Dr. Wijeratne shares ingredients for an innovative economy

VidyaJyothi Dr. Bandula Wijeratne - Pix by Lasantha Kumara

By Shanika Sriyananda

Delivering the keynote speech at the recent Viyathmaga forum recently, a top academic and an eminent scientist Vidya Jyothi Dr. Bandula Wijeratne said that if Sri Lanka aspires to become an innovative economy by 2030, it needed to have innovative infrastructure, team work, culture of innovation and an education system that encourages innovation. 

Speaking on ‘Ingredients for an innovative economy’ with the proclamation‘Let no brain born into this soil be wasted without it being used for the development and prosperity of this nation,’ Dr. Wijeratne said like a gem, which was cut and polish properly to make it shine well and beautiful, the young minds needed to be properly prepared to make them brilliant through a process of education. 

“It is the challenge that we have, which is a prerequisite for developing an innovation-based economy, he said while explaining his thoughts on an economy, which is solely based on innovation.”

Citing an innovation infrastructure as one of the top requirements, Dr. Wijeratne emphasised on the need of funding, need to establish incubators scattered all around the country, need of bringing people of similar mindsets together to be synergistic in schools, temples, various public and private venues, a place to gather and exchange ideas and promoting an indoctrinate to young people to encourage not work alone but work together – todevelop support systems for each other. 

Team work

“We must develop the concept of team work, which I think lack in Sri Lanka. If we take our sports teams, they are able to win because of their team work. We cannot play cricket only because of Kumar Sangakkara but we need to provide him a good team. Unfortunately, the present education system discourages team work. The workforce cannot learn team work after they finish their tertiary education in the University but must learn team work from the kindergarten. Competitive exams like Advanced Level examinations have completely eliminated the concept of team work,” he said.

He pointed out that building the culture of sharing is an essential criteria for an innovation based economy as no person, with an innovative idea would be able to do research, develop, perform, manufacture or sell the products without a team. 

Culture for innovation 

Dr. Wijeratne also stressed the need of creating a culture to have an innovation based economy. “It must appreciate innovation and entrepreneurship and risk taking rather than seeking stable jobs in the government sector, for an example, in marriage proposals, the parents look for grooms who work in the state sector as doctors or engineers but not somebody who dropped out of school and having a C grade and built the Apple computer. This culture must change,” he said.

He said that similar to American and China, the students needed to be encouraged to do innovations when they were in grade schools as the mind set of innovation among them would disappear after the university education. 

Dr. Wijeratne explaining the importance of education as the most important criteria to develop an innovation based economy said that although the Sri Lanka having schools and universities of high standards, having Sri Lankan students, who proved to be excellent students in many top universities in the US, Europe and Japan and also having highly qualified professionals, still remains a question: ‘whether the country is providing the type of education that will breed innovators?’

Problem-based US education system

“In the US, everyone, without being divided into commerce, arts and science streams at the Grade 8, 9 or 10, leans science, commerce and arts until they enter the university. The students who enter into medicine come from backgrounds like music, art business or economics but not solely doing science based subjects. The emphasis is that students learn fundamentals of science more than theory,” he explained.

Dr. Wijeratne, who is also the professor of Clinical Medicine of the Kotalawela Defence University, said that unlike in Europe and India, the US education system was very broad-based, which had made the US to remain as the world leader of innovation. 

“The US education system is problem based, which is called Problem Based Learning (PBL) and when it comes to medicine it is call Integrated Learning System (ILS). These two learning systems are the main factors which make innovators,” he pointed out.

Explaining about learning, he said learning needed to be very much application oriented to meet the needs of the industry for the world and it should not just the theory that was memorised and tested with 10 questions after two years.

Learning to learn 

“Emphasis is on learning and not on learning as learning content through term papers with actual and realistic projects and continuous home work. Testing is done throughout the year and not during the last month of the semester with questions,” Dr. Wijeratne said.

He also said that the universities, which were well engaged in the industry, were research focused while the private sector was also well engaged with universities and academia.  

“Another factors is that education is should be for everyone. We cannot leave anyone behind as we have no way of knowing who should leave behind and who should we take. In order to develop innovation based economy we must rethink on our process of our selection. Examinations should not be for selection or for elimination. Examinations should be to determine students skills,” Dr. Wijeratne, the CEO of LeoMed LLC and BiLab, Inc, Texas, USA, said. 

10 largest companies by school dropouts 

“Of the 10 largest companies in the world, most of them were happened in the Silicon Valley and mostly were started by school drop outs. The worth of these 10 companies is over $ 4 trillion while the worth of the 10 prominent conventional companies remain one third of those 10 companies. This tells a story on how innovation has taken the concept to reality and made a change on how the world operates,” he noted.

Another factor the students should learn to learn materials. What I learnt for my OLs are not the same what the students in Grade 10 learn today. It’s different and why learning? What we have to lean is to learn because the materials change. 

Predicting that education would be delivered via internet to people in 10years after, he emphasised the need of Sri Lanka to lay the foundation for providing education digitally soon, otherwise Sri Lanka would be legged behind. According to Dr. Wijeratne, most of the top US-based universities, which will offer degrees for people without attending classes, will expand and continue the process.

Meanwhile, he proposed Sri Lanka to find a niche to develop innovation based economy, where the areas such as software in artificial intelligence, distance learning, robotic, biotechnology, drug development, healthcare, alternative energy, etc. could be developed.

Brand Sri Lanka 

“To have a niche, we need to brand the country like India, which has already branded as the Macca of software development with its IT sector. As a nation with an intelligent and intellectual population, we have a great potential to develop a new economy based on innovation in selected fields. Developing world class universities would be an ideal option. Singapore, which didn’t have top class universities 20-years ago, is a place for three top class universities, which are ranked among top class universities in the world,” he added.

However, he said that Sri Lanka to have world class universities, the country needed adopt to new concepts, new ideas, open to change and innovation. 

“By developing world class universities, Sri Lanka can be the technology hub for Asia, which provides education ranging from medicine, engineering, science and business, to South Asia,” he noted.