Frugal Innovation - The impact and ripple effects

The process of innovation in the private sector and the innovations for social impact have evolved from two very different schools of thought. In the social realm, it is often that innovation is a product of collaboration between creative users and individuals. Spread of the internet is seen widely as causing the 'tipping point' in this movement. In a talk from 2005 by Charles Leadbeater,  he talks about how the 'Clunkers' became a mainstream product and redefined the bicycle industry. Though, substantial innovation still happens in the private organizations, the impact of the 'bottom-up' innovations is very interesting. Leadbeater talks about the flow of creative application of innovation going back up the pipeline. It is very important to see that this process of validation and active feedback has been important to make innovations have practical economic and social impact.

This direct impact of this 'amateur' innovation can be easily seen in various industries, increasingly in the ICT field with open development platforms available to individuals. A more subtle impact is the change in mindset  that the frugal amateur innovation is bringing around. It is important to decouple the frugality of innovations from the affluence vs. austerity debate. Constraints on cost at times can be seen as being  a blessing in disguise for innovators. For instance, the OLPC or the $60 tablet developed by the Government of India are not just important because they make the utility of laptops or iPads accessible or affordable to a larger population (much of which is in the developing world). Similarly, the Tata Nano is produced at 1/8th the price of a Smart Car and the Toyota Prius. Although, these products are no where the same, the frugal projects highlight something that we often tend to miss. If a similar product can be produced and sold sustainably at 1/8th the price as what is the generally accepted price, the producers need to see this as a big disruptive change and as challenging the pricepoints of industrially produced products. In the economic terms, in the long term this is beneficial to both the suppliers and us as consumers.

 Every year, a lot of money is spent on very expensive yachts  which compete in what are considered to be the ultimate competition of sailing design and technology like Volvo Ocean Race. The notion that the quality of innovation is proportional to the money being spent needs to be challenged. A shape-shifting design has come up from an open innovation project - Protei, a project for a sailing drone meant to clean the ocean of oil spills. The industry needs to step back and think for itself, if the money being spent in the R&D labs is able to garner the results that it seeks. Perhaps, investment in amateur and frugal projects is a cost-effective option for the corporations to diversify the risk of  R&D investments.