Innovation has become one of the big buzzwords in the digital age, with organisations, and even countries, aspiring to be ‘more innovative’. But what does that mean and what can we do to better nurture and, ultimately leverage innovation? Based on his illustrious career in Engineering and in Education, Professor Patrick Hosein shares his thoughts on education, innovation, and how innovation can be better fostered in the Caribbean.

 

This episode is also available in Apple iTunes and on Stitcher!

In today’s world, ‘innovation’ has become highly regarded. Individuals, organisations and even countries, all strive to be innovative. However, what does it means, and how can it be achieved?

To most of us, ‘innovation’ and being ‘innovative’ are abstract terms. Although we might know what they mean, we may not know how to better apply them in our personal lives, in the workplace, or even in the wider society. On the ICT Pulse Podcast, and throughout 2019, we will be examining innovation from a variety of angles, in the hope of providing more insight into not only what is, but also, how we can better leverage it.

Professor Patrick Hosein

To start us off, we sat down with Professor Patrick Hosein, who we had on the show last year to discuss country code top level domains (ccTLDs) and the Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TT-NIC), for which he is the CEO. Towards the end of that show, we started a conversation on innovation, which was the impetus for this episode and the wider innovation series.

So why Professor Hosein?

Well, in addition to TT-NIC, Professor Hosein is a highly regarded educator and scholar, and has been a presence in the Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and IT departments of the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, in Trinidad and Tobago. Perhaps more importantly, he has worked for several major telecoms companies, including Bell Labs, AT&T and Ericsson, all of which at various points have been considered innovation leaders.

Professor Hosein has also won several awards, and holds over 30 patents, which in some way underpin many of the telecoms services we enjoy today. We were thus thrilled to be able to speak to him about innovation, particularly at the tertiary level and in industry. Some issues our discussion covered included:

  1. What might Caribbean countries be doing wrong with regard to fostering innovation?
  2. Who should be driving innovation: Government and/or the private sector?
  3. Recognising that innovation tends to require lots of resources, especially money, how can Caribbean countries still foster innovation, and/or justify the spend needed?
  4. Through schools and universities we gain knowledge and certain skills, but are they – in fact – fostering innovation?
  5. Why is it crucial to focus on problem formulation when trying to find a solution to a problem?
  6. How important is it to develop and nurture a culture of patents, and by extension, Intellectual Property, when trying to develop a culture of innovation?
  7. What might be some of the important elements that are still missing in the Caribbean, in order to better foster innovation?

 

We would love to hear your thoughts!

Do leave us a comment either here beneath this article, or on our Facebook or LinkedIn pages, or via Twitter, @ICTPulse

 

Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits:  Pixabay (Pexels); P Hosein

Music credit: Ray Holman