Why we need frugal innovation today.

Frugal Innovation:

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ” ― Pablo Picasso

What is "Frugal"?

Frugal implies "simple and plain and costing little".
Frugal innovation suggest to simply develop or innovate products and services with optimum resources that reduces the cost of the development, reduces the complexity; resulting in reducing product prices and product maintenance cost.

Why?

In today's modern world we often look up to next big, flashy products. Every next new product is costly with extension to existing features.

With every passing day,superlative researches are being done, technology has been changing rapidly.

And we are seeing more and more superficial  products, but with increasing price tag.

With such great advances in technology present world, why can't we have better, sustainable products in low price?

Do we really need driver less cars or we need some simplistic affordable solutions to prevent accidents and traffic jams?

When Henry Ford came up with his innovative model T or A cars, it was not to produce high cost product, but to provide low cost product to every American household. Created revolution.

Frugal innovation focuses on thinking out of the box, and work more agile way.
It is observed that frugal innovation is most successful in areas under developed where unavailability of resources is common issue. Widely referred as "jugaad -जुगाड़ "
In India it is mostly observed in rural areas, people innovate to solve day to day needs and challenges.
While urban India is using on high profile global products in high economy.

There are many successful examples of products in developing countries like India, China.
Here are 3 examples of superlative low cost solutions, that did not happened in developed super power nations.

#India's Mars Mission:

India's much discussed mars mission achieved in fraction budget of developed countries. How they did it? Talent and approach by ISRO scientist.

Image Courtesy: trak.in

Read more: indias-frugal-mission-to-mars,

mangalyaan-isros-mars-mission-nasa/

#Generate Water out of air in Peru:

This South  American country has developed advertising billboards,that gives water everyday. Simplified approach with available humid conditions.

Image source: techland.time.com

Read more- a-billboard-that-creates-drinkable-water

#Kenya: No google maps, no car sensors to resolve traffic:
Nairobi is one of the most congested cities in the world. A mobile company with the help of IBM researchers and data analytics, helps to resolve traffic congestion by 20-30%.
It does not uses costly camera or sensors, rather uses low cost web cams.

Read more:fixing-traffic-congestion-in-kenya

Benefits of Frugal products -

• Meet the needs of masses. 
• Develop local and thus help in grooming local economy.
• Developed with minimum raw material, less use of natural resources thus preventing major loss to the natural resources.
• Simpler to use.
• Saves money and impact inflation.
• Less carbon footprints

Thank you!

Your thoughts will always be appreciated.

More to refer:
creative_problem_solving_in_the_face_of_extreme_limits
indias-mars-orbiter-mission-the-frugal-innovation
frugal-innovation-india-inventors/

5 reasons you should take a road-trip

5 reasons you should take a road-trip

Most of us like travelling like I do. We enjoy travelling to places and the most loved mode of travelling for me is taking road trips.

Here are reasons you should take a road-trip -

Hill Country

# Get Flexibility:

• You can be more flexible in taking your car down the road to a destination.No timetables, no schedules, you don't have to wait for that cab to station or airport. And again wait there. No wait. No nothing.
• You can take the route whatever you want, and you can plan you journey your terms.

#Be Random, Spontaneous and get a break:

• You could be spontaneous on a road trip. You could spot different places on the way and stop there to check out, simply.
• You could meet fellow travelers, take short breaks, you could meet people on the way, who could guide you to more exciting stops, eateries on the go.
• You don't get to told by anyone on anything.

• And you need a break from all that routine.

#Fun:

• Road trips are fun, with the music in car of your choices. You could spot landmarks and feel the breeze on the road. it's fun with the music and people you love to travel with.

#Different local foods and adventure:

• You get to taste different and new local foods on the go. You meet local people and learn about their life. You could get chance to observe a different life may be live it for a while.

#you are not getting any younger:

• The most important reason to go on a road trip, is to get experience in you life.
• You may face challenges on road trip that you don't get in your routine professional life. It could be physically tiring as well.

Thank you. 

Have you ever been to road trip and could there be more reasons? leave a comment. :-)

3 top brands, epic fails and lessons to learn.

Lessons we can learn form big giants in their respective fields.How a time and a trend could impact you irrespective of your present situation.

#Nokia:
Probably everyone once had a Nokia phone. Nokia ha a history of  huge popularity and great handsets with a sheer dominance in market.
What happened? - Apple and android crushed it?

In recent speech from CEO he quoted, “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. 

Mostly Nokia was a trusted brand and people looked at it as a quality product. By 2010 iPhone and Android came up with touch screen, ease of use, storage, media and share feature, surpassing Nokia phones.
Nokia known for their sturdy handsets and durable technology phone lost to brittle touch screen phones, and they missed out the fast changing trend.

The advantage you have today may be surpass by the change tomorrow, if you don't learn to adapt, you may thrown out of the competition.

#Kodak:
Lost to their own fear.
Kodak is well known photo-camera company, most commonly known and used cameras in last millennium.
Pioneer of the digicam, couldn't sustain the new change they started.

Although Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak's photographic film business.
During 1980s Kodak had a time window of 10 years to take a lead in DigiCam business, but their market research failed to realize the future and rather focused on their existing photo-film business.

how-kodak-failed

#Yahoo:
In recent time yahoo sold out for much lesser price than earlier offerings to it.

Very popular in late 90s and early 2000s. Yahoo messenger, chat rooms, yahoo search and yahoo mail were prominent product of yahoo in late 90s.
Yahoo failed to capitalize on these, failed to acquire competitors when offered cheaply and failed to identify customer mindsets, provided opportunities to competitors.
Search - Early 2000s yahoo included third parties for search, while developing its own. Giving ahead to the competitor.
Charges vs Free - Yahoo decided to charge to customers for services where google started with all free, diverting large customer base from yahoo to google.
Rest is history now.

Take away lessons:

#Change is certain and you have to adopt it, in order to be part of the competition.

#Prepare for future,irrespective of your present situation, you have to prepare for future to survive.

#Keep eye on competition, irrespective of your position, strengths and your hold; you have to keep looking what is in competition and be on your toes all the time.

#Don't fear of change and taking risks - despite you current stable position change in inevitable and fearing it could lead you to failure.

Thank you!