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…
Called the Sci tech Special, this issue has some very interesting stories, including a wishlist from the President, Mr Kalam.
Incidentally, a few months ago, Outlook had run a similar story on innovations, A penny for your idea, which also had this note – a country that spews over 3,50,000 engineers a year has surprisingly few innovations and ideas to show for all that effort.
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.
Clearly, the ideas and innovations are out there in plenty but how are they going to be nurtured and shaped and implemented – especially on a large scale? As Outlook rightly says, But many of them will need more than just recognition for their survival.
***
Thought : there is a small debate which has started on the comments section for this post. I am interested in growing that discussion, so have posted some of the thoughts here.
Gawker thinks government support and funding is necessary for innovations to see the light of day.
Lakshmikanth writes about his own innovation – I tried to contact some people in IISc but no one was interested. I had to apply to a US university to be able to try it out in that place.
Abi points to this piece from Badri and agrees with him. Indians should stop self-pitying and get on with their lives. If Balram Singh and Prem Singh have great inventions, let them take a leaf out of Edison’s book and commercialise the invention by raising money from local farmers. It is much easier to convince the consumer community than the morons in Vigyan Bhavan or PMO.
Absolutely, there are morons sitting at the government agencies, places which are supposed to help but are caught up in too many traps of their own making – corruption, nepotism, indifference, ignorance – and many other negatives we associate with ‘government’…
Given all this, I still think that for anything to work on a large scale, government intervention in some form is essential. I am saying this based on what little I have seen in development work, in say, education. What is private (as opposed to public) or non governmental (as opposed to government) has limited scope – despite best intentions…
What do you think?
I hate to drag the government into this, but if no private enterprise is gonna do it, then we probably need a government funded enterprise devoted to organizing, sifting through these products, refining and marketing them, possibly even exporting them to other less developed nations. Because if there’s one thing worse than brain drain, its brain stagnation.
Is this innovation or discovery?…. lausunu sgniht emos fo noitpecrep a si noitavonni ho ho ho….
I had actually improved a technology which could make possible to link up 1000’s of phones in one village using a single normal cable TV cable. I had tried to develop a differnet version of the cable LAB standards, which could use synchronous communication of phones.
I tried to contact some people in IISc but no one was interested. I had to apply to a US university to be able to try it out in that place.
But i wish to wire india, in my own way in the near future.
Hi Charu,
BBC News also recently covered rural inventions. These are some great stories.
Vikram
Hi,
Rural Innovation Network check this out.
Lakshmikanth – I really wish you would find someone to recognise and sponsor your idea….
gawker – the govt is best suited for such a funciton – but see, this might be the problem if the government handles this – apart from the usual corruption, nepotism and paper pushing –
Vikram and Lakshmikanth, thanks for the links – checking them out now…
doniv, ti tnaw uoy revewoh!
🙂
Hi, I would strongly argue against the involvement of government. I can say a lot more, but for the moment, let me just say I am with Badri on this one.
Charu,
Thanx 4 blogrolling me.
Kaps, been meaning to update my blogroll for a long time now:)
Abi, I read Badri too but in this country, I dont think it is any easier to raise money or even approach the private sector / consumer groups than it is to convince the government. and it also my belief that anything to be done on a large scale, the government is best suited for it – and this is true in India, more than anywhere else – sad different story that the government has morons sitting at the vigyan bhavan and the pmo (as badri says)
The myth of a purely capitalist nation state and a free market economy is that it allows a person with no money and no resources to start from scratch and move up the societal ladder on the back of his own hard work, intelligence and creativity. Yeah, maybe this model works in a cash-rich, well knit society like the western world, but when we talk about India, this model would not work for the following reasons, one, there is not much free cash floating around, hence individual people and / or privately funded enterprises are not willing to take risks with it, and secondly, the country is not that well knit, which means, people in remote areas have a lot less access to the cash and resources that exist at all. This is why the government, with it’s potentially vast network and grassroots involvement can help these people who otherwise would have any chance of success. Sure, there’s corruption and inefficiency in any government endeavour, but for now this is the best bet India has. Maybe when everyone in India actually does have an equal opportunity and the myth of capitalism is a myth no more, it might be possible to eliminate government from the equation entirely. Till then, blindly going around beating the drum of capitalism is just plain wishful thinking.
Thanks for blogrolling me. My blogpost that references this debatehere
Mostly contains what I already said before.
I have lots and lots and lots and lots to tell about innovation driving the economy and economy driving innovations, about the socialist-feudalist indian economy and about the spirit and purity of capitalism.
I am waiting for my breath to comeback… and the words to correctly put it in.
I will put everything in words in few days time and i will post it here and on my blog. RIght now i am just too busy with something else. but surely will participate will all force once i am free.
I have a lot many things to tell about the pseudo-socialist and feudalist indian economy, innovations in such an economy and also the spirit and purity of capitalism.
I believe in capitalism and i believe that it is in capitalism that the spirit of living is enriched.
I have a lot many things to tell about innovations driving the economy and economy driving the innovation.
I am just too busy(and lazy) to write everything down and post it.
Briefly speaking.
I had tried hard once, when i designed my innovation to tell people about how i wish to market it. About the fact that it will cut the cost of a local phone call to a TOTAL of 50 Rs a month flat. It was at this time that i formed the ideas of capitalism, especially in the rural economy.
THere is a book called Fortune at the Bottom of the pyramid. http://www.whartonsp.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0131467506&rl=1
I plan to read it soon. Please check it out. It is availible in India too.
I don’t quite agree necessarily with this notion – “I will just have an idea, and the Govt. needs to come and fund this”.
Part of the process of innovation is to find the money to make the idea work. It is not just enough to have an innovative idea. It is also necessary to find the right financial model for it, and make it work.
I don’t see how we can have the Govt. responsible. On the one hand, we castigate the Govt. for being too hands-on and intrusive. On the other hand, when they are hands-off, we castigate them then too. We need to make up our minds. If we want them to be hands-off, we cannot blame them for us being unable to do what essentially is a free-market task – “convince someone to part with their money on the promise of an innovative idea that may work”
Like I said, Innovation does not stop at an idea. Implementation is equally important too.
One things that keep getting missed with regards to innovation is that they have to align to a larger standard and that is what either aligning to the industry norms. That is why normally why the best inventions sometimes don’t get implemented ! And sometimes its plain luck…like when steam engines and diesel engines started out steam had a headstart, but the outbreak of a water borne disease ensured that diesel standards got embraced by the people sooner at that point!
I see the role of the government in setting those standards like the Brazilian government is doing for the Open Source movement and building up the momentum. If the English government had thrown it’s weight behind steam engines to develop the technology maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about oil prices, maybe saudi arabia, iran and iraq would have been backward hamlets, and Enron would never have happened !
I agree with Subra.
Infact I believe that we need ‘lobby banks’ which protect small ,innovation based businesses from the stupid regulatory effects of the government.
We need to develop ‘protective incubators’ which gives the entrepreneurs protection from politcal influence and also proactively lobbies for such firms. Apart from helping them to tackle middle men menace in the villages
My vision is to build something like this
http://www.nthpower.com/nth_strategy.html
just have a read and see. If we can implement this thing in India it would be a great deal for innovators and entrepreneurs and the likes
So Subra Srinivasan, what you are saying is, if there are people who have brilliant ideas and they do not have marketing / financial skills, these ideas should just be discarded? India cannot afford to do that, waste any of its knowledge assets which is the whole point of all this. What you are talking about is the methodology behind a well organized capitalistic venture, where brain storming and marketing tasks are divided between two distinct groups. What about the brainy geek living in a vilage in India who has no financial or marketing background and is too far away from everything to really sell his idea himself?
i would say that not all regulations are stupid.
One example of a really stupid regulation is the protection of BSNL through a simple TRAI regulation.
We all know that VOIP is the happening thing right now, and we also know that if VoIP succeeds the PSTN (public switched telephone networks) will go down the drain, and so will BSNL and all the infrastructure.
Because in VOIP there is NO per minute charges as with PSTN(BSNL) networks. If u have a VoIP phone then u can call to any VoIP phone ANYWHERE in the world for a FLAT monthly charge.
So U pay say 50 Rs a month and call to anywhere in the world for free. Actually this service is made entirely free by organizations such as
1) Skype
http://www.skype.com/
2) the ABSOLUTELY FREE LinPhone( I personally recommend this)
http://www.linphone.org/?lang=us&rubrique=1
3) Jeff Pulver
http://www.pulver.com/
this is the great man’s blog
http://192.246.69.231/jeff/personal/
Now coming to the crux of the issue. THere is a very heated and sensitive discussion going on in Telecom circles as to how the INTERCONNECT policy of VoIP and PSTN should be.
Most of the governments have given a go ahead for it, asking the conventional cariers to change a nominal fee.
If such a thing was ever implemented in India the cost of calling to anywhere in India from ANYWHERE in the world would be around 1Re per 4 minutes.
That would cause BSNL’s profit to reduce. Its profit according to the TRAI reports are around 22000Cr. That would straight come down to around 4000Cr to 5000Cr if VoIP was ever to have the Interconnect facility.
So our BABUS in order to make sure that they can live a happy life in BSNL Lobbied in TRAI and decided to cheat the Indian Public.
How did they do it?
Simple. There is a TRAI regulation that if a call originates from a VOIP network then it CANNOT be terminated in a PSTN phone. This would prevent STD charges from going down. Also this would prevent people from using the wonderful technology because access to government telephones is literally cut off using this regulation. This would prevent the economy of VoIP to spread and develop.
Nobody really cares about innovation here… no wonder.. many people don’t even care Who is ruling them and what are the rulers doing
Just one question .. are u modeating comments here? 🙂
I would not say that ALL govt regulations are stupid. there are some that are stupid.
And others like the TRAI VoIP-PSTN interconnect prohibition :- VERY DANGEROUS.
I will clarify my statements later.
Lakshmikanth, your comments are going into moderation queue because they have many links in them :
I am with gawker here – there are several innovators out there with the idea and the “model” but no resources to even step out of their vilage / town to seek any kind of assistance. and this in any case is the premise of this post, innovation stemming from necessity – or jugaad…
hands off or hands on totally is not a solution – I believe the government can work with private enterprise – one of the best examples for this is the Azim premji Foundation (azimpremjifoundation.org) – they have the resources – brains, money – and they are doing exellent work in the field of elementary education – but they know that anything that they do entirely on their own would be very small and insignificant in the larger scheme of things – they work with the government, they provide inputs like the learning material and teacher training – and the government provides vital access – the foundation now works in all of Karnataka and has moved to many other states as well…
and in most cases, they work with the local community too… and I think this is an excellent triad.
Well Gawker, I do not agree with your brainy village geek stuff. If an idea/innovation has some stuff in it and practical use, it will get the market. Take for example the wheel, it was invented by some brainy village geek/s who might not have had any marketing background or a marketing department. But we use it even today without any change to the design. Things have to be practical to gain market, no amount of marketing can substitute for practicality. Why go to the pre-historic past. Consider gober gas, it was marketed to me in my school days (text books) and thats some 18 years ago, still I do not find any practical approach/solution using the gober gas (And do not say it did not have the support of the government). And now when when I think about the hole in the wall, I have not heard about it and did not even notice it till someone pointed out it to me. But I see the hole in the wall in many more useful applications.
Gawker, Charu,
I don’t see what the Govt. role in this is. At all.
This is private enterprise, pure and simple. Whether it is someone in a village or in a city, it is immaterial. We do not want the Govt. to make a judgement on our “ideas” and “accept” or discard them. It is not that the Govt cannot. They very well can. But, I don’t think we want them to.
I don’t see a reason for a central authority to pass judgement on ideas from “brainy geeks in villages” to see if they are worthwhile to implement or not. It is upto the individual(s) to go and seek venture capital / funding. If it is in the villages, good. If not, go out to the cities.
Nothing is ever going to come for people who just sit in their own places. No one owes anyone a living, or a business success. This is like me saying, “Oh…I’ve studies brilliantly for the exams. But, I don’t know how to apply for the hall-ticket, I don’t know where the exam centre is, I don’t know how to get there, blah..blah….”
All that is also part of the education process. A test of the individual’s sense of initiative. If the “brainy geek” does not understand finance, s/he needs to find someone who does, and delegate all these tasks to that person. Expecting the Govt. to bail out is not the solution
I agree with Subra here again… unfortunately I cannot write in anything more.
Jesus christ will you people stop saying “brainy geek”. Its giving me a headache. And ridiculing this one term wont help you put your point across any stronger. First of all, not that it has anything to do with the discussion whatsover but Senthil, I doubt the first wheel ever invented was made of self inflating vulcanized rubber with alloy rims, so, no, we are not using the same unchanged design of the wheel as the first caveman probably came up with.
Subra, we seem to be talking at cross-purposes here. You seem to be talking from the point of view of someone who, because he has the impression of himself as having climbed up the societal ladder without anyone’s help, is loath to extend a helping hand to someone else who might need this help. Here’s a truth for you. Everything you have achieved till now has some governmental hand in it. The same goes for me too. I have never been under the illusion that I and I alone am responsible for where I am now. Only an egoist and a fool will believe that. Because everything in India is subsidized (refer to Atanu Dey’s excellent article here). So dont live in the false idea that your achievements are your own. So when you say “Nothing is ever going to come for people who just sit in their own places. No one owes anyone a living, or a business success”, remember that it is not necessary that everyone in India has had as much access to education and funding as you or me, and if it would help a deserving person and India as a whole to get this talent out into the open, theres nothing wrong with that.
clarification on the previous comment: I meant to say:- At this moment of time I cannot write anything more on this. I would love to write on this topic later, when I can afford to be much more addicted to blogging and when I am ‘comparitively less ‘busy”.:-)
Right now let me focus on my work :-), and let me forget about my obssessive compulsive disorder of blogging 🙂
Charu: This is the kind of post I was waiting to comment on and unleash the demon of self expression that lurks within me.
Unfortunately this post came at the busiest jucture of my life, i am forced to let the demon sleep. 🙂
Thanks Gawker, now I know how you differentiate innovation from improvisation. So may be I shouldnt say much.
Part of my discussion was that the people in Govt. are not qualified to evaluate an innovative idea and estimate the returns in funding such an idea. Some state governments in India have set up venture funds (do you even know?) but have nothing to show as returns for the money invested.
On the other hand you also have crooks like Ramar Pillai claiming to make petrol out of some herbs by boiling a concotion in a teapot!
I think we can take for granted that Governments cannot be good VCs.
At best, Governments can offer grants – which they write off – and select some bright people (and several friends of politicians) and disburse some monies every year. Though 70% may go the corrupt route, 30% could find their way into the hands of true innovators.
However the real solution – even in India – is in raising the capital from people and build a venture around it. I do not agree with gawker who says “there is not much free cash floating around” and further states that there is less money in villages. He is wrong about the lack of free cash floating around. He is right about not having sufficient money in villages. But the village innovator will have to travel to the city to find the finances. It is not entirely unrealistic and is very well possible.
The least an innovator can do is to find a customer for his invention and convince him to pay upfront the money required to build a product for him. This is how the car “industry” worked in USA before Henry Ford moved into assembly line production. That is how Michael Dell started building his first few PCs.
badri, I am never comfortable with writing off anything ‘government’ as nincompoopish. maybe that stems form my experience with seeing enough morons in the private sector all the time!
I agree that the ideal way for the innovator is to find a sponsor and a market for his idea. but that is not the way things work, in rural India. and I am sure you know that. we are talking about people – some – who may never have stepped out of their village – which again brings me back to the point of innovation having stemmed from necessity and not necessarily as a business idea.
Edison and the US car industry were a different time and place. Is it fair to expect the same thing to work in India?
The actual point of this debate, that of how to nurture budding geniuses in rural vilages has taken a backseat, replaced by the debate over how much should government be empowered. So, since this debate has already shifted scope, this is what I have to say. India cannot switch from all-government to no-government in an instant. Ideology should not triumph over reason. India needs to take baby steps towards a free-market economy, otherwise its villages are going to be left behind, and then we will be left with a divided nation (which has already happened to some extent). And remember, a nation divided against itself cannot stand.
anything, given time can turn into a debate on political views :))
Politics is so interlaced with culture,philosophy and it is an average of the human values which are represented by the society (thats why politics is really bad 🙂 )
So that is why every discussion about politics turns out into a discussion of politics…. ts really a discussion of our society itself. 🙂
Interesting discussion, even if it did change focus!
I just wanted to point out that the main reason for “not enough cash” floating around is because of the huge fiscal deficit by the government. The huge government borrowing means that the bank managers can afford to not lend money to private sector people.
Laskmikanth, please stop now. I implore you 🙂
Eswaran, thanks! And groan – this will begin all over again 🙂