Malima (New Directions in Innovation) is a Sinhala language TV series on science, technology and innovation. This episode was produced and first broadcast by Sri Lanka’s Rupavahini TV channel on 24 May 2012.
Produced by Suminda Thilakasena and hosted by science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, this episode features three stories:
• An interview with Asanka Jayamal Rajakaruna, who has developed a concept for a more realistic TV screen. Named Multiplex Optical Macrocosm for Parallax Replicated Observation, and abbreviated as MOMPRO, it has been demonstrated at prototype level. The inventor is now looking for an investor to commercialise this idea which he says can revolutionise TV and video industries.
• There are less than 700 mountain gorillas left in the wild, most of them in the in the area surrounding the Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo. These endangered Mountain Gorillas population are getting a helping hand from a fuel-efficient ‘Jiko’ stove. Partnering with local group AIDE-Kivu, the UK charity Gorilla Organization launched the fuel-efficient stove in 2008, reducing the consumption of firewood and charcoal by at least 75 per cent – reducing pressure on the forest.
• An interview with young inventor Gayathra Amodh Dharmaratna, a student of Ananda College, Colombo. He has invented an air pressure-operated painting device which ‘extends’ the reach of a painter up to 10 m or 35 ft. It can be used to uniformly paint 100 square feet in 20 minutes, and saves paint, time and effort. Having already won a junior inventor award for this, he has now applied for a Lankan patent.
My Sunday (Sinhala) column in Ravaya this week was on impressions of the National Media Summit 2012 held at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, on 24-25 May 2012. My own talk at the Summit, during a session New Media policies for Sri Lanka, was titled New Media, Old Minds: A Bridge Too Far?.
National Media Summit 2012 at University of Kelaniya, 25 May 2012 New Media, Old Minds: A Bridge Too Far?
This was the title of a presentation I made at National Media Summit 2012, at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, this morning. I was asked to talk about New Media and policies for Sri Lanka.
In my audience were academics and researchers on journalism and mass communication drawn from several universities of Sri Lanka. I was told the biennial event is to help frame new research frameworks and projects.
Now, I’m not a researcher in the conventional sense of that term, and am fond of saying I don’t have a single academic bone in my body. Despite this, occasionally, universities and research institutes invite me to join their events as speaker, panelist or moderator.
University of Kelaniya, a state university in Sri Lanka, has the island’s oldest mass communication department, started in the late 1960s.
Perhaps inertia and traditions weigh down such places — while I had a patient hearing, I found our ensuing discussion disappointing. The historical analogies, policy dilemmas and coping strategies I touched on in my presentation didn’t get much comment or questions.
Instead, rather predictably, the ill-moderated discussion meandered on about the adverse social and cultural impacts of Internet and mobile phones and the need to ‘control’ everything in the public interest (where have I heard that before?).
And much time was wasted on debating on what exactly was new media and how to define and categorise it (I’d argued: it all depends on who answers the question!).
Part of the confusion arose from many conflating private, closed communications online (e.g. Facebook) with the open, more public interest online content (e.g. news websites). Similarly, the critical need for common technical standards (to ensure inter-operability) was mistaken by some as the need for dull and dreary orthodoxy in content!
Concepts like Citizen Journalism, user-generated content, privacy, right to information were all bandied around — but without clarity, focus or depth. Admittedly we couldn’t cover everything under the Sun. But we didn’t even discuss what options and choices policy makers have when confronted with rapidly evolving new media types.
Half anticipating this, I had included a line in my talk that said: “Academics must research, analyse & advise (policy makers). But are Lankan academics thought-leaders in ICT?”
I was being a polite guest by not explicitly answering my own question (but as a helpful hint, I mentioned dinosaurs a few times!). In the end, my audience provided a clear (and sadly, negative) answer: far from being path-finders or thought-leaders, they are mostly laggards who don’t even realise how much they have to catch up!
And some of them are framing Lankan media policy and/or advising government on information society issues. HELP!
Don’t take my word for it. Just try to find ANY online mention of National Media Summit 2012 that just ended a few hour ago. Google indexes content pretty fast these days — but there is NONE that I can find on Google as May 25 draws to an end (except my own PPT on SlideShare!).
ELCA prototype built by Nilanga Senevirathne Epa 2012
Malima (New Directions in Innovation) is a Sinhala language TV series on science, technology and innovation. This episode was produced and first broadcast by Sri Lanka’s Rupavahini TV channel on 10 May 2012.
Produced by Suminda Thilakasena and hosted by science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, this episode features three stories:
• REVA meets ELCA! Indian-made compact electric car REVA has been on the market for a decade. Now, a young Lankan has made a home-grown version. Nilanga Senevirathne Epa’s ELCA (short for Electric Car) is a two-door, two-seater ideal for city and suburban running; it can reach speeds of up to 60 km per hour. Over 60% of the car is made locally but the motor and battery are imported from Japan. When fully charged, its lead-acid batteries can power the car for 80 to 100 km on — recharging can be done at home by connecting it to 5 Amp ordinary power outlet for 8 hours. Nilanga is now working with a leading company to mass produce ELCA for the local market. Next target: make batteries locally to sell them cheaper. If all goes well, ELCA should be running on Lankan roads before end 2013.
• Ride, pack and go! Nearly two centuries after the bicycle was invented, they are still innovating with it. We bring you an international story about a bicycle that can be folded up and carried in a case!
• Dengue mosquitoes, beware! An interview with school boy inventor G A Hirun Dhananjaya Gajasinghe, of Ruwanwella Rajasinghe Central School, who has designed a device with which gutters can be remotely turned upside down for easy cleaning. By emptying water and leaf debris collecting in gutters without having to climb to the roof, this invention can help in the battle against dengue-carrying mosquitoes – a formidable public enemy in many parts of Sri Lanka. This comes just in time for the rainy season!
Malima (New Directions in Innovation) is a Sinhala language TV series on science, technology and innovation, broadcast on Sri Lanka’s Rupavahini TV channel.
Produced by Suminda Thilakasena and hosted by science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, this episode was first broadcast on 22 March 2012. It features three stories:
• An interview with Dr Sarath Wimalasuriya, who has invented a low-cost, portable device that provided electrical pulse to a fence protecting crops from elephants. Called Shock Defender, this 5kg unit can support a fence 1.8km long, typically 50 acres (20.2 hectares). When fully charged, it can work for 48 hrs on battery. The medical doctor turned electronic inventor sells the device at one sixth the price of comparable imported ones.
• South Korean scientists say they have developed flexible memory technology that could support bendable computer platforms for e-books and cell phones.
• An interview with child inventor K K Irushika Teran Suriyakumara, student of St Benedict’s College, Colombo, who has come up with a simple automated device to remotely feed fish in a household fish tank. He has cleverly combined discarded material and a basic mobile phone. Find out how!
Malima (New Directions in Innovation) is a Sinhala language TV series on science, technology and innovation. This episode was produced and first broadcast by Sri Lanka’s Rupavahini TV channel on 23 February 2012.
Produced by Suminda Thilakasena and hosted by science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, it is a magazine style programme. This episode features:
• An interview with Lankan inventor and entrepreneur B K Maheepala, who runs his own company Buddhi Industries (Pvt) Ltd, which manufactures and markets his own patented design of a cashew shelling machine. He exports most of his machines to cashew producing countries across Asia and Africa, and can’t cope with the demand! See also newspaper article at: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/120129/BusinessTimes/bt25.html
• Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) was called ‘technology’s great reinventor’ for transforming entire industries – computers, music, mobile phones – with systemic thinking that combined functionality with design elegance. We look at key lessons from his life for today’s inventors. A longer discussion of this is found in my tribute published on Groundviews.org in Oct 2011.
• Find a method to waterproof the ubiquitous mobile phone – win the gratitude of billions of mobile users worldwide. Inventors have taken up the challenge – and see what one group has introduced to the market. With this layer, never fear dropping your phone in water!
• Interview with young inventor Savindu Sanjana Jayasinghe, a student of Rajasinghe central school, Hanwella, who has invented a portable detector for measuring carbon emissions from vehicle exhaust fumes.
We might admire – even revere – genius mavericks like Steve Jobs from afar, but few Asians have any idea where mavericks come from, or how best to deal with them. Our conformist and hierarchical societies don’t nurture mavericks. Our cultures tend to suppress odd-balls and iconoclasts. That’s probably why we don’t have enough of our own Steve Jobses.
This is the crux of my argument in my latest Sinhala column published in Ravaya newspaper on 16 Oct 2011. For a longer discussion of the same topic, see my English essay Goodbye, Steve Jobs; Long Live Mavericks!
In my own tribute to Steve Jobs, just published on Groundviews.org, I raise some pertinent questions about nurturing discovery and innovation in Asian societies.
Here’s an excerpt:
We might admire – even revere – mavericks like Steve Jobs from afar, but few Asians have any idea where mavericks come from, or how best to deal with them. Our conformist and hierarchical societies don’t nurture mavericks. Our cultures tend to suppress odd-balls and iconoclasts. That’s probably why we don’t have enough of our own Steve Jobses, Richard Bransons and Anita Roddicks.
Mark Twin said: “The man with a new idea is a crank – until the idea succeeds”. The question is: do we Asians hush down our home-grown cranks even before they have a sporting chance? Are we culturally too biased against individualism that propels useful – and potentially transformative mavericks?
As a ‘maverick spotter’ and cheerleader for all types of innovation, I often worry that we are. I have come across bright young men and women who were ridiculed in the classroom (‘freaks!’) or scorned at home (‘losers!’) for not wanting to be doctors, engineers or lawyers.
This is the central argument in my latest op-ed, a tribute to Steve Jobs and a reflection on individualistic tech innovation in our own Asian societies.
The legend lives on: Arthur C Clarke (1917 - 2008) - photos by Rohan de Silva
Today we mark the first death anniversary of Sir Arthur C Clarke. Exactly one year ago, when he passed away aged 90, I was thrust into a media frenzy. I’d been Sir Arthur’s research assistant and, in later years, his media spokesman and in the hours and days following his death, the family asked me to continue that role.
This blog recorded my experiences and emotions as they happened (see several posts in the latter half of March 2008). A year later, all of us who worked closely with him still miss Sir Arthur, but I can now take a more detached, longer-term view. And that’s what I’ve just done.
In an op ed essay published today in Groundviews website, I argue that sparking imagination and nurturing innovation are the best ways in which Sri Lanka can cherish Sir Arthur’s memory in the land he called home for half a century.
Despite his well known ego, Sir Arthur never sought personal edifices to be put up in his honour or memory. When a visiting journalist once asked him about monuments, he said: “Go to any well-stocked library, and just look around…”
In the weeks and months following Sir Arthur’s death, many have asked me what kind of monument was being planned in his memory. As far as the Arthur C Clarke Estate is concerned, there is none –- and that seems to surprise many.
Yet it is fully consistent with the man of ideas, imagination and dreams that Sir Arthur Clarke was. Monuments of brick and mortar — or even of steel and silicon — seem superfluous for a writer who stretched the minds of millions. Commemorative lectures or volumes cannot begin to capture the spirit and energy of the visionary who invented the communications satellite and inspired the World Wide Web.
A life of no regrets...except for a minor complaint In my essay, I suggested: “Instead of dabbling in these banalities, Sri Lanka should go for the ‘grand prize’: nurturing among its youth the intellectual, cultural and creative attributes that made Arthur C Clarke what he was. In other words, we must identify and groom the budding Arthur Clarkes of the 21st century!”
Easier said than done. In fact, in a country like Sri Lanka that is still partly feudal, insular and stubbornly clinging on to the past instead of facing the present and future, this becomes formidable. This is why I noted: “But can imagination and innovation take root unless we break free from the shackles of orthodoxy? For transformative change to happen, we will need to rethink certain aspects of our education, bureaucracy, social hierarchies and culture. Are we willing and able to attempt these?”
I then discuss some of the key challenges involved in nurturing imagination and innovation. I end my essay with these words: “Let’s not kid ourselves: sparking imagination and innovation is much harder than launching a gleaming new satellite in Sir Arthur’s name. But the rewards would also be greater: if we get it right this time, Sri Lanka can finally take its rightful place in the 21st century.”
Open Minds! 