Mailbox: Innovation at a University 

By Charl Botha*

Wits University in Johannesburg.

The modern university should be the nexus of innovation in its community. It should be the meeting place of entrepreneurs, technical problem solvers, informed critics, young minds eager to learn, and old hands skilled at distilling wisdom generated throughout a lifetime devoted to learning.

These are nice words, but what do they mean? What can one do with them? If I hand these words to a youngster willing to change his community for the good, will he be more informed about what it means for something to be a “good”? Will he have learnt the necessary skills to engage with the problem of achieving the “good” if he has been persuaded what the “good” consists in? Will he know who, if anyone, is there to walk the road with him if he encounters the ever-present challenges facing those who want to establish something of value?

Somehow those who are really skilled at making things happen, at changing the world, at creating something of value, do so against most odds. They do not seem to need an institutional safety net or lots of “backing”, but this does not mean that they have no help or create their life’s work ex nihilo. No man is an island, and hence the support structures necessary to make the life of a natural innovator possible is not missing, but is perhaps present more implicitly in their lives than the explicit attempts by those who want to see an innovation engine built that churns out innovation and innovators effectively and sustainably.

My idea for making the process of innovation at a University more productive is simple. Bring the “funders”, the managers/entrepreneurs, and the problem solvers into contact at a location where the chances of eventual innovative success is improved.

Traditionally, one would think that the most effective “meeting” place for such “innovation-encounters” would be a specific faculty or university department or something, but in my view this premise misses an essential component of successful human interaction, of which innovation is a part. Innovation happens when groups of people interact extensively and closely over an extended period of time. It also happens between people who know and trust each other, at least to some minimally necessary degree. Where at a university are these twin conditions met? Where do people, of varying backgrounds and functional specialties, spend a great deal of time with each other, getting to know and trust each other, sharing ideas, dreams, and plans for the future?

It surely happens at a particular faculty, which is why “funders”, managers/mentors, and problem solvers should systematically meet there, but it happens more often, more effectively, at a university residence. A residence does not close at 5 o’ clock. But over a bottle of wine or a coffee late at night or in the early hours of the morning, the next generation is pondering the state of the nation, and dreaming up a different future. It is here where, in my limited experience at least, many modern-day eureka moments see the light of day, but also sadly where many creative youngsters are moulded into realists who work 8 to 5 for others because their infant ideas died the death of a lack of knowledge and support.

If a systematic system of funding, mentorship/management, and technical support can be given to the young people who are dreaming up our future in the university residences, I argue that we have a better recipe for effective and sustainable innovation at a university.

*Charl Botha is the Portfolio Manager of an investment partnership. He has passed levels 1,2 and 3 of his CFA qualification and is currently completing his MA in philosophy. 

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