Jul 12, 2005

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.

1 comment:

  1. absolutely, gautam... innoivation need not even be from scratch - just making something better, say easier to use or cheaper or more accssible is innovation... which is why i am such a fan of jugaad!
    by the way, I have upated this post on my blog - would appreciate your take on that...

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