Bizstartup.ie - NewsInventor Kumar promotes collaboration

The inventor of the world’s first non-drip tea pot, Kumar is an award-winning designer, a European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation and responsible for establishing the country’s first BSc honours degree in Product Design in NUI Maynooth.

Defining innovation as “using creativity to add value”, she believes if we can manage, protect and share our knowledge in Ireland between industry, universities and all sectors we could be at the forefront in this area in Europe.

Sharing towards a more innovative society

“If there are two people working on the same problem, so much more can be achieved if they come together rather than keeping their knowledge to themselves. There are so many research projects in universities that are just forgotten. Imagine if businesses gave the universities the research projects they needed done and students produced the results. This would lead to a much more innovative society,” she said, speaking to Bizstartup.ie.

Acknowledging this is already happening to a degree, Kumar says it is not evident across universities or in Europe on a larger scale. “Researchers don’t know who else is doing the same research as they are. We have to stop reinventing the wheel and take the lead from the likes of Apple. It doesn’t make any of the technology for the iPhone, instead it licensed it from all the experts it needed.

“Creative thinking should be embedded I everything we do – in businesses and education — and I believe in learning by doing. We need to take more risks and not be afraid of failure. Nothing would ever be invented from a product design perspective were it not for failure. When I was inventing my non-drip spout I must have designed hundreds of tea pots which didn’t work, but led to the final design.”

Photo: Aidan Gough, InterTradeIreland, Professor Woody Powell, Stanford University, Petra Ahrweiler, UCD Innovation Research Unit, Damini Kumar, European Ambassador of Creativity and Innovation, Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD.

An indepth interview on the topic of creative thinking and innovation with Damini Kumar will be published in the July issue of Owner Manager magazine.