WIPO’s GII for my breakfast: This year’s serving is on 16 Sept.

FEEDBACK is the Breakfast of Champions is a popular phrase attributed to the author Ken Blanchard. His suc- cinct writings using One Minute themes have a global fol- lowing. The Deming cycle PDCA (Plan- Do-Check-Action) has embedded the feedback loop into the top manage- ment governance cycle and is a gold standard in manage- ment practices. Our PDCA is more akin to Politics-Diatribe- Constituency- Attrition in prac- tice. However, in our nation’s plan- ning, feedback is not exactly visible. Our breakfast of short eats or loads of carbs with some sambol and curry has led to more NCD prevalence than progress.

- By Prof. Ajith de Alwis

I am writing this early to get more attention to a report card coming our way next week.

The Global Innovation Index for the year 2025 will be launched on 16 September from Geneva by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). As per the newsfeed coming from WIPO, this year’s report card will be a comparison of 140 economies. The objective of GII is positioning and ranking national economies over their innovation prowess. The underlying understanding in moving to an exercise of this nature is understanding the value of innovation in transforming an economy makes it an imperative to understand and study how economies execute policies and practices innovation based and led. The exercise addresses inputs and outputs and critiques on efficiency. The methodology is via evaluating a data metric of about 80 indicators under 7 pillars and then calculating a composite value which yields a ranking.

The report card for Sri Lanka last year is presented while we wait for this year’s news. Have we or do we take these published measures seriously and decisions taken after studying the series of reports cards available since 2007? The positioning of Sri Lanka over the years, when observed, demonstrate a saw tooth pattern of little or no order and a global position of no significance! This pattern is an indication of feedback absent eco system performance. Compare how India has performed if you want to see a different nation at work.

Obama’s White House considered innovation as the key ingredient that was sought from everyone when trying to rally round the economy in 2008. The message from the White House was direct to all individuals. In India, the first citizen downwards gives GII their highest attention, and the curve for India in the GII is indicative of the feedback effect.