Key Note Address by Mr Neeraj Gulati

Mr Gulati started off his speech by thanking Mrs Narang, Mrs Sharma and Mr Andrew for inviting him to the Second Annual Robongiers fest, at Pathways School, Gurgaon. He admitted that he loved schools, as they were his favorite place to be.

He stood as a representative for the ‘Tod Fod Jod’ Initiative, of the Prime Minister’s National Innovation Council. The name,’Tod Fod Jod’, means to deconstruct (break), reconstruct (repair) and recreate (bring together and innovate into a new product). He spoke of his mentor, Sam Pitroda, who brought in the Telecommunication Revolution to India. He spoke with a lot of reverence about this innovator, entrepreneur, policy maker with a hundred plus US patents. He also spoke of Samir Mitra, a man who is committed to India and has never failed any of his projects. 

He continued onto the topic, “Why Youth Innovation?”  Given the fact that 60% of the country is under 30 years, the demographic dividend is the youth; hence the focus on schools!

He spoke of the NIC creating a platform, a National Eco-System for schools, for re-tooling them from mere learning, to application based systems. This would make us a Nation of Creators and not just Consumers!!

He spoke about how we have unique constraints that impact both business and society. He talked about the pros and cons of the business and society as well; how certain ways of doing things work, while  others don’t,  and how we can sell the good ideas to other developing countries, like Vietnam, Egypt etc. Thus we can capitalize on the export opportunities, while solving domestic problems. He then continued that how knowledge does not make creators and that practical application is the need of the hour. It takes a long time to create he said, as we build on the ideas of a billion different people. Reverse Innovation will change the world, he exclaimed with great passion.

He believes strongly that curiosity is the mother of creativity for curiosity makes us explore. ‘Tod Fod Jod’s’ objective is to create a network in which children across the world could connect, collaborate, and discover.

He gave us some samples of the things ‘Tod Fod Jod’ has worked on, such as a dryer, refrigerator, Tube Light, toilets, toasters, cell phones, cameras, computers and a many others. He has visited under- privileged schools also and video-graphed some TPJ moments.  He showed some more videos of highly accomplished kids, e.g. a 19 year old teenager named Adam Cudworth, who sent up a camera in a balloon high into the atmosphere which photographed the curvature of the earth; 16 your old Arts student Samarth Kirloskar, from Pune, whose interest in aeronautics has helped him create a model plane, that flies and has won him the 1st Prize in the Aeromodelling Competition held at IIT Kanpur, at the Annual Tech Fest (Tech kriti). This is just an example of all of the amazing things student can create with the help of ‘Tod Fod Jod’…