The need to give importance to proactive problem-solving

From time immemorial, mankind has shown curiosity in understanding the secrets of the working of nature. The Indian scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and surgeons of the Golden era of Indian science (400AD-1500AD) did exactly that and succeeded beyond expectations. That is science. Mankind has also applied scientific knowledge to develop methods and principles to overcome limitations of nature. That is engineering.

That is how world has made material progress. For example, by the latter part of the 19th century, scientists had understood that wave attenuation causes sound not to be heard beyond a certain distance. These scientists wanted to overcome this limitation of nature. Maxwell came out with his theory of electromagnetism in the middle of the 19th century.

Scientists developed the science behind converting sound waves into electromagnetic waves and vice versa. Engineers and technologists designed the telephone system using these scientific principles. Similar story with television. In other words, it is the combination of scientific and engineering research that makes overcoming the limitations of nature possible. The result is material progress.

Fundamental or basic research is what makes huge leap in material progress possible. It is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that has made GPS and harnessing of photon energy in PET scanners possible. It is the theory of quantum mechanics of Neils Bohr, Dirac, Schrodinger, Heisenberg and others that made DVDs, laser surgery and laser printers possible.

It is the fundamental work of Gödel, Church, Turing and Shannon that made this world a hugely connected planet with a high per-capita density of information, thanks to computers and data communication technologies. Therefore, a country like India which has a huge population and which has problems of healthcare, water, air pollution, nutrition, education, shelter and many other major problems, needs basic research.

Where are we today in our research accomplishments? India has shown success in areas which require reactive problem-solving. Software services, green revolution and ISRO initiatives are good examples of this. But there is a common thread, barring perhaps some exceptions, in the progress we have made. That is, we have operated as disciplined and intelligent professionals in taking ideas that succeeded elsewhere and used reactive problem-solving to apply these ideas to solve our problems in many areas.

This is highly laudable but we have to go beyond this to solve problems unique to India. That is where proactive problem-solving becomes important. Let me cite just two problems unique to India. We have 16% of the global population but only 4% of the global water availability. Soon, we will get into serious problems with water availability. Indian cities have a high rate of air pollution. Given our huge population and low per-capita GDP, we cannot use the ideas of the west to solve these problems. Those ideas are expensive to implement. We have to arrive at inexpensive solutions to solve these problems.

How do we attempt to introduce proactive problem-solving? Reactive problem-solving is deeply embedded in the Indian culture for over 500 years and will not go away in a jiffy. Therefore, this transformation from reactive problem-solving to proactive problem-solving will have to be attempted in a gradual manner without hurting our economy. The need of the day is to concurrently experiment with two paradigms. The first paradigm is to become more disciplined, more hard working and more team-oriented to get better dividend out of our reactive problem-solving capability and make the country economically stronger in the short and medium term.

The second paradigm is to conduct a controlled experiment in research based on proactive problem-solving, achieve success, and use discipline, hard work and team work to scale it up so that it becomes the norm for research in India, replaces the current reactive problem-solving mindset and solves problems unique to India.

Rote learning

Parallelly, we have to revamp our education system since it is a feeder to the research system. We have to reorient our education system to encourage curiosity, independent thinking and proactive problem-solving. We have become a nation of rote learning. However, there is a small percentage of exceptions to this. Such rote learning has not helped us solve our problems and will not help us make this nation stronger.

One of the ways of helping independent thinking is to encourage open book examination as early as possible in the career of a student. Second is to encourage Socratic method of learning in the classroom. I am sure our education experts can offer many other tools to improve proactive independent thinking among Indian students.

What is the role of corporates in this task of improving our education system? Corporates can institute scholarships, fund training of teachers in new methodologies, fund experiments in teaching proactive problem-solving and honour outstanding researchers. Infosys has done all these. The Infosys Science Foundation has instituted Infosys Prize in six categories to encourage our researchers to become role models for our young researcher community.

There are many Indian researcher leaders, including some from among the Infosys Prize winners, who are building proactive problem-solving mindset among young researchers in India. Let me cite just two examples. Prof Ashok Sen is a good example of such role models who have done the majority of their work in India and won global recognition. There are other researchers like Prof Sudhir Krishna who are developing a community of young researchers with independent proactive problem-solving mindset and solving problems relevant to India.

In the area of software, I know several young Indian researchers who are trying to solve extremely difficult research problems in software using proactive problem-solving. They may even create new branches of studies. If we encourage such proactive problem solvers, I am sure that these researchers will transform the profile of basic and applied research in India in the years to come.

(The writer is President, Infosys Science Foundation)