Interestingly enough, a group of students had started a social enterprise idea that for me, showed significant promise. It wasn’t just a concept;  They’ve actually prototyped and run a small-scale pilot as part of the course requirements. In fact, with some further refinement, the enterprise was viable. Sales were already being generated, and I could see how it could evolve into larger things.

You would think that the teacher who guided them through this project would be enthusiastically encouraging the students to pursue the enterprise post-graduation.

But the contrary proved to be true.

The students wanted to pursue the enterprise. The teacher, instead of rallying behind this, actually insisted that they apply for a 9-to-5 job instead. That is the better path to pursue, according to her. The social enterprise would just be too risky.

This teacher, whom I don’t know from Adam, has a class on business and entrepreneurship. Yes, my friends. Entrepreneurship.

Imagine my disappointment when I heard this.

Granted, the teacher might have been thinking that the students would benefit from some years’ experience as an employee. I’d really like to give her the benefit of the doubt.

But from the way it was narrated to me, that might not be the case. The teacher was adamant that the students be practical and go for the safety of employment instead. By the way, it might interest you to know that the teacher isn’t an entrepreneur.

Thankfully, there was one member of the group who adamantly wanted to pursue the enterprise, and did go for it. In that bullheaded decision, I see the seeds of a true entrepreneur being born.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That business could very well fail. It IS risky. This could be a very hard road to take.

But entrepreneurship is never about using kid gloves – even when dealing with, well, kids.

You fall, you pick yourself up, you move along. That’s what entrepreneurs do. But it’s important that they actually leaped first.

Entrepreneurship is hard, period. Arguably, social entrepreneurship even more so. But if we don’t encourage people to take the plunge, then we’d pretty much never get anywhere.

Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

We need our schools – and our teachers – to spur more courage, not dampen it.

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The SkyEye team listed above. Not in picture are : JB , Chemical Engineer from La Salle; Serge Gonzales, 2nd Year Management Student (Chief UAV pilot), and Philip Cheang 4th year BS Information Design.

—

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) that can do aerial video/photography, SkyEye envisions itself as providing Aerial Imaging and Mapping, Interactive Mapping, and enabling Traffic Support Systems, as part of its portfolio of commercial services.

Now, an amazing factoid is that this team – Matt, Roy, Martin, Vinni, Kylo, and Happy – are still undergraduate students of the Ateneo – tinkering with technology and figuring out a commercial business model out of it.

So, never being one to miss an opportunity to try something novel – as this certainly falls into my ‘One New Thing A Week’ category – I met up with the group in the Ateneo SEC Field to check out this intriguing project :

Serge Gonzales and Matthew Cua of SkyEye, with their UAV.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with a Lumix LX3 attached

You can view the UAV’s camera through goggle displays while the pilot mans it with a radio controller

Picture of me face-to-face with SkyEye; Pilot Serge Gonzales manning the controls.

Picture taken from SkyEye. Also in the picture are Dr. Greg Tangonan and Paul Cabacungan of the Ateneo Innovation Center (more on that later).

Here’s a video of SkyEye in action :

—

All-in-all, it was a really cool experience to have actually tried out SkyEye. It was like playing a Flight Simulator using Terminator vision goggles.

But beyond the nerdgasmic angle, my entrepreneurial mindset eventually kicked in and my mind was racing through real-world applications of this technology. And Aerial Photography is just the tip of the iceberg.

—

Now, I’d like to take a step back and look at the SkyEye Project in a larger context.

Because the SkyEye Project is the kind of student-centric innovation being cultivated at the Ateneo Innovation Center, a nexus point wherein Ateneo School of Science and Engineering undergrads can collaborate with other colleges – as well as other schools – in order to explore, tinker with, and apply new technologies to the real world.

But while it’s fraught with practical experimentation and applications – as evidenced by the SkyEye project – it also has an eye of incubating student projects, interfacing them with the industry, and bringing them to market.

In fact, I have two hats in dealing with AIC — #1 as a resource (Greg Tangonan, the Director, has invited me on board as a resource), but also #2, as a customer. And this is because Hapinoy and Rags2Riches are collaborating with AIC on a few key projects.

Ultimately, the AIC gives me hope that a new generation of tinkerers with business sense are about to set loose to the world-at-large. And maybe somehow, this will catalyze a new wave of technology-based entrepreneurs.

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In this Module, we tackle the qualities of what makes Innovators … well, innovators. And also what we can do to imbibe and emulate that — by discovering our PassionFuel, dabbling in MindJunk, and gaining clarity on our MissionDrive.

HERE’S TO THE CRAZY ONES!

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View more documents from Mark Ruiz.

In the spirit of open-source and sharing my cognitive surplus, I’ll be uploading my Innovation Class week-on-week as it unfolds (that way, I still have the upper-hand in surprising my students).

I’ll eventually be organizing all of them (with all the notes, readings, etc) into a coherent blogsite with specific resources for teachers/educators.

All in the spirit of spreading the Innovate or Die advocacy (most especially for the Philippines!

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TED, our inspiration behind putting up the WhyNot?Forum, is coming to Manila!

This particular event is called TEDx Manila, and is being organized by Filipino UP Professor and education advocate Rom Feria (himself a TED Fellow).

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is call TEDx (place), where x=independently organized TED event. At our TEDx (place) event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.

TEDxManila is going to be held on December 5, 2009, in UP Diliman’s Malcolm Hall (College of Law). For more details, especially on how to apply — check out their official website here.

Shameless plug, I’ve also been invited to speak

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Here are some pictures from the Y4IT event.

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Fredrik Haren, author and creativity guru, is in Manila to promote the local launch of his creation, The Idea Book.

With the belief that a book on creativity must in itself be creative, Fredrik made the Idea Book an innovative book-notebook combo; Meaning that it’s 150 pages about ideas (the book), and 150 pages about the reader’s ideas (a notebook). It has been so successful that it has now been translated into (10) languages – Filipino being the latest, woot! – and has also been referenced as one of ‘the best 100 management books of all time’.

I had the opportunity to attend his talk in the Ateneo last Monday, and his thoughts on ideas and creativity resonated with my own passions of spreading the gospel of innovation.

His thinking that ideas are just combinations of old ideas is straight on. In fact, it’s an exercise I go through with my students in class, this mashup-slash-juxtaposition of existing concepts, themes, and brands; It’s a concept I’ve also previously blogged about – what i call the ‘innovation equation’.

Fredrik also shared that the world is now awash in a literal explosion of ideas. This means that the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders will have to juggle both creativity and innovation, the translation of ideas into application. In an era wherein ideas are a dime a dozen, it is the people who think of making the leap from idea to insight, from insight to application, and from application to execution who will ultimately succeed in this new reality.

He cited the example of a paint company he was working with; The R&D department had developed a paint that was so unique that nobody knew what to make of it. In truth, nobody knew how to use it. And if you don’t know how people will eventually use it, how on earth will you package and sell it? Again, it is the people who will translate this idea (super unique paint) into application (???!) who will make a dent in the marketplace.

While on this topic, Fredrik made a comment that I absolutely – albeit sadly – agree with. Filipinos are wildly creative. But we’re still struggling with translating this creativity into application, all the more into execution. Just think of the things Filipinos have invented, but have sadly uncommercialized. The example of agricultural technology developed here at home, but adopted in other countries comes to mind. Result — the Philippines is a net importer of rice (!)

Eventually, the highlight of the talk for me was his prelude to his next book, The Developing World.

This of course is a topic that I’m absolutely passionate about. And to hear it from somebody from the other side of the world – both geographically and economically – just confirms the fact that we Filipinos are on the threshold of a sea change of opportunity that we must fully embrace, and make the most of.

Fredrik’s thesis is that ‘The Developed World’ – by virtue of the term itself – has essentially said, “We’re developed; We’ve reached the finish line, there’s no more need to further progress and move forward.” This is in stark contrast to the ‘The Developing World’, which means in-flux, constantly evolving, still moving and finding its way.

He cited several points of argument on why a 25-year-old Filipino is in a better position than a 25-year-old Swede. My favorite example is the fact that we in the developing world have the ability to fuse cultures, being exposed to both the east and the west. While an American will only watch the movie The Dark Knight on a weekend, we’ll get to watch that and a locally-flavored movie to boot. This then allows us to bring truly unique things into the world.

While this is really a big idea, Fredrik decided to make the idea real in his life. This meant actually transplanting himself from Europe to China, and eventually to his current home base, Singapore. Proof positive that he really believes what he’s talking about and is not just positing it from a theoretical point-of-view. Now this is something I truly appreciate.

—

The next day we had lunch with Fredrik and DJ Reyes (from his company, interesting.org).

As if to continue the conversation on ‘the developing world’, people from Hapinoy (Erika Tatad and Allaine de la Cruz), Rags2Riches (Reese Fernandez), and WhyNot?Forum (Jan Chavez-Arceo) were also there. What eventually ensued was a very engaging discussion on the context of what we were doing and trying to achieve with these endeavors, which are all essentially a part of the emerging picture that is this developing world.

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maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me that my devotion to teaching is slowly paying off …

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