Indigenous Innovation A REPORT ON GRASS ROOT LEVEL INNOVATION FOR A OVERLOOKED PROBLEM
Rizvi Manzavalli 1
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Introduction
What is this all about? Everybody in this modern era would have come across Jargons like Design Thinking, Creative Confidence, Lateral Thinking, Experience Design, Retail Strategy etc., But the real design or innovation doesn’t derive from these methods or practices. It actually lies in a very grass root level which slowly evolves into a product and that in turn becomes disruptive innovation.
“Fear is the greatest enemy of innovation. There should be no fear to try things out... Imperfect Ideas fuel the innovation engine.” - Tom Kelly (IDEO) In reference to the above quote we can say that mistakes and errors are the source of innovation. But MNC’s and Corporate cannot make a mistake as it can ravage the industry. I would like to make my point clear that capitalism doesn’t let innovation drive the economy. But due to innovation at the grass root level the corporate started to believe the concept of creating or thinking something new in terms of the jargons that I mentioned above. All those jargons are just a cover to safeguard their policies and margins.
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Context
Context
The city of Ahmedabad hosts the International Kite Festival as part of the official celebration of Uttarayan, bringing master kite makers and flyers from all over the world to demonstrate their unique creations and wow the crowds with highly unusual kites. During this time whole sky is filled up with kites and the whole population of Ahmedabad fly kites from their terraces or some public grounds. Youths and other kids use a specific thread, containing glass powder called ‘Manja’. As its mixed with glass powder and other harmful materials has caused the bird deaths and injuries to them. During flying of kites, the thread has got trapped on trees, electric poles, and buildings but kite lovers do not remove it properly and many birds get trapped in such thread, causing injuries to their legs, even cuts of their wings. As the thread got trapped on trees, electric poles and buildings. It cuts the throat of people travelling by motorcycles. Because of the scenario the activity of kite flying is banned in some of the South Indian cities. Recently in Mumbai they have not declared holiday on the day of uttarayan to reduce number of deaths and injuries.
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Indigenous Innovation
Cause Deepak Ghag, shows the deep cut on his throat that almost claimed his life caused due to Manja. Courtesy: www.mid-day.com
Cause Of This Innovation? In the city of Ahmedabad, every festival is celebrated with a huge crowd and grand setup. Even this International Kite Festival can also listed in that way, So Uttarayan being a government holiday a big crowd of people gather together to fly kites all over the city. The effect of this cause much later the event gets over. All the kites are flew using a glass powder coated threads called Manja and these threads are so strong and sharp which is used to play by cutting other kites for fun. But these threads get tangled around the trees and poles all over the place and start hanging on the public roads. When the motorcyclist and other people on the roads catch up these manja around their neck and gets cut. As throat/ neck being most crucial part for the blood flow the chances of death is too much high. So this scenario has become the necessity and a localite from old city which is other part of Ahmedabad came up with a simple idea to prevent Manja cut the throat of the motorcyclists.
Indigenous Innovation
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Purpose
What is this Innovation? “Necessity is the mother of invention.” - Plato Between the chaos and problems caused by Manja a resident of old city in Ahmedabad Ashok Chorawala, who approached a neighborhood garage and got himself a ‘U’ shaped aluminium frame fitted on the visor of his motorbike. The frame stands a meter tall and prevents the rider from kite-string. “I used an iron rod frame earlier but that disturbed my bike’s balance. The aluminium frame on the other hand is lightweight and fits comfortably,” says Chorawala. According to Chorawala the deadly factor of manja has opened up an opportunity to build a new product to satisfy this necessity. This idea of Chorawala had made people feel safe and confident to come out during the season of Uttarayan.
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Indigenous Innovation
Process
How did he do it? During the season of Uttarayan Chorawala went out for shopping and while his way back he got trapped with manja and his throat slightly got cut and started bleeding. He couldn’t feel the pain but someone on the road has told him and then immediately he was admitted in the hospital. “I received six stitches on my throat last year due to an injury caused by the kite thread, while I was going by bike. Surprisingly, I did not experience any pain. It was only when one of my friends noticed that I was bleeding from my neck that I stopped. My doctor told me that had I moved two metres further the string would have damaged my windpipe. I cannot move my neck properly even today ” says Chorawala This bad and deadly experience had made him think of some solution for this problem. So the next day he went to a nearby garage with rolled up sleeves to make a protection attachment in his bike. Initially he made a rectangle frame out of iron and he realized that the weight of iron rod is affecting the balance. So the next frame was made out of aluminium to reduce the weight and thus the problem of balancing is took out of the picture. Although this method of approaching problem is rough one but he needed a solution for it. There are some other citizens came up with another idea for this same problem which is of a different approach.
Indigenous Innovation
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Alternatives
What are the Alternative solutions for the same problem? Alternative 1: The other alternative or perspective of the problem is turned into an opportunity by a person from Dhabkarwad, Ahmedabad. He also has a bad history of getting trapped by Manja. As he is a regular commuter he wanted a perfect and portable safety kit. So he designed a belt that can be worn around the neck. This nylon belt comes with a Velcro padding on one side that could be wrapped around one’s neck. The product is popular amongst commuters who wear helmets, says Raju Chotiwala, a vendor at Dhabkarwad. He says that last year 150 pieces of this belt is sold everyday and also 10,000 of such pieces are already in the market. This particular product has a good demand in the market because of its portability. Alternative 2: An ambulance driver from Lal Darwaja has this problem in his mind pondering over from time to time. According to him after flying kites the manja floats and reaches the fly overs, bridges and roads. So he used his common sense to solve this problem in a very simple way. He planned to tie cables over the bridges and poles, so that the manja doesn’t fall on the roads. His approach is very acceptable because it is not necessary for every commuter to install metal frame on his bike or to wear a nylon neck protector every time they go out. This person had already installed these ropes over 14 fly overs around the city. For each setup its costing him around Rs.3000/- for the cables and labour cost. Business Opportunities: The context of this product has limited geographic and season possibilities. For example, this product can be sold in places where people fly more kite and also during some particular festival season. So this is kind of a Seasonal Business Model,and it has its both merits and demerits. But when we take the market demand then these products have to be produced more because the demand is more and supply is very less. In all the above three solutions, Alternative 1 & 3 has more scope in terms of business perspective. It just needs some minor modifications in terms of quality, durability and some ergonomic issues to be solved.
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Improvements
Improvements in the existing product: People say that the first idea that comes to our mind will be very obvious. So in this innovation the rectangular frame mounted on a rectangular frame is also very obvious. The contact point of thread and the neck is just one point on the frame. So converting the rectangular frame into just one rod or plastic mounted from the mid-point of the bikes handle. The holder or base part of this rod also can have some hinge which is easily removable. When it is easily removable, it can be removes during the other seasons. There can be some other improvements like effective ban of Manja or effective use of the cable gaurds over the flyovers to protect the commuters. But all these solutions are just remedies and not the cure. The real solution for any problem is to completely get cure but not prevention. All the above soultions are just meant to prevent manja from cutting neck of innocent people, But we have to consider the situation of birds and animals who also share equal values as us. So prevention of manja can be done only by teaching people from not using it.
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Thank You!
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