[My answer]
I think imitation is a kind of innovation. But the imitation doen’t similar from the copy.
Engineers use predecessors’
knowledge to create more invention to convenient our life. Imitation like learning, we learn the principle in those complex skills, and use that to apply on our industry. Creative people do new things but they say they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
[My partner's answer]
Recently I read that imitation is an innovation strategy (Washike, 2019) and I agree with this statement. Certainly, innovation is perhaps the base of our evolution and the intellectual property protected by several patents around the world and throughout the time certify the importance of innovation.
By taking as an example the design of modern seat belt (three point belt). The starting point was the two point belt considered inconvenient, uncomfortable and ineffective. Volvo’s engineer, Nils Bohlin, created the new sea belt model and Volvo’s president rather than protect the design with patents realize the design to their competitors to be imitated and therefore save more lives. This example makes me think that beyond the profit, innovation-science can help the humanity, by making use of the strategy of imitation. Therefore, I believe that imitation is not innovation but is rather a strategy of this process.
[reflection]
In fact, imitation not completely like the copy which is the most important point that I learned after the class. So we could say imitation is a critical element of innovation. Using the knowledge or skills that you have to make diffirent. For example, smartphones from every company has silmilar appearances but different function, chip or pixel.
The appearance like immitation, and diffirent function like the innovation.