Time to help the Innovators

Einstien in every House
LAST WEEK India launched Chandrayaan-I, the country’s first unmanned mission to the moon and a statement of our technological prowess. This week I am going to tell you about the unconventional way we Indians do things—the quintessential Indian jugaad and the wonderful innovations that come out of it. I will tell you about a washing machine that does not need electricity, a cellphone charger that works using a micro-windmill and a timer-based switch that cuts off a two-wheeler engine. No, I am not talking of ideas, but innovations that are being churned out at the grassroots level.

This week at TieCon2008 in New Delhi, I got to meet Vishnu Swaminathan, the Chief Innovation Officer of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF). I had a one-on-one chat with him on how we, as urban dwellers, entrepreneurs, and people with ideas can work with the NIF to take things forward. We spoke about inventions that don’t come from universities, or research labs, but from knowledge-rich poor people, who innovated because there was a need to. What they need right now is people who can make these ideas commercial.

Remya Jose’s washing machine which works when you pedal the exer-cycle might not work commercially, because those of us in the cities who need to lose weight don’t wash our clothes ourselves, and the rural poor who need to wash their clothes might not want to lose their weight along with it. But what it needs is someone who can maybe take the idea of a cycle-cranked washing machine and change it into a hand-cranked machine which, with a few spins of a handle, cleans your clothes, that too without any electricity. Similarly, N Satyanarayan’s micro-windmill may be great to generate 1Ampere current that can charge many of our devices. But I think it needs to be modified so we can use it as an all-in-one charger for all devices, with multiple tips and voltages, which can be mounted on your balcony with a cable running into your room.

As children we all had our own ways of doing jugaad. But society taught us to become doctors, engineers or lawyers, and this kept us away from innovation, took away our scientific temperament. A look at the NIF database and you get to know what you missed out on. It lists over a thousand innovations even we could have thought of. From making the cycle-rickshaw a geared machine to Tukaram Verma’s Rs 175-contraption which cuts off two-wheeler engines, these creations tell us it is time we also got thinking or at least supported the good innovators. Remya, Satyanarayan and Tukaram must get their due credit before someone steals their ideas.

This is where you have to see the NIF team’s passion and zeal to get these innovations to the masses. And the NIF does all this for free, as it is an NGO funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and run by a bunch of academicians, who are really connected to the cause.

If you think you have an idea, or know someone who has one that you think will work, you can inform the National Innovation Foundation at 1800-233-5555, an all-India toll-free number, or through its website www.nif.org.in. Soon, someone will get in touch with the innovator, and who knows it could be the next big thing to happen to us.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday October 26, 2008