On Sunday 02.04.2023, Consulting & Research Centre at Cihan University – Dohuk held a scientific symposium at our university, entitled “Nothing is impossible”.
🎙️Hosted by the speaker:
Dr. Azad Najar is a Senior Consultant in urology, inventor, and researcher in cardiac physiology. He also has extensive hands-on experience in innovation strategies, regulation, patent strategies, and the development of industrial products and technology companies.
Session Summary:
Dr. Azad started his speech by motivating the students by showing them the success of his personal experience.
He said so, what have I learned, and how can it help you on your own journey? Well, simply put, nothing is impossible. The constraints we impose on our imagination, innovation, creativity, and vision are just that–self-imposed. We consistently fail to see the future opportunities that exist beyond the context of the present. It’s the human condition, but it’s also what makes great innovation possible for those who dare it.
Of course, simply saying something is possible doesn’t make it so. You don’t innovate the future by just wishing it into being. Overcoming the inertia of the impossible requires engaging in a coordinated dance with the future. It’s this coordination that separates successful startups from those that end up littering the streets with disappointment.
What I’ve found in my own experiences, is that choreographing this dance with the unknown requires at least three critical attitudes and behaviors if you’re going to stand a reasonable chance of causing any significant new idea to gain traction.
Don’t get so stuck on the specifics of your original idea that you ignore the ability to co-create with the future.
One of the greatest eye-openers when you bring any new idea to market is the degree to which it will change over time as you encounter unexpected and unpredictable forces in the market that threaten to alter your original idea. I use the term “threaten” intentionally, because when this happens you have two very distinct choices; be unyielding and defend the hell out of you original idea, or allow your idea to be shaped by these forces in a way that makes it something new and different. You’d think any sane person would go with option two. But that’s not always true. Entrepreneurs get so stuck on their vision that they become nearly religious about letting go of it. That’s when commitment turns to arrogance. Being arrogant with future is like staring down a tsunami it’s not a contest you’re going to win. The real magic of bringing a new idea to market is the serendipity that naturally occurs and reshapes the idea in a way that makes it a natural fit for the future. The idea and the future evolve concurrently. Allow that to happen and embrace the new changing idea rather than building a fortress of defenses and resentment around the old one.
Don’t discount the naysayers. Instead, use their objections to build value.
“Innovation is always a negotiation between the possible and the impossible.”
Inevitably, you’ll be assaulted by very smart people with good reasons why your idea won’t work. It gets tiring listening to that sort of drivel. And yet, you need to. You’ll need to keep moving despite the naysayers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. Innovation is always a negotiation between the possible and the impossible. Eventually, the latter becomes the former and the cycle repeats. But for a brief period both of these exist simultaneously as a new paradigm forms and is accepted. Think of the quote often mistakenly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” What’s missing in this quote is that in each of the first three stages you need to be gaining support or at least attention from the very same people doing the ignoring, laughing, and fighting!
At the end of the session, many questions and scientific interventions were raised by teachers and students at Cihan University.
Then a scientific memorandum of understanding was signed between the President of Cihan University, Dr. Zeravan Abdulmuhsen Asaad, and Dr. Azad Najar as a representative of the Institute of Scientific Innovation in Erbil.
You can watch the video:
