Interview by Jonathan Kersting
Svatantra Innovation began in early 2019 with a vision to enable individuals and businesses to learn and apply a creative thinking ability to identify breakthrough opportunities, design unique approaches and deliver distinct and powerful solutions that transforms their space.
Sathya details how Svatantra Innovation's interventions will enable a thinking ability that is unbiased by past experiences, present distractions and limiting future expectations. Svatantra Innovation has programs for working professionals - the Breakthrough Thinking Program, and for school children (middle and high schools) - the Slingshot Program. Reach out to Sathya at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vagheeswar/ or https://www.linkedin.com/company/svatantra/
Transcription:
This is Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council and TechVibe Radio, bringing you the TechVibe Radio One Mic Stand. And I love having these conversations over the past eight months, which is crazy that we've been firing this thing up to tell stories everywhere and anywhere around Pittsburgh technology ecosystem. I'm just running into the coolest people in Sathya Venkatasubramanian is one of these guys. Or I'm like, man, I love this platform he's put together he's got this new gig. It's called. It's called Svatantra Innovation, trying to say that like as crisply as I possibly can. Yeah. And it's a really cool platform where it just helps people stick more creatively to find breakthrough solutions to problems that you're facing. And what I love about this is it's not just for people, it's for organizations, and kind of like everything in between. So Sathya, welcome to the show today. And you have a pretty amazing background, like I've talked to you about this before. And I'm like, man, this guy has been around the block when it comes to all things innovation. So I'm really glad to have you with us today.
Thank you, Jonathan. And it's my pleasure to be on TechVibe Radio it's a pleasure to talk to you once again.
Very cool stuff. So first and foremost, I love the fact that you spun off and you've done your own thing over your years, being an innovative guy working at all levels within some crazy cool companies, which we'll talk about in a minute, you kind of came upon something where you realize some really unique ways to solve problems and just find solutions you would never find using this this platform through Svatantra. I'm so excited to talk about today. So first of all, what's your background? And let's kind of jump into what you've done and how you kind of got this idea like wait a second, there's a new way for people to be creative here.
Oh, fantastic. So my background is I studied to be an engineer, I got my master's from the University of Cincinnati. And, you know, when I joined that program, you know, I wanted to join and become a regular engineer who worked in a you know, in a lot of these companies. But life took a different turn, I made a bold career choice, right after I graduated. And my first job was actually to go back to join GE global research in India to support their intellectual property initiative, a lot of cool technologies, especially around healthcare imaging technologies for happening. And I was hired by GE to help protect the intellectual property behind their investments. So GE invested millions of dollars in their r&d. And a lot of cool things came out. Yeah. And in order to take that out to the market, they wanted to secure the rights to those inventions. And my job was to help protect those inventions. So that's how I got started. So I studied to be an engineer, I use my engineering talent, but I've been in the field of innovation and subsequently intellectual property my entire career.
Yeah. And that would mean you were like seeing technology before their time. You're looking at stuff like right as it was being hatched by 10-20 years ahead of its time. I think this is so fascinating. And it probably got the gears turning your head quite a bit. Hmm.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So if you look at it, you know, you I think you hit the nail on the head. Intellectual property is not about protecting it for tomorrow, or meaning the immediate term, it's for much into the future, right. So I got to see technologies that still, you know, are in their process of becoming real. But you know, 20 years ago, somebody had the ability to envision what that could be. And for me, the greatest satisfaction was I caught to be in the present, but living for the future living for the good for the company. So it was fantastic. It was mind boggling to see how things could become If only you had the right ability to think. And that's really what got me started. But in a while I started my career with intellectual property. My job was to work with technologists and engineers to help identify what they came up with. And when I asked them, do you have an invention for me, they would always, you know, take a step back. for them. It was one of the most intimidating words because, you know, intellectual property reminds them of patterns. Patterns reminds you of lawsuits, lawsuits, of lawyers, big damages that come with it. So every time you ask them for an invention, they always were afraid to talk because they're like, I don't want to say anything wrong. So they always, you know, held things closer to their heart. But I had to find a way to break that ice. Because my job was to help protect the intellectual property. And if the engineers weren't willing to talk, then I'm not able to do my job. Right, Exactly.
So I had to figure out, how do I get them to open up? How do I get them to open their minds? And that's when it occurred to me. Instead of asking for inventions. I decided to ask people for ideas. Mm hmm. No ideas. opened up a whole new world, completely different perspective, because it did not remind them of lawyers or lawsuits. It just reminded them of an idea.
And the things they love creating, right?
Exactly, exactly. Because engineers, you know, are not short of ideas. They might be short of inventions. But my job was to help grow that idea into an invention. Because when something starts, it doesn't start with his invention, it starts with an idea. So that's the reason I wanted to go and approach them and say, let's talk about ideas. And everybody had an idea, you know, it didn't matter if I ask them by the watercooler or in the parking lot, or the restaurant, they always had time to stop and share an idea. I love this, you're being so clever back then you're being so clever. And this became the roots of what became Svatantra Innovation, then at this point, and what I'm curious is is like, you know, with, with all the crazy cool work you've done with GE, and other companies, when it comes to managing innovation, you decided, this is so important to me, I want to spin this off as its own company, its own entity, because you believe in it that much. You've seen the results of this work so much. What what pushed you over the edge, Sathya said I'm gonna dunk it, I'm not gonna throw caution to the wind and actually start a company around this.
Yes. So I've been very fortunate to have traveled the world work for very large corporations in multiple industries. And while I was doing that, the role that I played evolved, but we're still around innovation and intellectual property. Hmm. So regardless of whether I'm working with an engineer in Bangalore, or in Pittsburgh, or the Silicon Valley, when you ask them, or you know, when you're working with them to create that next breakthrough, then when the organization suddenly made the decision to say, we're going to invest in the future, not future for us, and six months from now, but future as in 10 years from now. And they expected the employees to jump in and help create those solutions for the future. There was a big drawback, because while organizations were somehow able to motivate and bring the money, the engineers were unable to deliver on those promises, deliver on those visions for what they could be doing 10 years from now. And that was the same whether it was in healthcare or technology, or in transportation, you had the similar problem. And for me, having you know, being in the middle of it, working with all these teams, I said, There's got to be a better way to take care of this. And that was the one that actually led me to create Swatantra innovation. In fact, if you look at the word Swatantra, yes, drawn from Sanskrit, yeah, and the word means the ability to free one's mind, the distractions of the past, as well as the distractions of today. And then the limited expectations of the future that happens as a result of all your past and present distractions and limited expectations. You know, you got to free your mind from all of that, so to speak, you know, drop the extra baggage that you're carrying around in your mind, we all got a bag that you can think and today, it's so important, you know, given how the world has changed the last eight months, you know, our expectations of the world of the past of the present. In fact, the future has all been changed.
So much more of the time of the pandemic right now. That's for sure. That is all trying to be more innovative and find some breakthrough stuff, right?
That's right. That's right. But the thing is, today, people have to change not because they wanted to, because the world and the situation made them two. So if unless you're ready for it, it's always scary to live in such a ever changing, quick changing, you know, workplace. So my job was to say, Okay, how do you help free this free visibility and give people the ability to say I'm going to deal by the obscurity with confidence, I'm going to deal with uncertainty, with a lot more rigor, my my confidence, allowing me to take it on and solve it and tackle it. So that's really what you know, my push has been so Swatantra, I started, you know, I started this with a two pronged approach. One was to help organizations that are already facing the problem today, by helping their workforce, change their mindware. So people talk about hardware and software, right. And where I come in is actually helping them transfer their mindware.
I like, that sounds super cool, man. Exactly.
So mindware is nothing but the changing the way you act the way you think it's a psychological intervention. But helping people, you know, deliver innovation led transformations. So tackling it at the mind where allows them to take that ability to apply it for their hardware and software. So that's how mine were plus hardware plus software leads to a lot of innovation and breakthroughs. It's that secret sauce between the hardware and the software is the mindware. Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, I mean, plus, engaging people that lovely, you start realizing that you're, you're the point that's making this happen. It's in my mind where that's happening. So I can change my mind where and let go of that baggage, then you can really start seeing through and finding new ways and start innovating into new directions. I bet.
That's right, Jonathan. So you know, let's take an example you work with, you know, people in nursery who stayed for 2530 years, and then suddenly you tell them, you got to change the way you work? What do you think their reaction is going to be?
If it's not broken, why fix it. And this is something that I've been doing for 30 years. So I think I know what I'm doing. That's great when you're improving continuously, everything that you're doing. But if you want to transform, if you want to create a breakthrough in industry, you've got to somehow unlearn what you have learned and have worked on for the last 30 years. In fact, this mindware you know, get so clogged up, that, you know, the longer you have been in industry, or the more successful you have become, the stronger is the inertia to change what you're doing. Yeah, so that was a big thing that we need to break in the organizations. But organizations are already you know, they have a lot of employees, and they have a lot of challenges. And you know, there is an opportunity to work with them to transform. So my corporate engagement from Southern for, I call that the breakthrough thinking program is about helping the employees of an organization to realize how they think and to change it. They can actually be the drivers of innovation within the organization. So that organizations don't have to always say, we need innovative workforce, our current workforce isn't innovative. So we need to get a completely different set of workforce, that it becomes counterproductive. Exactly. So on the corporate side, you have that now, the more interesting thing is on the educational front, like this side, I'm becoming I can't wait to talk more about this, because I love the idea of instilling this into into you, students, I think it's really this Slingshot Program you've got going on or something.
That's right, that's like, so I'm excited to talk about slingshot, because that's really where the biggest impact of this thinking ability and transformation happens. Because why wait until people are 25 years into their career and to make them unlearn? It's a very tough process. It's almost like saying, I need a new driveway. And I only have a concrete driveway, and I need a new one. So therefore a lot of time and money has to be set in actually in breaking the existing driveway before I get a new one. So I said, why do we have to do that? So let's take you know, let's go back in time and work with people and their minds, when it's least contaminated or conditioned, or polluted with these damage happened to us over the years?
Exactly, exactly. So I wanted to reach out into the academic inner force and say, let's work with students, before they even know what area of career they need to pursue, before they are getting stuck on the fundamentals of math, science and all of that. So I said, if we can create, you know, this awareness of how thinking can be impacted how thinking can be developed, before they make even make a career choice. Now that has a potential to change. Because now, what we are giving them is we're giving them a tool, but with a set of tools. And they can choose to use it when they wanted where they want it depending on what they want to become or who they want to become. Right. But I'm giving them something that they can apply for the rest of their life. Because you may study something. But how many of us actually work the same field that we studied 10-15 years ago? Very rarely, even myself, as soon as I graduated, I took on a prime example there's Exactly, exactly. So the slingshot program is actually meant to give kids the ability to make the decision of how to think where to think, when to think and apply that in powerful ways. So that's the transformation that I'm going after. So that industries of the future don't have to ever deal with having a workforce that does not have the ability to think so it's a long term. It's a big vision.
But if this works, you're putting yourself out of business if this works.
See, that's the whole point, too, because engagements such as these don't have to always require somebody to be driving. Because once you create that organic ability, it becomes a self sustaining. Yes, in some way. I'm actually going to put myself out of one client, but hopefully it's going to open doors to other clients. You know, we can get this chain reaction going, you know, and get the whole world caught in that virtuous cycle.
Absolutely. I feel like when the slingshot program, it really provides the fundamentals for lifelong learning at the end of the day, which is what we all need to be, we all need to be lifelong learners. I think if you go with the mindset that you're giving to students at a young age, it just keeps your mind open to the fact that you're always going to be changing, always finding a new way, not get set in his ways. And we get that 25 years of concrete driveway baggage.
That is, in fact, if you look at the last 10-15 years, some of the biggest disruptions have happened, not because of cost by people who have lived in the industry forever. But it has been caused by outsiders, and how I call outsiders who I call outsiders or people who had no clue or experience in that industry. Yet they just waltzed into the industry, and put out all those established players out of the market take over talk about Airbnb, right talk about you know, even Amazon, you know, the one that transformed the way we bought with iPods and so forth, back and with and with Apple, you know, everybody changing the way things are done. And this would not have happened if you relied on those established players who do it even banks, IT teams weren't invented by backs. Because if you, if you let banks to do what they did, you would still be walking into a heavily guarded building, to deposit money or to take money out. Exactly. So it happens to even the best of us that we get stuck on our present, and our past that prevents us from going into the future.
I love it. I just think it's so cool that you're shaking things up like this, and enough to where it's like you're creating an actual company around this. And I know you're engaging with a lot of folks in the Silicon Valley, looking to do more engagements here in Pittsburgh, if people want to reach out to you and say, Hey, I need to learn more about this. How can I you know, bring this to my office with my team of five or six people. Or if I have a student that I think I'd like to teach this, I'd like to have this talk to how do people get in touch with you, Sathya?
So you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm working on my website right now. But you know, the traction that I have seen in Silicon Valley has made me channel my time into actually delivering the program. There you go. And it's not, you know, very old. It's, it's a very new organization started last year, but gaining a lot of traction since the pandemic hit.
Come on, it's like this, like, this is the time where you, you know, you are living in a lot of uncertainty. And this is the time for you to say how do I take charge of this uncertainty by equipping myself with new skills, new ways of thinking, because we are constantly used to acting, we are always used to putting out fires, that there is really no time to think, and to do things differently. So in a no, this is a great time, I'm excited by the traction I'm seeing from Silicon Valley, both from the students as well as from the industry. Because I have programs running, you know, on both fronts in California, I would love for something to happen in Pittsburgh. And that's where a lot of my time is actually being started to be spent talking with schools, talking with parents talking with the, you know, institutions, both institutions, as well as with local industry to say, How can we get some of this program brought out so I'm very excited. So, you know, if your listeners want to reach out to me, you can definitely reach out through my LinkedIn page. So for Svatantra, Innovation, if you want to just search for Svatantra, I know it's not easy to get the spelling Right.
Exactly. So better than I can say it that's for sure.
Thank you, Jonathan. But I think this is gonna be great. And I am excited with, you know, all the things that are happening right now.
I'm excited for you. And I'm glad you're here in Pittsburgh building Svatantra, because I think I just love the idea of continuous learning and just stripping that baggage back and finding new ways to solve problems because that's what we all got to do in this day and age more than ever. So Sathya, thank you for being part of our one mic stand today.
Welcome. My pleasure is all mine. Jonathan. I really enjoyed speaking with you today. And I look forward to hearing back from all your listeners as well. Absolutely. All right.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai