinking?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's a thinking that requires a very different research mindset versus a job mindset, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you really transition them into this thinking?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, uh I you know I will make this clear that not 100% of my students will go on to become entrepreneurs.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even if you can encourage 20% of these to turn entrepreneurs to start thinking translation, to start thinking of a product, I'm very successful.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reason why I do 10 times the number because if I can train 200 or 250, 300 interns over the last 10 years, even if 10% of these interns go on to join a lab where they think translation, they work on a product, I'm very happy because I have at least made that impact.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I do tell these people when they come into my lab is that I do not want you to work on a problem statement that will remain in the lab.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you have an opportunity to take it outside the lab, I will help you do that.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you do not get the opportunity of taking it outside the lab, I'll find somebody to take it out of the lab.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that I have always told them that at the end of four years, five years, six years, whatever it takes for them to finish up their PhD.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: I usually try that they finish up in four, but many students take longer.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I would say I want something on my table, and when I say I want something on my table, let me give you an example.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll, you know, I always have some example to show.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a student that worked on, you know, look at these sponges, and you will see that there are these small sponges in them.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep them in my table because somebody, a clinician, comes, I am very happy to show this to him.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is a problem statement given by a clinician who knows that there is a market for it.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how do we even encourage people to start thinking?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, we want them to start talking to these clinicians early in their career, and the day they join within a few months, we'll have an interaction with a clinician in the area that they want to work on, give them a problem statement, give them what you know exists out there in the market, maybe they find it themselves, but then at the end of it, they come to me with a product that is sitting on my table.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not a full product, this is probably a prototype, this is a not even an MVP, a minimal viable, but it is something that is there on my table reminding me that I have to take this forward into the market, and that's what I want them to figure out.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want them to have all these on my table so that at the end of the month I see you know what I have been able to move forward into the market, and that's the goal that I work with.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's the goal that these students work with.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: That we want everybody to have at least one product at the end of their uh PhD, their master's, their bachelor's, whatever it is, you know, whatever you do, if you're helping a student, then you know you be part of that ecosystem.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I want.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Which brings me to another question.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: When you really start thinking like this, uh, in one of the interviews and uh you know, some paper that I read of yours, uh, you talked about interdisciplinary thinking.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh typically, when you think of biomedical or when you think of pharma or when you think of biotechnology, uh you you tend to get specialized in an area, but when you start thinking about a product, you need to think design, you need to think UI, you need to think uh electronics.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, what's the importance of the interdisciplinary knowledge uh when you want to do something like this?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh once again, uh whenever I give a presentation, the first slide I show is the ecosystem of IIT Bombay.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that ecosystem shows the science departments, the engineering departments, and the interdisciplinary uh labs.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep focusing on that one slide to everybody sitting in the audience saying that you, as an individual sitting in one of these labs, cannot make an impact when you, as a team, working with all these different departments, different expertise, different labs, uh, can make an impact.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we work very closely with science departments because that's where the deep science lies.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I always keep saying this that without deep science, there is no technology.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to first work on science.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Science behind, say, you know, making a drug delivery device, science behind making a smart theranostic device, science behind using microneedles for drug delivery, science behind uh using a novel material for cancer therapy, and so on and so forth.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there are hundreds and thousands of these deep science, which is sitting in every lab.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can we now start interacting with these people in different departments, bring them together on one platform where they are also talking face to face with people who've taken that product to market or a similar product to market, and that's how you build teams.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: IIT Bombay is super in this sense, in the sense that there are people who are expert in their domains, who are willing to collaborate with others.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have the mindset of bringing them together, and that's what interdisciplinary research is.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Bioengineering is the most interdisciplinary of all of them because we get students from uh clinical background, we get students from dental background, we get students from pharma, we get students from biotech, we get students from core engineering, which is electrical, mechanical, chemical, we also get students from biomedical engineering, plus we get students from veterinary science.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine the breadth that biomedical engineering works with.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with this sort of background, how do you even bring them on a same platform?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly very difficult, which means that you now bring them in contact with people in different departments having different skill sets.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can do that and bring all these people together, then believe me that a product is just you know an arm's length away, and that's what we have seen.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Every student has a different background, you cannot bring them on the same platform because you know, people with a clinical background, very difficult for them to start thinking engineering on day one.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: People with a pharma background, very difficult for them to start clinical on day one.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you get them together?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have to actually bring them on one platform, which is you bring them in contact with different expertise deciding in different departments.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's interdisciplinary.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Bring them together so that they start working on projects together.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why when we do projects, we have a lot of these projects that we do together with other faculty in IT Bombay, where we share IPs, where we you know share expertise, but in the end, there's a common goal of creating a product.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: One of the challenges in this whole uh you know IP and uh uh patent-oriented thinking uh is really the fact that uh as an academician, uh it is not just IIT, but if I if I really look at uh national institutes of uh importance, if I really were to call it and uh India churns out close to about 24,000 PhDs, right?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: While US probably when I looked at the number, it's about 64,000.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you almost have the three times the number of PhDs that probably uh uh you know US churns out, right?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to cross-pollinate this culture in uh at least the uh you know the the top uh you know 171 institutes that are of uh national importance, how do you cross-pollinate this uh culture across these institutes?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, uh very interesting question, and I think the answer lies to creating more clusters.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we have some clusters, we've got a Bangalore biocluster, we've got a Pune biocluster, we are making a Mumbai uh sort of biocluster.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: When I talk about clusters, and there is one in Faridabad as well.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there are clusters which have been made bringing together institutes having different expertise.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a technology institute, there's a medical institute, there is a science institute, and there is probably a uh you know a pharma institute or a basic science or a translational or a smaller engineering college.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: But all these are part of that one cluster.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: The moment you have you make more of these clusters, imagine you have one in the eastern India, you know, there is a Bhovneshwar biocluster, there is, of course, uh Hyderabad biocluster.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there are many of these already existing in India.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we'll have to replicate that model, maybe we'll have to bring more institutes together, but not more than 10, is what I say.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have always seen that it's very difficult to work with more than five institutes at the same time.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I can limit it, I would limit it to five.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the moment you limit it to five, you will probably have to build like 50, you know, or 20 or 30 or 40 such clusters in the country.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe have one cluster in every state.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: If we can do that, one bio cluster which looks after you know five, six, seven top institutes in that state, you bring the expertise of these clusters together, you bring them together, you bring the best practices together, and that is something going to be very useful.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you bring the best people together.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Once you do that, believe me when I say this, you know, getting from 24,000 PhDs to you know 80,000, and and the Prime Minister has just mentioned that over the next five years we'll be funding a hundred thousand sort of PhDs.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's going to happen in this country.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we will see the that increase in number because more and more people are now moving towards working together in teams, and as you said, interdisciplinary is the way forward.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Clusters are one of the ways we can do it.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: If we can actually replicate this model across every state in this country, I think India will be number one in no time.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was just looking at uh some of the numbers uh you know of the uh university or uh you know institutions filing uh patents and the revenue generated by these patents, right?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I was looking at uh something like uh about 368 patents uh actually giving out close to about uh uh uh you know say over a 150 141 billion dollars, okay, is the kind of number that we are talking.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: So uh for people to understand the scale that you are talking, right?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Say, for example, uh, you know, for me when I when I saw this number, it shook me a bit uh because I'm just going to read that out so that you know people understand this.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, for example, what I saw was Northwestern University out of the patents that they filed, uh, they made about 191 million in revenue.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, uh, Columbia made 146 million, right?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you know, uh, you had uh Princeton making 115 million.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, what this uh accelerates is uh you know, there is a uh licensing revenue that the university gets, and therefore you are able to fund more innovation, therefore, you are able to actually build more uh startups, more products, and therefore it's a virtuous cycle that you are trying to build, and that's the what these clusters that you're talking about need to do, is really what I'm thinking.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted to understand perspective on this.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in fact, you brought this point out very clearly, and it will take us years, you know, it will take us at least 10 years before we start seeing the fruits that we are, you know, the or the seeds that we are sowing right now.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: But if we continue doing it this way, every IIT, every um uh institute in the country is going to follow the models that IITs are uh setting up, and IIT Bombay is at the foremost in the sense that we have a beautiful model of uh technology transfer to a startup where the startup uh gets the technology at zero or nominal price, but then its responsibility is to give back to the ecosystem.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: And as it generates, keeps generating more and more revenues, a part of that revenue comes back to the institute, and that's how these institutes are earning in the in the US.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, our goal is similar.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: If we can set up multiple such startups, multiple unicorns, which are creating value for the economy, then they will also keep you know giving back to the institute.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can do that uh in clusters and you can do that you know over the next 10 years with 40 such clusters, believe me, you know, we will of course be at the same level that these uh economies are, because our economy is bigger than these economies, you know, and if we can actually do it at scale, we are going to beat them hands down.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: What would be your advice to young academicians who are getting into uh you know universities, colleges, uh, because there are also data which tells me that many of these positions never get filled, right?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, uh it's important for somebody like you to talk about the fact that you can be a co-founder in a startup, you can still teach, you can be at the cutting edge, and you are just not getting up in the morning and teaching, right?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, uh, you know, uh so that you can actually have an industry academia partnership.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, uh talk to talk to me about the opportunity that uh an uh a position like yours uh can help young uh academicians and how can they build that ambition?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: So before I even do that, you know, let me first of all bring this point across that not every institute is like an IIT, you know, and this is IIT or an ISE for that.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just make that clear.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, even today, AIMS doctors are not allowed to set up startups, which is you know, 75 years into independence, and these people all they do is practice, practice, and practice.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: When in fact, the top medical colleges in the US, everybody is you know doing something different, you know, they're part of startups, they're already into doing many things other than just their practice.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe that we have that advantage over others, that we have the best doctors in this in the world, we have the best technologists in the world.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: How do we bring them together?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: If we if we just make some policy changes at each one of these universities, and I think the first step the government is doing is bringing a program like Pair, which is you know pairing up an institute of eminence or a large uh you know institute like ours with university which are which can be modeled on that institute and which can be helped by that institute.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: And as you said, if more of us can partner with universities, more of us can can go and talk to these people in the university system that look, this is the possibility that you can end up setting up a startup, you can end up being, you know, getting a product to market, and that's just one product that we are talking about, and you can get to you know getting revenue generation for your university, and the university allows you to do that, then I think over the next 10 years or so we will see not one person like me, but at least you will see you know, at least thousand faculty like me, and that's the goal that I am working towards.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if I cannot be an institution builder, you know, and this is something that I keep talking to everybody, you know, there are two two uh you know, a class of people in this institute, in this in this country who are institution builders and they are like you know forward thinkers, they have thoughts so big for India that today we have all these large institutes which have been set up by all these visionary thinkers.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be, you know, a person who can be an innovator builder.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I cannot be an institution builder, I can be an innovator builder.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: If I can build thousand innovators for this country over the next 10 years, I think I've done my job.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: And these thousand would go on to build another maybe hundred each or ten each, you know, it will multiply.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing that I would like to do.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: So far, maybe I've done 200, you know.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't even know the numbers, but I'm working towards that one goal of building an innovation and technology in this country, and this is the reason why you see that award behind me, which is the first time that government has recognized innovation and technology, and this is something that is going to be extremely useful for innovators to start thinking about or youngsters to start thinking about that.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Look, even if we are not doing basic research, we are not doing uh you know uh you know engineering, regular engineering work, we can still get recognition for innovation, and that's what I want this country to be number one in innovation index.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like saying, can we create in the next 50 years a Philips out of India, a Siemens out of India?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that is really the vision with which uh you know some of these uh innovation builders like you are thinking, and you need a community of students and university ecosystems and the government as a catalyst, uh, and the industry as funders to create these large billion dollar uh institutions, and that's really where I think your vision and dream is, right?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks a lot uh for your conversation.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to end with uh a rapid fire question, which is really about four short questions before we finish.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what does success mean to you?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, success to me means uh in very short term getting India due recognition.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only thing that I work for.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what would be your advice to an 18-year-old in a university today?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about pursuing you know a traditional engineering or a traditional medicine or a traditional degree course.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: Worry about creating a product for India.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only thing that I want them to do.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what is one piece of advice you you would have received a lot uh that you remember and continue to actually remember even today?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I always got this advice from people, you know, as I mentioned right in the beginning from my mentors, continue helping people.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Even if they don't give back to you, to the institute, to the country, I will continue helping them.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I will continue doing this for the rest of my life because one day I believe that with all these efforts, we will be number one in the world.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you were to have a dream dinner with people who are living, not living, uh, who you would want to learn from?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, who would those three or four people be on the dinner table?
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: And why would you want them and what would you want to learn from them?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, number one is of course uh Dr.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: APJ Abdul Kalam.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and this is I I really wish I had you know received an award from him while he was alive, but that's you know, that's my fate.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe I could have you know one day with him.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: Elon Musk is is number two because you know these are people who are who are visionary thinkers.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Professor Robert Langer is is the third.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, coming back to India, you know, there are people, of course, there are many, many, many people, but I would like to have met Mr.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ratant Tata.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: I did not get that opportunity.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: And my last question to you is uh what is one thing that you believe that uh you know people uh really what you believe in, but they really find it hard to agree with you.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: The 10x thinking.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's something that I am still trying to push across.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: That you let people do as much as possible, don't bind them to one goal that you think is right.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let them be independent.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what all my students are.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let them be independent and see how far their wings can unfold.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is a brilliant conversation.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh what you set out to do for me is uh something that I can never forget in my life.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: The way uh you set up the context for this conversation.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, I did a lot more work, uh, started to learn a lot more for this conversation.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks a lot for your time, and I'm really privileged to have had this great conversation with you.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: For selected links and detailed show notes, visit www.contraminds.com.
• 54:33
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• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening and stay safe.