First Semester 2010 Innovation and Technology

Innovation and Technology

Instructor: Professor Greg Tangonan

1st Semester SY2010-2011

Course Description
Though technology plays a very important role in our lives, we seldom reflect
on how a technological breakthrough happens or even on how it develops.
This course is aimed at students as future technologists, the focus is on stra-
tegic thinking and the role of innovation in changing the technical landscape.
We address questions like: what makes something hot, how new technolo-
gies have developed, what makes for technology into a business success,
and how do successful technologies lead to whole new industries? This
course surveys themes like technology and society, creation of new technol-
ogy companies based on new ideas, and global competitiveness. We will
need to understand the technical basis of new developments but our objective
is to understand the global context of technology development as well.

The course is intended as a capstone course that develops a strategic over-

view of technology and applying this knowledge to the Philippine scene. This
course complements their studentsʼ skills in science and engineering disci-
plines. Being aimed for young technologists at the start of their careers it is
supposed to be a fun course rich with student presentations, discussion and
interesting reading. The instructor or guest speaker will oftentimes just cata-
lyze student discussion. This class could make learning and investigating new
ideas, summarizing new ideas, and judging the potential impact, an integral
part of their lifelong learning.

The competitive landscape is changing rapidly, today

focused R&D and product development teams in de-
veloping companies can compete globally. The origins
of the “flattening” of the competitive environment will
be a major focus of the class lectures and student
presentations. Our efforts will be to understand how
these forces affect the Philippines. We will study the
strategic role that intellectual property – patenting, li-
censing, and trade secrets – plays in securing for entrepreneurs their intellec-
tual equity.

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Course Objectives
The course will develop skills in strategic thinking about technology and soci-
ety. The course will hone studentʼs presentation skills, especially in making
concise and insightful presentations on technical topics.
This course will develop information gathering, information analysis, and criti-
cal thinking skills that will prove useful in your future careers.

First Semester - How Innovations can radically change our lives.

Students will analyze the development of the iPod / iPad and how the new
iPad/ iPhone fits within a strategy that will remake Apple and change several
industries. The hot new iPad that costs only $499 with WiFi only is a real stra-
tegic breakthrough for Apple. The focus will be on developing new applica-
tions for these tablet devices in new markets like personal health manage-
ment and personal wellness. This is also a story of
world class Innovation as driven by highly focused
teams led by super-innovators like Steve Jobs. So
this class focuses on the Innovator as the creator
of new industries, by asking: What is the innovation
process of Apple? How have they come up with
tremendous new products -Mac, iPod, iPhone and
now the iPad - that are truly game changing inno-
vations. To this end the students will start by ana-
lyzing the innovation process of Apple by a class reading of Inside Steveʼs
Brain by Leander Kahney. At the same time the students are going to be chal-
lenged to understand the booming market of applications for these new de-
vices. They will analyze applications in a specific field like gaming and deter-
mine the potential impact on the Industry of new media platforms like the
iPad. Then the students will then present their idea for a new application and
why they believe it can sell. No need for coding of the applications now, the
objective is to develop the concept for a new ap-
plication so it is very attractive to users.

This semesterʼs focus areas are Sustainable

Solutions for Energy Environment and Applica-
tion to Improved Health and Wellness. We will
begin the discussions by looking at the major
new innovations in these fields for the last two
years, by reading different surveys of hot new
ideas and innovations for 2009-2010. This sur-
vey will lead directly to student presentations on

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new technical ideas and their impact - like solar energy systems, nano-
materials and new biomedical devices, and software
as a service.

Given that the students will also be finding thesis top-

ics for this yearʼs undergraduate research, we will em-
phasize developing an overview of the overall signifi-
cance of their topic. Basic questions we tackle are:
What can be the impact of my research? Can I get
close to the state of the art by focusing on fertile tech-
nology areas? Is industry already interested in this
topics area? For those doing a thesis, this exercise
can really help crystallize the motivation for doing re-
search.

The students are required to present a final presentation on one of the many
books in our Innovation Center library. A 20 minute presentation on the bookʼs
major ideas is required with 10 charts maximum.

Prerequisites: This course is open to upper division engineering and sci-

ence students participating in thesis projects. Since the class does NOT re-
quire higher math or science skills, non-technical majors are encouraged to
participate. When necessary they should get help from the more technically
oriented students in making their presentations rich in technical details.

Readings, Information sources, and Seminars:

A bibliography is given below for the First Semester class. Materials down-
loaded from the Facultyʼs own subscriptions to variety of sources will be made
available to the students. These materials have been obtained from sources
like the The Economist, Scientific American, Technology Review Maga-
zine, IEEE Spectrum,, and the Wall Street Journal. Extensive use of Pod-
cast materials on Innovation are also available, notably Stanford University,
MIT, and TED Talks have lectures that students can learn from. Students are
encouraged to listen to several Innovation Podcast on the Web in developing
their class presentations and developing their applications.

Course Requirements
Meeting deadlines for presentation is of great importance in evaluating stu-
dent performance. Students are required to make four major presentations to
the class and to participate in meaningful class discussions of presentations.
In most cases, the presentations and proposals are Power Point slides (5

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charts max – 5 minutes max). Not meeting deadlines will result in a significant
lowering of the high grade that students start with. The grading scheme is
based on class presentations, class participation and reaction papers. Book
presentations will be typically 20 minutes with 10 charts, students must
schedule their presentations. All presentations will be uploaded to the class
website to be considered complete (except those hot ideas we want to work
on more).

Innovation and Technology Bibliography

Books
Linchpin - Are you Indispensable by Seth Godin (2010 Penguin Group)
The Game Changer by A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan (2008 Crown Business)
The Medici Effect by Frans Johannson (2006 Harvard Press)
Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman (2008 Farrar, Strauss,Giroux)
Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (2008 Harvard Business
Press)
Wikinomics- How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tap-
scott and Anthony Williams (2008 Portfolio)
The Post American World by Fareed Zakariah (2008 Norton)
Founders at Work:Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston
(2007 Apress)
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb
(2007 Possibly Maybe)
The Inventor's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen (2002 Harper Collins)
The Inventor's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by
Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor (2003 Harvard Business
School Publishing)
How Breakthroughs Happen: the Surprising Truth about How Compa-
nies Innovate by Andrew Hargadon (2003 Harvard Business School Publish-
ing)
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore (2002 Harper Collins)
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (2006 Farrar, Straus and Giroux;
Updated Edition)
The Flight of the Creative Class by Richard Florida (2005 Harper Collins)
The Cult of iPod by Leander Kahney
(2005 No Starch Press)
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2002 Little Brown and Company)
Newspapers and Magazines
Business Information Sources
Technology Quarterly from the Economist Magazine (2007 to 2008)
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week, The Economist,
Atlantic Monthly
Technical Journals
IEEE Spectrum, Scientific American
American Scientist, MIT Technology Review, Physics Today, EE Times

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