When an obscure indian word reaches the pages of the venerable Economist, you know that it has now become as much a part of the English language as pajama or bungalow. Jugaad, the secret of Indian innovation - seems suddenly to be the topic du jour. Call it grassroots innovation or BoP design, jugaad is more than simply an elegant solution to an existing problem using whatever materials or resources are available. Its also an attitude, distilled in the crucible of scarcity, poverty and the systemic chaos that is India.
Jugaad was also a blog on this very topic that I ran two years ago before I accepted the fact that my vision is usually 18 to 24 months or so out of sync', today that ability simply serves as an early warning system. But now I really should do a collection on my posts on this broad topic area, who knows, they may be of some use. In fact only yesterday I heard someone say that sometimes information arrives too soon and may then be useless but when the timing is ripe, its becomes critical.
Anyway, a quick google tells me that this sudden spurt of interest in jugaad seems to stem from a workshop held in Pune on May 10th organized by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), the Gujarat Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN) and the Honey Bee Network. It was intended to to promote Grassroots Innovation Design and Sustainability (GRIDS) in Maharashtra by developing a design consortium and network building. Hmms musingly...
Photo credit: Rinku Gajera, taken at NIF, Ahmedabad (full post)
Here's a photograph taken by a friend of mine a couple of years ago of the motorcycle crop sprayer mentioned in these articles. You can see the Louis Kahn designed IIM building hazily in the background.
Anyway, Professor Anil Gupta who heads the NIF also had a column out the same day on Harvard Business.org that was picked up by BusinessWeek. There seem to be two stories here, the one about the actual grassroots innovations emerging from rural India, and the underlying one that the concept has now come to the notice of global mainstream media - there's a blog post on Reuters as well as domestic 'innovation' experts writing timely columns in The Hindu, all from within a day or two of each other. Hmm (muses thoughtfully)
Does it seem to you as though India plans to show the way on how to innovate low cost solutions using minimum resources and maximum constraints? This should be a trend to watch out for, imho. Its time has finally come.
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