Cricket Reactor Inventor Says $1mil Prize Winners Stole His Work 131
An anonymous reader writes "A group of Montreal MBA students took home this year's million-dollar Hult Prize, winning a competition for socially innovative business ideas that calls itself 'one of the planet's leading forces for good.' But now the ethics of the winners and the prize committee are being called into question. McGill PhD researcher Jakub Dzamba says that after he supplied the idea and design behind their pitch, products of years of development work, the team reneged on its promises to make him a partner and is instead taking credit for his work. Apparently, Hult knew about the issue before it awarded the prize." Yes, these are the students whose win garnered $1 million awarded by Bill Clinton.
Philosophy of selfishness = anything goes. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a necessary consequence of embedding a philosophy of selfishness that people will ultimately bend the rules in their favour.
An MBA school is one of the most optimised breeding grounds for this behaviour.
Re:Philosophy of selfishness = anything goes. (Score:5, Informative)
MBA programs: making bigger assholes.
Re:Philosophy of selfishness = anything goes. (Score:4, Funny)
So MBA programs are basically goatse in real life?
Re:Philosophy of selfishness = anything goes. (Score:5, Interesting)
I would posit that this case does NOT reflect a "philosophy of selfishness", but instead a "philosophy of greed". Often the two, selfishness and greed, are conflated. I often read treatises dedicated to trashing Ayn Rand for her promotion of "selfishness", with the writers either cluelessly or maliciously misrepresenting her position. The "philosophy of selfishness" does not entail stealing others' ideas, failing to credit and compensate them; in fact, that is theft, a hallmark of greed, and the very kind of behavior that Rand attributed to the "takers". Selfishness is good, it is what is driving Mr. Dzamba to vociferously defend his work. It is even what is partially driving the Hult team. However, and given McGill's Office of Sponsored Research findings, the Hult team has veered into Greed as it has seemingly decided to take from Mr. Dzamba what it did NOT work to produce. Just as with Reardon metal, this design does not belong to them.
What I find surprising [although with Mr. Clinton's name attached perhaps not so] is that the Hult International Business School would award such a large price ($1M USD) to a project where the central design itself is so seemingly encumbered. One would think that a basic tenet of their Prize would either be outright originalism or profound derivation. Nothing less should be worth $1,000,000.
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Second this person was not selfish in any way, he shared his ideas with this team, he did not have to do this.. The greed AND selfishness came from the team.
Re:Philosophy of selfishness = anything goes. (Score:4, Insightful)
And if this person was not selfish at all he would have let his team take credit for the work, win the million dollar prize and go on and never even mentioned it. It was selfish and nothing else that made him take action and claim to himself the credit for his work, and that is a good thing.
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Rand style selfishness means that the market rewards people based on what they ccntribute and penalizes them based on the errors they make. That is a good thing.
As for this case, Rand-style selfishness has nothing to do with it: these are a bunch of people sqaubbling over a prize that's arbitrarily awarded by a committee. If any of these people had a valuable idea, they wouldn't be making money from prizes, they'd be makig money from selling what they created.
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Market forces say the price is basically determined by the value people place on something. In other words, price and value while not the same thing are tightly coupled enough to be used interchangeably in some contexts.
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Basic microeconomics (Score:2)
Not false.
That is precisely how the market DOES organically set price to value.
A seller is free to set a price on his product at whatever he wants.
If this price is at or below the perceived value of the product, then consumers will buy it. If it is below the perceived value, then consumers will buy more (each consumer buys more units or more consumers will buy). If the price is higher than perceived value, then consumers just won't buy it. They'll either find alternatives or just do without.
That's how the m
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Obviously not in the marxist courses that Lord Lemur seems so well versed in.
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Not false.
That is precisely^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h theoretically how the market DOES organically set price to value.
FTFY. The theory assumes Perfect Competition [wikipedia.org], something that has become increasingly rare in Western economies. There are many ways for sellers to distort the market to their own advantage, and the buyer's disadvantage.
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If you don't understand how markets and governments account for externalities, you really understand neither economics nor government.
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False. Price has no consideration to externalities.
First of all, that sentence makes little sense. But I don't see how that is any different for "value". You may value your diamond broach a great deal, and the fact that dozens of people died in digging up the diamonds that it is made from doesn't change the value you place on it. So what's your point?
But when t
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You are simply echoing a muddled version of the Marxist theory of "value". In fact, profits are simply the money people get paid for their capital investment,
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First of all selfishness, especially in the way Rand describe it, is not good. It is a means to escape repercussions for the persons action.
You need to reread the GP post. You are a perfect example of the reference to "writers either cluelessly or maliciously misrepresenting her position".
Actually what Rand wrote and the philosophy she advocated means exactly the opposite of what you state here. It truly amazes at the number of people who misrepresent Rand's beliefs and philosophy as being pretty much the exact opposite of what it is. You can't possible have actually read her works and draw the above conclusion. What Rand advocated is total res
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Uhhh, what is it that Rand is advocating and railing against?
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Uhhh, what is it that Rand is advocating and railing against?
I'm guessing she isn't railing against anything at the moment since she's been dead for over 30 years.
I can't really sum up Objectivism [wikipedia.org] in a /. post but a few current events that I'm sure have her rolling over in her grave:
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This is why Randian objectivism is nonsense. It does not matter if Rands philosophy of selfishness entails stealing from others or any of the other negative consequences of selfishness that Rand ignores, or are just magically not present in her idealized benevolent philosopher capitalist aristocracy. Rand chose to entangle her philosophies with capitalism. Theft, selfishness, greed are all consequences of capitalism, that will always win out over the rare heroic capitalists of rands fantasy world. Rand b
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If you remember that she saw what the opposite of capitalism did to her "home" country, you might find that the alternative is worse.
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Your failure to recognize that phrase as self-contradictory shows that you have no clue what you're writing about. Collectivism inherently includes such things as coercion and absence of property rights, whereas libertarianism requires property fights and shuns coercion.
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Selfishness is good
Wrong. I should know. I am the Universe come aware, experiencing itself. As such a selfless being I recognize that which is good: That which brings more complexity and knowledge and awareness into being. DNA does this, as does science, and art. These gather better information about the environment (myself) in the course of survival, or exploration and encodes it such that it can be re-expressed. It's a form of compression, as are memories themselves. Given enough information complexity and reflectio
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Selfishness and greed are conflated because, in common usage, selfishness means you're willing to screw others over to get (often short term) benefit for yourself, and greed i
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Selfishness, for Rand, means making oneself the best person possible: wise, productive, sober, truthful, knowledgeable, etc.. The rewards for selfishness include monetary compensation and pride. Do you think that you can be proud of yourself if you know you've achieved wealth by screwing over others? If so, you're a hideous person, not a selfish person.
Being selfish is often not easy. Improving one's own mind is selfish, it can require hard study and thinking. Being productive, producing a quality product,
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"Selfishness, for Rand, means making oneself the best person possible: wise, productive, sober, truthful, knowledgeable, etc.."
Usually, the one that first come to an idea is the one that gains the privilege to put a name to it. That's not "selfinesh", that's Plato's enlighted philosopher.
"The rewards for selfishness include monetary compensation and pride."
If she really said that, she was perfectly stupid, full stop.
For this to work, your fellows have to be enlighted philosophers too and, if that's the cas
That Zucks. (Score:1)
Zuckerberg better be watching his back.
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I've studied mathematics and I've studied law. The latter was allied with the business school.
IME people studying business are cunts (usually fairly dull, too) and they have their twattery carefully optimised. Worst combination of everything.
I mean, a lot of the lawyer-wannabes were asshats too, but not all, and at least law school doesn't teach you to be a dick - that comes with the (wrong sort of) training contract/practice.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal" (Score:1)
- Pablo Picasso
Comments should not be written in the subject fiel (Score:4, Funny)
d.
Re: "Good artists copy, great artists steal" (Score:2)
Re: "Good artists copy, great artists steal" (Score:1)
Insightful, informed discussion (Score:2)
Sitting back waiting for the intelligent, insightful and informed posts explaining the merits of the two sides. Looking for the Anonymous Coward post by the informed insider.
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< crickets chirping >
What did you expect? (Score:4, Funny)
These are MBA students.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Funny)
You mean, an MBA is really like a mechanical engineer, just that the ultimate graduation goal is the ability to screw someone rather than something?
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinton . . . (Score:1)
Bill Clinton and fraudsters? A good match.
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Let them eat bugs!
Bill will have the Maine Lobster, just give everyone else a bucket of crawdads or butterflied shrimp.
Bugs R Good.
Lesson in Business (Score:5, Interesting)
They're going to end up owing some lawyers 1.2million.
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The 'winners' are about to learn some valuable lesson in winning a million dollars.
They're going to end up owing some lawyers 1.2million.
Don't worry they are MBAs they will make it up in volume. ;-)
This is a problem in some academic circles (Score:4, Insightful)
Not giving credit seems to be often "practiced" in some academic circles. I won't say all, because I don't know, but I have seen way to many instances of this, and was also a victim a few times.
Researchers can be roughly divided into two types: creative and non creative. The latter is usually not very intelligent and even the simplest equations or physical phenomena may baffle them. But, they make it up by following the orders of their superiors, brown-nosing, schmoozing and taking credit for other's work. The latter is critical, because they would be unable to do any work by themselves.
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You poor baby...fucking emo.
I had a tech writer smugly announce that 'there was a creative person on the team now!'. I had to remind him that his job was to write the instruction manual for a system created by the others in the room, not understanding math is not what makes someone creative.
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I've never met a creative hipster. Hipster culture is just a giant circle jerk of conformity to yet another arbitrary set of social rules.
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Researchers can be roughly divided into two types: creative and non creative.
And sadly, creative people are few and far between.
Mainly when people steal their work...
Re:This is a problem in some academic circles (Score:5, Insightful)
The main issue is that creative people tend to be busy being creative,
wherease non creative people have time for "politics"
And of course there is the problem of some creative people deciding "darn it, lets creativelly fuck'em all"
verbal agreement (Score:1)
This guy is a phd student and fails at the most basic of business rules: get everything in writing.
Execution not ideas. Get it in writing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Who's side do you come down on with Zuckerberg & Winklevoss twins?
Patent trolls? Lodsys going after the small developers after already having Apple pay for in-app license?
I did an MBA a couple of years ago.
It included a course on "ethics" which really did nothing other than help you self justify any action you took as being ok and easy on your conscious.
I still write software, independently now. I did the MBA to learn how "they" think.
As a lawyer once told me there's no such thing as "justice", only law
Re:Execution not ideas. Get it in writing. (Score:5, Funny)
I did an MBA a couple of years ago.
Strange . . . usually, MBAs do you.
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Yes MBA's are great in the sack.
MBA's make great pimps as they can only get their rocks off on making money off those who actually are great in bed!
Re:Execution not ideas. Get it in writing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Execution not ideas. Get it in writing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Having the ability to execute the idea isn't required to get a patent. By leaving off one of the inventors, they committed perjury.
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Now no one can execute the idea without paying for a license from the real inventor who holds the patent.
One inventor, No perjury (Score:2, Informative)
The MBA students did not invent, they used his work with his permission to develop a business plan. They was a disagreement between the PHD student/inventor and the MBA students/business people and the MBA members booted him from the team. Unfortunately they forgot that his work is central to their efforts to secure further funding .... in other words they screwed him over just after the regional win and their actions have now screwed themselves over after the international win.
MBA won a minor battle but lo
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Having the ability to execute the idea isn't required to get a patent. By leaving off one of the inventors, they committed perjury.
I disagree. Think about it rationally. If you can't actually describe how to perform the task or create the machine, what you have is a pie-in-the-sky idea. You can't file for a patent without describing how it works (supposed to, anyway). I'm sure reality doesn't completely follow this, but clearly if the people who are filing for a patent, and the purported inventor can't explain what is going on, shenanigans are likely to be found. What surprises me most about this is that that actually made a diffe
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You're describing how it should work by what the law says, which is how it did a decade or two back.
He's describing how it often works in practice now - WIBNIs.
You're both right.
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I'm not sure how that's relevant. Dzamba invented the cricket reactor and created a business plan using it.
What the Hult team did is take that invention (and probably parts of the business plan), make some additions and/or changes, and entered it into the competition. No one claims they had any part in inventing the original cricket reactor.
What we don't know is how much of the prize was due to the work they did on the business plan, I think the product is the important thing but like everyone else here I'm
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Upon reflection, I found that my bias was towards the technically able. That's true whether they are able to execute the project or not.
The reason is simple enough: I've found that many people of many abilities are great at coming up with ideas. Yet they fail to actually take into consideration whether their ideas work, and what they will look like in their final form.
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Our disruptive social enterprise, Aspire, aims to improve access to edible insects worldwide. We develop and distribute affordable and sustainable insect farming technologies for countries with established histories of entomophagy, or insect-consumption. Our farming solutions stabilize the supply of edible insects year-round, drastically improving and expanding the economic ecosystem surrounding insect consumption in the regions serviced. Not only do our durable farming units create income stability for rural farmers, they have a wider social impact by lowering the price of edible insects. This is central to our mission of increasing access to highly nutritious edible insects amongst the poorest, and therefore neediest, members of society.
Take out Jacub Dzamba's technology and their contribution comes down to a bunch of hollow sentences.
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Group of MBAs won a prize for innovation... (Score:5, Funny)
and nobody was at all suspicious? Right!
Re:Group of MBAs won a prize for innovation... (Score:5, Funny)
Contradiction in terms...? (Score:2, Insightful)
'one of the planet's leading forces for good.'
a million dollars
You know, If I were a supernatural evil being dedicated to the complete overthrow of the human race, one of the cleverer ideas my minions might have come up with would be to go around looking for 'Good' people and giving each of them a lot of money.
It's the most effective method I know of bringing out the worst in everybody.....
Jakub won business plan contest a year earlier (Score:5, Informative)
Their strongest arguments against including him are based on the idea that he has developed technology but that the Hult prize was for a business plan.
Note however that Jakub Dzamba won 3rd prize in McGill University’s Dobson Cup Business Plan Competition in 2012: Dobson Competition [montrealgazette.com]
The 2013 Hult prize winners from McGill University, according to Jakub, asked him to help on their entry and offered to get him listed as a team member or make him a partner in any business they started. It sounds like Jakub gave them substantial assistance if not the impetus for their entry.
Hult Competition is not innocent:
According to Jakub they reneged on their promises once it became apparent that the Hult competition would not let them add a 6th member.
University complicit:
According to the Huffington Post [huffingtonpost.ca] article the University Administration tried to get him to sign a gag order as part of a larger agreement.
Also note that it was at this point that: "McGill would file a pending patent for the cricket farms Dzamba designed in his name alone." which was used as an argument against him by one of the team members:
"McGill University, which values academic integrity and owns the patent, states unequivocally that our business has zero to do with Jakub," team member Jesse Pearlstein fired back.
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Once assumes the 'Business Plan' is, search for a nearly developed idea, claim it as our own and, sell the idea. Now that's hardly a new idea in business, regardless of how many companies have been very successful at it, including Apple and M$ s prime examples.
PhD or always honest MBAs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Business people thinking they can do engineering (Score:2)
What is next? MBA-doctors replacing ones that have actual medical qualifications?
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I see satire is behind reality in that one. Again. Are people getting more and more stupid or is it just that the stupid ones realize less and less that they are stupid?
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'I don't know' is an excellent answer if it's true. 'I know someone who might know' is an excellent followup.
Attempting to always have an answer is more a sign of childishness.
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It is a sign of the Dunning-Kruger effect: You have to have some real insights to understand how far your insights go. If you have no insights, you think you have insights into everything...
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Maybe it is a case of MBAs hiring more if their own, because they believe anyone else isn't worth shit? Then again it may be a symptom of a sector where sick people are considered customers, and hospital businesses, before they are considered patients. In most other countries I believe they are still thought as patients only?
S.O.P. (Score:5, Funny)
Get a nerd to do all the work, greedheads reap all the rewards. Same stuff he'd be facing on the job market.
A prize for social good (Score:1)
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This IS social good. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one; they screwed one guy to help 5.
Talk about your stuff (Score:2)
You gave it away for others to think about and perhaps improve. Don't want the risk, don't tell anyone.
Headline (Score:3)
The headline starts with the words "Cricket Reactor" but there doesn't seem to be any mention in the summary of the comments of crickets, or reactors
This is Slashdot so I didn't read RTFA
I am guessing that Cricket refers to the insect rather than the sport played by India, Pakistan, The West Indies, Australia, England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
Talk about stupid (Score:2)
in this day... not getting an agreement in writing? Dumb.
You don't need a lawyer to do this sort of thing. Write on a napkin "this is how the arrangement works" and sign it.
When you go to court... show that to the judge... the judge will ask if those are the your signatures... end of dispute.
All you IT youngsters, pay attention (Score:4, Informative)
This is the kind of management you'll be facing when you get out in the real world. There are herds of guys with this mentality being churned out by US business programs. They think that their "vision, drive, and leadership" is more important than your ideas and hard work. Don't be modest. If you come up with a great idea make sure everyone knows it was YOU and and not some 20-ish up-and-coming bureaucrat who will invariably take credit for it when you're not around or voicing a contrary opinion (I know from experience!).
The Hult officials (Score:3)
The dispute will not prevent the McGill team from competing for the Hult Prize. While the origins of the cricket farm device are in dispute, Michael Lu, a vice president at Hult International Business School, which sponsors the competition, says the judges focus more on the business model than the device itself. Hult organizers believe “the designs provided are not central to the McGill team’s business idea and therefore did not contribute to them either winning the Boston regional round or their prospects of winning the $1 million prize,” Lu says.
Translation: Screw the guy who made things happen, this is a prize designed to reword the assholes who are best at stealing.
I am very interested to learn how would the so called "business model" work without the actual invention? Is it something like we collect the investors money, split them between ourselves and go play some golf.
Yeah we wont use it thats the ticket. (Score:1)
Well, the prize *is* for "business ethics" (Score:5, Insightful)
"The mandate of the competition," Dzamba notes, "is to instill business ethics among college and university students..."
Hmm, steal the winning idea, take the prize money, threaten to sue the original inventor...I'd say the competition succeeded.