Week 3

The 2 topics that were covered in this week’s lesson were industrial development: towards sustainability and innovation management. These 2 topics are largely related to multinational corporations and commercialisation. The main themes covered in this lesson were the shift from the old industrial model to a sustainable one and the importance of innovation management.


Something that captured my attention was the video of the story of stuff and how it shows the consequences of extreme consumerism in the developed nations. Although I have watched the video a few years ago, I realised that I am better able to understand the concepts this time round. The situation of a linear system existing in a planet with finite resources is clearly not a feasible one. And the fact is that most business models today are non-sustainable.

Another interesting concept that I learnt was the term partisanship which is the use of individual craftsmanship instead of mass production. I believe a valid consideration would be that the viability of such a principle in our technologically empowered and heavily industrialised world. Is there still a market for partisanship and are there people who still appreciate it?

The key takeaway for me in this section of the lesson is that government and corporations or all sizes must acknowledge and promote the shift to a sustainable industrial model by creating cyclical businesses and models that allows innovation, growth and value creation.

In my opinion, the two models introduced to us, namely the RDA model and the valley-summit-cloud opportunities were very useful in identifying industries that we should focus on (summit) and what should be done to move to a summit opportunity. The RDA model showed us how to put research to practical use and the increasing value proposition as we move down the pipeline. I feel the key takeaway for me is that the key to successfully bring about an innovation is to focus on science and technology and/or focus on marketing and commercialisation at the right time.


Again, there is plenty more that I learnt but I will stop for now as if I were to list everything I learn, that could take a while
Personally, I would rate. this lesson 7/10. The ideas and concepts discussed were pertinent and the oral presentations were interesting. However, I feel that the time management of the lesson can be better as we have been unable to end our lesson on time which can be unfair to students who have a subsequent class.

-Zhishu of G22