Major national inventors’ fair with over 1000 inventions soon in Sri Lanka
In the economic development of a country inventions play a major role, but the present trend is more of innovations rather than inventions, as exempl
Deepal Sooriyarachchi
ified by Japan in its initial development stages. This is what Deepal Sooriyarachchi, Commissioner/Chairman, Sri Lanka Inventors Commission (SLIC) told members of the Sunday Times Business Club (STBC) at its monthly meeting held last week at the Taj Samudra, Colombo.
He said that after World War 11 what Japan did was that they meticulously studied the available patents in the world and improved upon them to have innovations that created huge, niche markets. He said that over the years Japan has become one of the best automobile manufacturers in the world capturing almost the entire world market with its popular brands. But, Mr Sooriyarachchi said “Japan never invented the automobile” and said that all what Japan did was to find out what improvements they could add-up to find new markets.
He said that in this busy hectic world, people wanted to do everything in a jiffy to save time, with mother and father employed, they seldom cooked at home. The family got into the vehicle, on the run, on the wayside bought some burgers for breakfast and dropped the children to the school and the parents went to work.
All what the Japanese did was to ‘invent’ tumble holders inside the vehicle so that people can not only eat, but also drink while driving – that innovation to the already invented car, caught up the market. The theme of Mr Sooriyarachchi’s discussion was “Innovation, creativity and transforming good ideas into commercially viable products.”
He said that the main objective of SLIC is to facilitate and support the inventions and innovations and noted that there is a lot of talented young students with a flair for inventions but sometimes parents stand in the way of their children in further developing these skills.
He said that inventions should go with patents. However mere granting of a patent does not guarantee economic success since what matters most is the commercialization and economic viability of these new ideas, otherwise these creations are of no use. He said the SLIC is targeting a major national level exhibition with 1000 inventions and it would be developed to be an international event every three years. Mr Sooriyarachchi suggested that inventions should attract private sector support and risk-taking. If it is a commercial success, there is a lot of money to make and if it fails, corporates can write-off the investment as genuine failure. He also mooted the idea of partnerships or sponsorships with the private sector as these inventions, with the right capital and market, often succeed.
The club is sponsored by Etisalat, co-sponsored by Hameedia and hosted by the Taj Samudra.
Watch the video on www.sundaytimes.lk/videos
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