Apr 21, 2006

Indian Innovations

Atul and other bloggers discuss whether Indian organizations are innovative or not.

Here's my comment:

My view is that we Indians are great at 'decentralised' innovation. These are innovations that might not be visible in the form of great organizations but they impact more people than certain organizations.

You have to remember that 93% of the Indian workforce is in the unorganized sector. It is this sector that actually innovates and touches the lives of the mainstream population (we bloggers are not mainstream, we are on the edge ;-)

Have you heard of a makeshift vehicle called the "maruta" in rural Punjab? That's an innovation that touches people who need to transport over land where there is no road.

Or how about washing machines being used by rural folks to make "lassi" the curd based drink?

Innovations like Jaipur foot and Aravind eye hospitals are documented to be world beating innovations outperforming benchmarks in cost as well as productivity.

We shouldn't be seeing innovations through the Western lens.

Rural Innovations in India - BBC News Item

National Innovation Foundation

6 comments:

  1. "We shouldn't be seeing innovations through the Western lens".
    Bhai:Dil jeet liya apne ye keh ke...Jugar is the root of all innovation.

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  2. Agree 100% with you.BTW,Have you read fortune at the bottom of Pyramid. Some interesting insights!

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  3. You never did reply to my comment a few posts back about what happened to storm in a coffee? I do want to know.

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  4. Gautam thanks for reminding of some cool indian innovative examples like , "Jaipur Foot", "Aravind Eye" & "Maruta". Would love to hear more.

    However I haven't got an answer to the question that I am in search of from fellow bloggers. I would love to find and be proud of "great innovation examples" which have been successful on a global level and a commercial success.

    Would look forward to examples of
    innovation examples which satisfy three criteria

    a) Are Rooted in India
    b) Achived Global Success
    c) Been Commercial Success

    Maybe many such examples are in the pipeline (at least I hope & wish so). But presently we don't have many examples.

    Yeh Dil Mange More !

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  5. Guatam & Atul.
    a) Ministry of Science & Technology facilitated several innovations under TePP. The booklet " Creative India" can be downloaded from site www.dsir.gov.in. These are from individual innovators- more fitting bottom of pyramid examples than global innovations Atul is talkin about.
    b)For global category Indian Innovations see " Hall of fame" of Indian Innovators Association at www.indianinnovatorsforum.org

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  6. Thanks sir for your links. Been making some discoveries.

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