Treasure island in nano times: Welcoming 2012 in Sri Lanka

There are many quotes and comments that we Sri Lankans repeatedly reiterate in tourist literature and with pride. As another year dawns, some statements may again be recalled with fond memories as it is important to have that positive outlook.It is also about time that we do adorn other literature with comments and numbers that we all can be proud about stemming from current activities. Well, we do live in an island that was described by Marco Polo as “undoubtedly the finest of its size in all the world”.

George Bernard Shaw, who once reputedly has said that if he was not born in Ireland he would have wished to born in Ceylon, penned: “Ceylon is the cradle of the human race because everyone there looks an original”. Hmm… “Original…” Today a real question that we need to answer honestly!

Many visitors have felt time and time again that the paradise is not far away from Sri Lanka, though to many natives today heaven appears anywhere but this country of ours! Maybe to retrieve the situation, the rupee indeed needs to turn into a dollar for us to define heaven the way we define it and appreciate value in our systems today. We do remember this isle to be known as the Isle of Sinbad and the Isle of Serendip and it is the latter that is more important for today’s column.\

Serendipity

The Arabs gave the name Serendib and a Persian fairy tale led the way in with ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’. However, it was left to Horace Walpole, the son of the English Prime Minister, to coin the word ‘serendipity’ based on this tale and firmly add another word to the English language.

The word ‘serendipity’ crops up in science discoveries many a times – we all say that when we speak of Alexander Fleming and his petri dish on his way to discovering penicillin – and is another way the island appears to have made a contribution albeit indirectly.

Each time when the word comes up, whether most of us trace the origin to our country is a question and really need not be so. However, understanding connections is about developing a character, enabling learning and sparking enthusiasm.

In fact today we speak of the process of serendipity as the way forward in innovation and creating new knowledge. Serendipity was all about chance discoveries. In the fairy tale the three princes were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not searching for.

This process of insight, chance and discovery can be of enormous importance for us today trying to figure out realising significant growth numbers. We speak of these growth numbers in a conventional sense and there is not much drama as it is mostly about the old economic segments and more and more services – hardly the way forward to sustain let alone realise such numbers.

In the Global Forum a plenary speaker from Japan stated that for an inexact science, economics is given a far too an important status in decision making and determining the nation’s progress. While no economic professional should get rattled over placing this statement in print, I am sure one would agree that taking decisions solely from one angle or viewpoint is not likely to be the most efficient when determining the nation’s progress.

Nanotechnology

A news item from USA as 2011 ended stated that the global nanotechnology industry output would reach $ 2.4 trillion by 2015. Even with global economic recession and dampened enthusiasm in many sectors, the global market for products incorporating nanotechnology is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.1% between 2010 and 2115 to reach this value.

As of 2011, a total of different 175 different types of consumer nano products had been identified in nine different sectors. In more detail, the emerging nanotechnology project of the US Woodrow Wilson Centre records around 1,345 nanotechnology products in the general consumer segment.

This is indeed should be exciting news for Sri Lanka, having embarked on a nanotechnology initiative to give meaningful impacts to the economy. I believe, as news will come out shortly, indeed the 2012 Sri Lankan nanotech endeavour began with a bang!

The planning community should be interested in invoking the process of serendipity within the very isle of Serendip! We can indeed make a statement that Sri Lanka is a treasure island in nano times. It is realised through the process of synthesising knowledge with resources and realising a strong nano manufacturing foundation. The success shortly in Sri Lankan nanotechnology to be revealed is in synthesis of knowledge and resources.

Sri Lanka’s potential

Roam the Sri Lankan landscape and you will be surprised. The material bases available in sizeable quantities are those most important for nanotechnology. The materials with potential nano significance are all over the country and in the seabed around us.

Combine the biodiversity and nano biotechnology and the opportunities are mindboggling perhaps – of course the spirit of serendipity needs to abound as the knowledge in assessing the potential is emerging as we write and there are much more unknowns than the known.

Definitely one should not be thinking – and I strongly advocate this – only in a way of exploiting such resources. It is the potential of yielding a more sustainable economic social environment for Sri Lanka.

The story of the significance of the mineral sands and nanotechnology has been told many a time and this year we may see the light at the end this particular tunnel as well. From quartz and magnetite to nano clays, the list can be extended and gems from Ratnapura need not be mere decorative items to be hung around necks and earlobes.

Understand the saga of Ceylon graphite. May the next story with this unique material that only Sri Lanka possesses (in this form) hopefully be even more exciting than the one with mineral sands.

Today graphite has taken the centre stage with the discovery of graphene. It is known that Ceylon graphite was involved in the early days of the nuclear industry with German Physicist Otto Hahn using Ceylon graphite as a moderator. Now it is time for extremely high value added operations to take place and one should not be contemplating just passing on the material for a song to be made use of elsewhere.

The concept of a knowledge base implies that one seriously understands and continually generates knowledge, one on which others are also keen to be part of. The society and at least the planning community need to develop a sense of much more scholarship. Discussions cannot be superfluous and analysis on the surface. The hub should be able to drive and also to take on additional stress and strain.

Important imperatives

Two important imperatives exist. With resources, there should be a strong national planning effort in mapping and continuous understanding. The State has the ownership of all wealth under our feet and the owners thus must be responsible for allowing rational use and irrational bureaucracy should not hinder national economic gain.

The process of sustainable utilisation should be clearly spelt out and there should not be official hindrances to national endeavours. The value addition must be an economic endeavour based on ethical guidelines and simple acts of size reduction, even if that is to a smaller, finer level, should not be considered as value addition.

Considering the additional safety and environmental aspects, the policies need to clearly spell out the strong need for precautionary measures and adherence to clean technology pathways.

The second imperative is that these efforts need strong human capital and one cannot create knowledge hubs while the student population – the next generation – drifts away in search of work visas and temporary stays abroad. The R&D base needs to be strengthened significantly and the industry tie ups cemented.

2012 will see the nano science park emerging at Homagama and populace must see the expanded possibilities rather than another job creating activity for office staff and outsourced event management. It is time now that we start thinking and seriously in this regard.

While getting ready to reap the rewards, the time in 2012 may be more towards working much harder as these are going to be pioneering times. A technology frontier for the first time is coming into our own backyard.

2012 is considered by some to be the year that the world is supposed to end and some actually may make more money by spreading doom and gloom prophesies to gullible audiences using even smart devices. There is a still lot more time between today and 12 December 2012 and those who succumb to prophesy and watch imaginary movement of planets may succumb even before that date for sure.

For the rest of us, it is another year of opportunity and one in which we see having a system with more creative seeds already sown. Let us recreate the originality that George Bernard Shaw was once captivated by and move on to an economic system based on knowledge and resources, rather than on numbers and toiling abroad, giving different acronyms to this wonderful isle of Serendib!

(Professor Ajith de Alwis is Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. With an initial BSc Chemical engineering Honours degree from Moratuwa, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge for his PhD. He is also the Director of UOM-Cargills Food Process Development Incubator at University of Moratuwa. He can be reached via email on [email protected].)