INNOVATION IS NOT LIMITED TO PROFESSIONAL ADULTS

The future of innovation is not a vague idea; it is a consequence of collective empathy for each other’s concerns and the will to solve them

- GITANJALI RAO

A sustainable world is more than the environment we live in and the planet we need to protect. It is also about the people—all of us—who live in this world and need to survive and thrive. All of us coexist on the planet and have to deal with challenges together. If nothing else, the pandemic has been a great equaliser and has hopefully made all of us think about sustaining ourselves. Our evolution is to find newer ways to solve problems around us as responsible custodians of the planet for future generations. This is where innovation plays a huge role. Solving new problems with old ways is a futile effort. All of us play a crucial role in innovation, and the quest for finding solutions to problems that affect all of us helps develop a prosperous world.

We see problems and challenges that have worsened with time, such as pollution of resources, or have never existed before, such as cyber-bullying. All new tools make our lives easier, but they also open up avenues to create new social problems. New diseases, loss of personal privacy, depletion of natural resources, misinformation and lack of authoritative sources, illiteracy, global income disparity, etc are some of the growing challenges affecting our lives and have the potential to derail them.

Thankfully, we are also living in interesting times where newer technologies are shaping our present and future. These also offer opportunities for innovation and solving the challenges for today and tomorrow.