UNIDO-VIT WORKSHOP ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING IN IP STRATEGY
-Swapna Sundar
On 2 March 2012,
I was at the pleasant campus of the Vellore Institute of technology (VIT), to
provide one-day training on using intellectual property in business to about 24
budding entrepreneurs from the Mano River union in West Africa. The Mano River union
was established in 1973 with the objective of sub-regional economic integration
between the seven countries through which the river runs, however due to civil
war and other conflicts in these countries, where diamond mining is the largest
industry, the union did achieve much success. The Union was reactivated in 2004
as an economic and customs union. The three-month program was sponsored by the
UNIDO Centre for South-South industrial cooperation in India and was organised
by the VIT Technology Business Incubator. The Hindu carried a report on this
group and 27 February 2012. http://www.thehindu.com/education/college-and-university/article2937997.ece
I spoke largely
about the requirement for an intellectual property orientation in business from
the beginning, and the role of intellectual property in the growth of scaling
up of the business. It was interesting to note that the participants - largely
from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea - had business plans which had a
community orientation integrated with the use of high technology. One example
was Ms. Ella’s idea of a community laundry using recycled water. While this
would help in the conservation of water, it would require certain high-tech
alterations to be made in the laundry machines which you would undertake. Mr.
Emanuel represented a company that managed energy consumption and was promoting
the use of renewable resources including solar energy. In a community oriented
project was the production of soy milk and products, and the preservation of
these products in a manner that would be suitable for the climate of the
region. Other interesting ideas were in the area of e-commerce, web designing,
fashion technology, baby cereal, and agri-biotech.
Questions ranged
from the use of copyright protection software and literary works to the
construction of an IP architecture surrounding products. Issues raised were
also contemporary such as the recent controversy between Chinua Achebe and the
American rapper known as 50cent, where the latter desired to use “things fall
apart" the title of Achebe’s phenomenal book on the postcolonial
experience for his movie on how an athlete overcomes physical obstacles. 50
cent respecting the renowned author’s wish changed the title of his movie, even
though there was no legal obligation on him to do so.
The reading
material that we had prepared containing several exercises and case studies was
much appreciated by the participants. They brought their experience and
knowledge to the floor during the simulation exercise on negotiation. We were
told by one of the participants from the Ministry of industry, Sierra Leone,
where although he had attended several IPR workshops, this was the first one
where he had actually learnt the implementation of an IP strategy. Discussions
also centred around harmonisation of intellectual property rights globally, and
how some developed countries develop sophisticated IPR systems that permitted
the patenting of traditional knowledge, to the detriment of developing and
least developed nations.
Participants
also gave us input on their observations on the Indian economy, particularly
our lack of concern about pollution, use/wastage of non-renewable resources,
lack of balance between utility and expense to achieve the utility, and
primarily the lack of a cosmopolitan mentality. These, they said, could be the
primary obstacles they would face in their plans to expand into India.
Personally for
me, and my colleague Hariprasad, the experience was invigorating not only
because of the interesting connection to the culture of the participants, but
also to learn from them how intellectual property operated in their countries.
www.ipdome.in
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