Frugal Innovation – bringing Grassroot creativity to the Global stage

By Somali K Chakrabarti

 

“Frugal innovation is about creating advantage out of constraint.”

~ Kirsten Bound, Head International Innovation Research, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta).

 

The ‘Grassroot to Global’ (G2G) approach for innovation, propagated by National Innovation Foundation (NIF) of India, is set to change the way the world looks at the creativity and innovations at grassroots.

It subscribes to the concept of ‘frugal innovation‘, which involves use of local resources to come up with affordable, functional products that provide value for money and good user experience. The G2G model is developed to take creativity and knowledge that exists at the grassroots level and transform it into valuable innovation for the global marketplace.

Connecting Grassroot to Global

 

The origin of the term ‘frugal engineering‘ is credited to Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance in 2006, who coined the term after he was impressed by the ability of Indian engineers’ to innovate cost-effectively and quickly under severe resource constraints.

With businesses wanting to “do more with less resources”, firms such as Renault-Nissan, Siemens, and Unilever have embraced the concept of frugal innovation.

Some products created through frugal innovations at the grassroot level have added immense value to the lives of women in the rural India. Two such products are:

• A Sanitary Napkin Machine that has come up from the grassroot level in rural India and is now reaching other developing countries,
• A Water Wheel that has been developed by a US social venture and is making inroads into the interiors of India.

Before going into these examples of grassroot innovation, it helps to mention that

Frugal Innovation is not just about Jugaad

Though the terms ‘Frugal’ innovation and ‘Jugaad’ are often used interchangeably as both are based on the optimal use of resources, but frugal innovation goes far beyond Jugaad.

Whereas the focus of ‘Jugaad’ lies on ‘makeshift’ solutions or on ‘short-term’ fixes without due concern to quality, safety, scalability or sustainability, ‘Frugal’ innovation is about creating efficient products to provide desirable user experience, at low cost by using local resources frugally, while maintaining the safety and quality standards.

The problems associated with Jugaad Innovation include difficulty to scale up, focus on individual, short-term fixes rather than collective, long-term solutions, as detailed in the post ‘Why Jugaad Innovation is smart but Not sustainable’.

Frugal innovation, on the other hand, requires a deep understanding of the customer’s unique requirements, the specific conditions in which the product will be used, and the kind of trade-offs that can be made to keep the costs low without compromising on safety and quality.

---

Here are the two examples of grassroot innovation:

1. Sanitary Napkin Making Machine

.

Sanitary napkins, though commonly used in cities, have a very low penetration in rural India due to the high price. A 2011 survey by AC Nielsen, commissioned by the Indian government, found that only 12% of women across India use sanitary pads.

Many rural women find napkins unaffordable and opt for unhygienic alternatives such as old cloth pieces. Often too embarrassed to dry these cloth pieces in the open, women reuse the rags without drying them in the sun, as a result they don’t get disinfected.

Poor menstrual hygiene is the cause of approximately 70% of all reproductive diseases in India – it can also affect maternal mortality. 23% of girls drop out of education after reaching puberty, as the  lack of affordable sanitation products and lack of toilet facilities at schools affects their mobility. [Source: India Sanitation Portal]

A Muruganantham, a social entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, has developed a machine that produces quality sanitary napkins at a low cost. Using the machine, one can prepare sanitary napkins with industry standard raw materials while cutting down the cost in production. It requires three to four persons to produce two pads per minute.

Muruganantham installs one of his machines       Image Source : BBC

Women produce the sanitary pads, and sell them directly to the customer, while providing them with information on how to use them. The minimalistic and simple to use machines are easy to maintain and can be maintained by the women themselves.

A manual machine costing around 75,000 Indian rupees can produce 200-250 pads a day which sell for an average of about 2.5 rupees. Each machine converts 3,000 women to pad usage, and provides employment for 10.

Besides increasing the use of sanitary pads, the machine has also created jobs for rural women and has empowered women to make low cost sanitary pads for their own use and sell them to other women. Some school girls are now making their own sanitary pads.

School girls making own pads. Image Source : BBC.com

The machine has found acceptance in 1,300 villages in 23 states in India, and is now expanding to 106 countries across the globe, including Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius, the Philippines, and Bangladesh.

Muruganantham’s is an amazing story of how he fought against all odds to bring about hygiene awareness and empowerment of women in Indian villages ranging from Tamil to Madhya Pradesh, to Bihar and Uttarakhand.

 

2. Water Wheel – The Rolling Water Carrier

Image Source: Stock pictures

Women in many Indian villages walk miles to fetch water and walk back with heavy water pitchers, carrying up to 20 litres of water on their head. This is very tiring and results in considerable discomfort, injuries and stoop in old age.

Image Source : theguardian

Wello, a US social venture working on ways to deliver clean water in poor countries  has designed ‘Water Wheel’ that eases the burden by storing water in a 50 litre container that can be used to carry water by rolling on wheels rather than by lifting it. WaterWheel is made from high-quality plastic that can withstand rough terrain, and is expected to sell for $25-$30, compared with $75-$100 for similar products.

As women are taking to the idea of rolling water instead of carrying it, Water Wheel has also found popularity among men, who see it as a tool and do not mind using it for fetching water. This has resulted in shifting the burden of fetching water from women to men,

Wello plans to sell the WaterWheel in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat states, as well as explore opportunities for water purification

---

With the global acceptance and demand for grassroot innovations picking up, firms are learning how to innovate under severe constraints and turn extreme adversity into an opportunity for growth.

Aided by Honey Bee Network in scouting unaided innovations, National Innovation Foundation in India is working towards commercializing such products across countries in different parts of the world.

Harnessing the knowledge richness at the grassroots level, will change the perception of poor from being consumer of cheap goods to providers of creative, affordable, sustainable solutions,.

This, in turn, will help companies to address the needs of developing markets, and tap the opportunities in developing world , where the huge markets of tomorrow lie.

.

I end the post with this quote by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

 “Innovation opens up new vistas of knowledge and new dimensions to our imagination to make everyday life more meaningful and richer in depth and content”.  ~ Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007.

 

If you like this post, please consider following the blog.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Subscribe

 

Please like, share and/or leave feedback in comments below!

 

 

References :

1. National Innovation Foundation, Maharashtra Innovates

2. The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary, BBC , 4 March 2014

3. India Sanitation Portal, Menstrual Hygience

4. WaterWheel to ease burden on women, theguardian dated 29 December 2013

Advertisement