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From Periphery to the Centre: An Innovator Dreams of Creating Global Solutions Locally Will Nepal and similar countries be forever condemned to the fringes of global prosperity and innovation? SAKAR PUDASAINI thinks the country’s young entrepreneurs and innovators can turn the tables and create wealth and employment.
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cience fiction author William Gibsononce observed that the future is already here: It is just unevenly distributed. Those living at the fringes of the global technology community, like us in Nepal, are usually at the tail end of that distribution. While we are making heroic efforts to provide one laptop to each child,the global geek-o-sphere is sowing the seeds of the next industrial revolution with innovations in 3D printing. Are we doomed to always be on the fringes? Can we redistribute the future more evenly? Can we accrue the benefits that come with being ahead of the curve? I am not about to round up and shoot the usual suspects: inept governance, meager infrastructure, and a shallow talent pool. The successes of Nepal’s trading houses are ample proof that it is possible to prosper in the prevailing sociopolitical environment. But is this success only possible for those who trade consumer electronics and machines? Can a Nepali firm really contribute something original to the global conversation on technology? Can a Kathmandu-based company create an innovative and commercially viable product?
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I believe it can. I would not have founded Karkhana (www.karkhana. asia) in Kathmandu otherwise. To misappropriate an aphorism, the key is to think locally and act globally. At Karkhana we applied a four-question test when deciding on our strategic direction. What do our friends and neighbors need? Can we meet their needs better from Kathmandu? Are there other places in the world with similar needs? Will the solutions we engineer work for them too? We asked these four questions every time our team was excited by an idea. Should we become a product design company? We did not feel we could do this better from Kathmandu. How about a prototyping space? Really fun, but the market was too small. How about education? This passed the test. In education, we see a chance to redistribute the future, to be innovative, and to turn a profit. Some factors stood in our favor. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is already highly valued, parents are willing to make investments in learning, and many schools are open to experimenting with new learning activities.
We want to add project-based learning to a curriculum that currently emphasizes the three R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic). Playing with mud, motors, programming, and paint brushes is fun. The play also cultivates skills necessary to invent the future. The makers and inventors who will define the next 30 years must be adept at self-learning. They must know how to work in teams. They must be able to manipulate devices with microchips. Most importantly, they must be able to solve problems by connecting bits of knowledge from different disciplines, cultures, and environments. 3D printing is at the confluence of design and engineering. This technology’s potential is so immense that The Economist magazine speculates it will usher in the third industrial revolution. With limited natural resources, a difficult terrain, and isolationist politics,Nepal remained just a consumer of the revolution fostered by electricity and mass production. Can we position ourselves better for the next revolution? Can we position ourselves to shape it? Karkhana intends to try. In the next six months