Perspectives on Innovation

Trevor Rose, an entrepreneur from Australia with a background in engineering and computer science is one of the winning Solvers of the Improving Banking Processes in the Developing World Challenge.

I have worked in over 60 jobs in my life, so as I was writing this personal profile and looking at the other Solver profiles, I couldn’t think of a line that says “I am this”, because I have done a million & one tiny little things, none of which was really a career in the way most people experience (meaning the money was absolute rubbish).

Only in the last decade did I decide to become TRULY impoverished by becoming a mature age student & attending university to study engineering & computer science, running up a massive bill with the government.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to finish, and the university in question wasn’t turning out to be quite the value for money I’d hoped, so I decided to go back to the workforce.   (Ok, I’ll be honest… I had NO OPTION but to go back to the workforce, which seemed strange as this was simultaneous to a million news reports about how Australia is so short of professional engineers & other technically trained people, and I spent a good deal of time wondering why it never occurs to the decision makers to just support people through education properly, and voilá problem solved. But then hey, what would I know?)

One day I was perusing the InnoCentive web site and saw the Challenge about improving banking processes in the developing world.  I thought it sounded like an interesting problem, and it didn’t take specialist knowledge in fields that I don’t have enough of a clue about to even attempt solving.   Then when I read the further details, it just started me thinking, and before I knew it, there I was writing down the solution that came to mind.  (ok, it took a bit of scribbling on paper & drawing diagrams & nutting things over… but that’s part of the process I get hooked on & why I love to solve problems)  I do like the possibility that something I thought of might help someone in a country where the economy is very tough already, and perhaps make their lives easier in some way… i hope so… but it wasn’t the reason for attempting the Challenge.  I like the idea of being an InnoCentive Solver because for me it’s like a little billboard that will say to those who doubted me in life, that maybe they are wrong and I am a lot cleverer than I look.  

My next project is to get my own business going.   I’m hoping that this will allow me to do 3 main things:

I don’t have a website up & running yet for my business, but anyone who is interested in having a fresh perspective on their business, and maybe discussing some ideas for areas of potential improvement can contact me tarose.trevor@gmail.com.  I need to build up some further case studies to publish, so I would be happy to have a look into what you are doing and where you think it’s all coming unstuck.