By acknowledging that the academic frontier isn’t as fair as it would like to appear, maybe we will be kinder to one another as we plod ahead.
Academia is all about marking territory. Grab hold of a trending topic and make it yours. Invent a term, coin a concept and hope it sticks. Knowledge is propertied. Sometimes the game gets vicious. Predatory. Perhaps a senior scholar in need of renewal may prey on the work of their doctoral student or younger colleagues. A ‘rock star’ academic can encroach on well established and poorly marketed scholarship and brand it around him or her. A major grant can buy an emerging scholar a ‘reputation’ overnight that others have spent years struggling to build through the long road of committed research.This is no free market. Scholars from less wealthy institutions and countries struggle to be visible, to be heard and often to hold on to the ownership of their ideas. In desperation, they may put their work on ResearchGate or Academia.edu, hoping that this new digital frontier plays to a different set of rules. In reality, they may be read but not cited due to their relatively unknown status. Worse yet, their ideas may be appropriated by others and published with the right kind of dressing up.Click here for the rest of the opinion piece.
Had a fascinating experience at the IT Strategy Days Summit that was held on the 12-14 February at the Grand Elysse in Hamburg. Some of the most influential IT and business CEOs, CIOs, and other experts and policy makers from Germany came together to tackle key formidable challenges in their business. You had CEOs/CIOs from Lufthansa, SAP, BMW, Adobe, Siemens and more out there discussing these issues. The buzz terms for the summit was "agility, resilience and innovation" framed as drivers of digital business. This year there was much targeted interest in Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and the digital and global logistics of operations that could help design the most optimal platforms through which innovations can quickly reach the entire organization and ultimately customers. There were 3 main strands of focus: 1) Digital Frameworks - Which architectures make IT resilient and agile 2) Innovation on fire - How companies successfully reinvent them...
What a way to begin 2020 - full of spice and color and drama! Basically it felt like a year of celebration was starting. I embarked on my book tour in Pune for the India Science Fest which drew a crowd of about 15,000 people! And what a demographic - from kids with their parents to engineering and philosophy students to elderly folks curious about these topics, they managed to truly create a spirit of democratizing science for the public. This was the brainchild and product of Varun Aggarwal of Aspiring Minds . I spoke about designing for the next billion and also was on a panel on the future of science with AI. I headed to Bangalore right after to speak at the IIIT-Bangalore Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy lecture series and gave a Keynote at the IIM-B for the Software Product Management Summit on re-centering the human in design. Was a fascinating conversation as we delved into how product management as a field is changing dramatically and...
It’s a good sign when you don’t use much of your carefully planned PowerPoint slides when interacting with the youth. Had a wonderful discussion with an engaged and critical group of Language students at the University of Jordan on new technologies, business communication and culture as well as with a significant number of youth who attended the Leaders of Tomorrow event at the King Hussain Cultural Centre organized around this topic. Granted, many seemed to come from a privileged background with impeccable English and an international exposure. This by no means discounts their perspective. In fact, given my experience in India and the fact that I’m a product of such privilege, I’m acutely aware of that thin line between belongingness and responsibility that the fortunate feel towards their immediate surrounding versus the feeling of affinity towards that of afar. It is much too easy to become civically disengaged from our context and I’d even argue that much of the youth, be i...
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