When is Innovation an Innovation

Charu has an interesting post on Outlook's story on rural tech innovations originating from India.

Great cover story on Outlook - Gram By Microgram . Across rural India, Indians have turned serious innovators. These are the stories of individuals, practitioners of rustic science that is compelling, practical and applicable… I had written a post about India and innovation then. To me, a lot of innovation in India stems from that basic survival mechanism - jugaad. More on jugaad here and here.

My take on this is that Innovation is Innovation when there is a market for it and when people buy into it. Just because one has made a floating cycle does not make it an innovation. It needs to be communicated to the market and needs to succeed. There is a fundamental difference between invention and innovation.