China and India have evolved their national innovation systems dramatically in the past decade. China leads the pack of upper middle-income countries—more than contesting historical U.S.-supremacy in several fields—while India leads the ensemble of lower middle-income countries. This lecture offers a preliminary exploration of some similarities but primarily the differences in the ways in which these two societies have approached the pre-meditated task of upgrading their respective national innovation infrastructures.
About the Griffin Lecture
Building a legacy for their children and for Minnesota, Bob and Kim Griffin created an endowment fund at the University of Minnesota China Center to establish the “Bob and Kim Griffin Building U.S.-China Bridges Lecture.” The Griffins’ substantial gift reflects their commitment to promoting the mutual respect between the two cultures and their passion for connecting people to China.
Bob Griffin founded Griffin International Companies in 1997 and served as CEO. Under Griffin’s leadership, Griffin International Companies became one of the country’s leading sales and marketing firms, working extensively in Asia and in the U.S. In 2016, the Griffin International Companies joined Established Brands and U&I Entertainment to become CITIES Market Studios, where Bob Griffin served as Chief Business Officer. Later he served as a board member and chair at Energous Corporation.
About the Speaker
Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School, and the inaugural director of Harvard’s Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute (2010-2025). He has taught at HBS and Harvard College since 1993, focusing on how entrepreneurship drives social and economic development. He has published a variety of books, and his online course, Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, has been taken by nearly a million students worldwide. He serves on the boards of numerous for-profit and not-for-profit companies in the U.S. and India. He is a cofounder of several enterprises including Bangalore’s tech incubator Axilor Ventures, India’s largest chain of robot-fueled chai (tea) cafes, and Aspire Institute, which provides free higher education services to millions of first-generation college students in around 190 countries.
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