They create products and solutions that can be used anytime, anywhere in the world. They contribute to the startup ecosystem as much as they draw from it. They are curious and adventurous. They are deep tech warriors of the new world.
TECHNOLOGY LED TRANSFORMATION of business and industry is accelerating at a pace never experienced before. Gone are the days when a significant new innovation would lead to discrete, time-bound transformation at a modest pace, only to be disrupted by the next new innovation.
It is now a continuum with no beginning nor end, only a transformation every step of the way.
Look at three examples that have shown the way of multiple transformations. I have chosen all three examples from Germany, the manufacturing power house and generally a country that is shy publicising its engineering prowess. All three companies started their transformation journey in the early to mid 2000s.
Siemens, an industry behemoth transformed itself into an automation and digitisation company for all industries, doing away from vertical orientation like infrastructure, energy, healthcare… Solutions offered now include financial services, mobility, real estate and renewables and the company wants to be the leader in technology and software for automation and digitisation.
Kaeser Compressors, another blue-blooded German company, a world leader in industrial compressed air solutions, began the transformation journey to re-engineer the business model to include “compressed air as a utility service.” The classic capex to opex transformation solution for industries has taken Kaeser to a different orbit, a more technology-oriented one, opening a whole new world of opportunities in the SME sector.
Robert Bosch calls itself a technology and services company today and likes to be seen as a leading IoT provider and an integration specialist for Industry 4.0, with the conviction that the future is all about integrating rapidly evolving technologies and digitisation for a sustainable world. It is no longer just the auto industry, but it is every industry that exists in this connected world. Bosch is as much a software company as it is an IoT company or a renewable electrification company.
These companies have in a sense created the future by rapidly adopting new business models, leveraging technology and, above all, reinventing their business purpose for a digitised world.
beginning of deep science and Technology
Is technology and digital transformation the end all? Prof Mohanbir Sawhney of the Kellogg School of Management doesn’t think so. In fact he believes that the digital transformation story is reaching the beginning of the tip of its long tail and making way for deep science and technology-based products and services, for an even better world order.
New generation vaccines based on messenger RNA, the liquid metal-based energy storage solutions or the bacteria-based bio reactor are examples of the new generation of companies that began as deep technology startups, founded at high technology institutions or powered by researchers from leading academic institutions. Tomorrow’s world will be filled with such innovations whose founders started with different paradigms.
Seeing the sound
Littman stethoscope, every doctor’s basic tool, is being reinvented as an AI powered low cost diagnostic tool, by AI Health Highway. Combining sound technology from Bang & Olufsen to detect the minutest of murmurs from the heart with big data analytics and AI to match patterns and provide a digital experience by “seeing the sound” in any mobile device. With this the problem of diagnosing early, cardiac related to conditions in the remotest part of the world is being solved.
Ai to colour and sort capsules
By integrating advances in compressed air systems with artificial intelligence and vision-based technology, a new way of dramatically improving the quality of packaged products is pioneered by Jidoka Technologies. These technologies have been applied to colour-sort capsules in a pharma production line or shape/sort grains in a warehouse, all at high speed.
the deep tech warriors
There are many such startups. What do they have in common? The founders have deep roots in science and technology, usually Ph.Ds with industry experience. They have patents against their names and the ability to collaborate continuously with their teachers and post-doc students. They are problem-oriented and not technology-oriented. They start with a pressing problem and attempt to find an elegant solution, convinced that the solution lies in applying deep tech. They design to solution to cost, rather than find a solution and drive it down the cost curve. If the solution doesn’t meet the cost and affordability criteria upfront, they reject it as a solution that is commercially unviable. And they are innovative enough to combine diverse aspects into the solution and build it for a world without boundaries.
They create products and solutions that can be used anytime, anywhere in the world, leveraging the high speed connectivity all of us have come to rely on for every aspect of our life.
They contribute to the startup ecosystem as much as they draw from it. They are curious and adventurous. They are the deep tech warriors of the new world creating the future. – Lakshmi Narayanan
