D. D. KOSAMBI LECTURES

A PAEAN TO LEARNING TO ‘SEE’

SPEAKER: Tarun Khanna ( Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School)

DATE: 25 November 2019, 16:00 to 17:30

VENUE: Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTSTIFR, Bengaluru

Inspired by Kosambi’s use of analytic methods to understand history, I will structure this talk around the use of basic analytics to better ‘see’ some overlooked regularities in human behavior. I will draw on examples from recent Indian history (crowdsourced memories of the Partition of British India; timeless religious gatherings like the Maha Kumbh Mela) as well as from contemporary social phenomena (ubiquity of unskilled youth and the demographic bulge; an unmanageable epidemic of chronic disease across the developing world). Such analytics require some degree of consilience, so that scholars can triangulate insights from different academic disciplines. I will conclude with some remarks on the institutional landscape in developing countries that bedevil this quest for consilience, and suggest some policy initiatives that nudge communities, universities, industry and government into a tentative and hopefully constructive embrace, drawing on my experiences with the Boston and Bengaluru ecosystems.

Table of Contents (powered by https://videoken.com)
0:00:00 Introduction
0:11:17 A paean to learning to 'see'
0:19:23 Picasso
0:22:33 'Seeing' is valuable but difficult
0:25:59 Most of us have trouble seeing the value of insights from other disciplines,
0:27:04 Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact
0:30:22 Some personal trials & tribulations and then my ecstasy at 'seeing'
0:36:33 D Kosambi, An Introduction to the study of Indian History
0:37:36 History
0:39:16 Memory
0:40:14 Involuntary Migrations
0:40:18 Partition of British India
0:45:31 Types of GovernmentAdministered Refugee Sites
0:46:39 Routes taken by Refugees with Stops and Distance
0:49:13 Kumbh Mela Mapping the Mela
0:58:57 Health Diagnoses At Kumbh Mela
1:02:22 Jana Care Solution: AINA + Habits
1:04:11 Solving Real Problems Transcends Disciplinary Boundaries
1:06:11 CloseLooped Chronic Care Management: From Health Screening to Primary Care to Home
1:06:20 The art of design, for different use cases
1:07:50 Cardiometabolic Map of Bangalore
1:11:48 Automated motor skill tests for vocational testing
1:13:37 Overview of Recommendations
1:13:39 ATAL Tinkering Labs
1:16:45 Q&A