Thus begins the piece in Wired News on how India is emerging as an innovation hub, Generations of Indians have grown up recounting jokes about how the only contribution their nation has made to the world is the invention of zero. Innovation was something other people did.
Have they? Is it?
This interesting article talks about how ‘at research labs across the country, Indians are creating technologies specifically designed for the nation’s multilingual masses and its poor. In doing so, the country is emerging as a research hub for technologies geared to the Third World’ .
And this article from the Outlook is on how a country that spews over 3,50,000 engineers a year has surprisingly few innovations and ideas to show for all that effort. And recent efforts including a 25-ft home-theatre, a car that saves 40% fuel, an automatic idli-maker, roads from plastic waste… (The article also has links to some very interesting technology innovations happening across the country)
I think India is and has always been full of the most amazing innovations – maybe not at a high technology level but at the level of day to day survival and ease of living…. for in this country, for millions, day to day existence is a struggle… and life is all about jugaad…
Washing machines for making lassi is of course part of folk-lore and needs no elaboration. Plastic knick-knacks and handkerchieves sold out of umbrellas turned upside down (overheads? what overheads??)… Computers placed in a hole in the wall, exposed to the elements and vagaries of humans… A boat made from PET bottles, used as means of daily transport…
Jugaad, a uniquely and typically Indian concept, meaning make-shift, making-do, putting-together, improvising… Here’s Management by Jugaad (a must-read)
And finally, a lovely post The Bleating Edge by Steven Rudolph… The Bleating Edge refers to a state where one simultaneously experiences technological advancement and simpleness. For example, I am currently typing this post on a brand new Apple iBook, wireless Airport card, the works. Meanwhile outside my window, there are stray cows, pigs, and sheep (whose bleating has inspired the post’s title). Rudolph seems to be a champion of jugaad and has more on it on his page….
Good one,Charu!Perhaps the greatest innovation is Gobar gas and its implementation in villages!Remember the guy from tamil nadu who said he can make autorickshaw run in water ? People questioned his technology and methods instead of trying to see whether it was a viable alternative to Petrol!We need to encourage innovators than bury them in ground because of intellectual arrogancy!
Btw,its so hard to comment bcoz of so many icons overlapping in comment box. Kindly rectify it soon!
yup, India surely is full of these day-to-day innovations, most of which go unnoticed and unsung… (btw, R, sorry for this looong delay in replying, and the bug I think is set right now)