Does America need to 'out-innovate' China and India? | Hacker News Reader

Does America need to 'out-innovate' China and India?

zdnet.com

13 pointsGarbage20 comments

I don't see India innovating anywhere. What innovations have come out of India recently? Nothing except that we have a lot of cheap labor who can toil relentlessly without expecting too much neither delivery any great

One of the few Indian innovations that has received international press is the cheapest car in the world: Tata Nano.

Other innovations from India:

Generating electricity from rice husk: http://www.huskpowersystems.com/

Vertical axis windmill: http://tepp-innovators.blogspot.com/2008/01/wind-turbines-on...

Microsoft, IBM, Cisco all have huge R&D labs in India. And the number of patents coming from them is not insignificant.

Of course, the number of innovations per capita coming out of India is a lot lower vs those coming out of USA or Israel or someone. But India is not a laggard in innovation.

While I agree with your summation, that India is contributing innovation, I would be wary about using this one as an example:

One of the few Indian innovations that has received international press is the cheapest car in the world

This is more a product of cheap labor, cheap facilities and cheap materials than any truly innovative accomplishments.

Thanks. Although from what I remember, Tata Motors has 34 patents for the Nano car.

Nano is designed in a way that it uses less steel than other cars - making it lighter and cheaper.

Also, the wheel placement is done in a way that allows the car to be very small - yet the seating space be a lot more than other compact cars like Hyundai's Santro etc.

And also - Tata Nano innovated on the assembly line model. The car is designed in a way that the car parts can be built separately and assembled in various locations. Thus, smaller plants are needed. (Sure, computers are built the same way too. But cars are not built that way by other companies. Tata replicated the computer manufacturing model and made cars available in "assembly kits.")

I agree with you that the cheap labour helped in keeping costs down. But that was not the only thing. There is some really good innovation behind the car too.

Microsoft, IBM, Cisco all have huge R&D labs in India. And the number of patents coming from them is not insignificant.

Of course, this presumes that patents == innovation, something that is clearly not the case, as demonstrated by the activities of patent trolls.

Notion ink's Adam tablet springs to mind, although admittedly the buzz has died down of late. It might not be as popular as its competitors, but is innovative nonetheless

Just the fact that everyone is so keen to know what India has innovated, makes me feel that something is happening. Talking about India is the latest way to grab the attention. After all why you want us to Innovate ? We will take our time. :)

cheap labor is markets at work. you just sound pissed.

Presumably you have no response to his key question regarding what major tech innovations have come out of India recently. Perhaps those $10 laptop computers they announced?

micro-finance. sure, lots of controversy in this space, but people are trying and investments are being made.

there's a lot of systemic problems too like bureaucrats and lack of collaboration between universities and industry (when was the last time you read a published paper in school coming out of IIT?)

The big problem with these sorts of blanket statements is that there's no way to measure innovation. Patents and copyrights are laughable as proxies, since many obvious things get patented, while many innovations are either treated as trade secrets or released into the public domain.

I'll be ready to hear arguments talking about India and China out innovating the US after someone comes up with a credible metric for measuring innovation. Until then, all these discussions will go in circles as no one can clearly articulate what exactly constitutes an innovation.

I think countries like Brazil are much more of a threat in terms of innovation than China or India. They have lots of natural resources, fewer people to feed and a culture that embraces creativity and innovation as much as the US.

There is a sampling bias in all innovation talk about China and India, based mainly on Chinese and Indians that live in the US. But these are NOT typical Chinese and Indians, they are really the best of the best.

India doesn't innovate. How can India people innovate when they live in Garbage filled, car congested, slum infested, and highway deprived neighborhoods such as...most of the cities in India (Yes, I've been to Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai within the past year)

I laugh when people want to go start startups in India. Go ahead, live in a 3rd world country and try to focus on your startup.

I think you already have the answer to your question:

Where to innovate? A: Fix the "Garbage filled, car congested, slum infested, and highway deprived neighborhoods" on which 1B people depend on.

Recently, there has been a good rise in innovative projects aiming to help people in different sectors of the country. Given, the size of the country and lack of infrastructure -- these don't get a lot of popularity. But it is interesting to see solid steps of tiny progress.

What they need in India is to get rid of the corrupt government, which keeps stuffing its own pocket with bulk of foreign investment money, and complacency from its population.

Looks like rising gas/food prices and shrinking emerging market investments will force the people in India to action anyways.

India has greater problems than a corrupt government. Being neck deep into religion, ancient caste systems, famines and natural disasters, even a righteous government can't do much.

I am personally quite excited with the Indian youth (<25 yrs old). They are making enormous efforts to change things. They are going against social norms, and helping each other, innovating, thinking (which is not common in a country which religion has been the primary solution to everything for 2000 years).

May be India can't innovate as much as America do at this moment for some reasons. I will not write down why that is so, but to tell you something, India may not innovate but Indians can, that's the reason why America, England are so keen to bring up Startup Visa.

What exactly are you arguing here?

That no one should ever goto India to do a start-up? That due to the conditions you describe(mostly true, I must admit), you cannot build a start-up and a flourishing company in India?

Look, I think you can have a fair debate about whether the odds of a start-up succeeding is better in India or place X. But Infosys, Wipro, Reliance etc. were all once start-ups before they became billion dollar companies.

I can't say anything about India, but for China that's absolutely not true. Save up for a while & live like a king in China or continue living a shitty middle-class life in the "1st world"? As for focus: I've done more work in 2 days out of the middle of nowhere in China than I've done from my comfortable 1st world homepad (Switzerland) with all its distractions.

How is that different from the US or Europe some 100 years ago? These are all fixable problems, and it really doesn't take that long (check Germany between the 2 World Wars).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com