Analyzing the grassroots innovation process in India from a design perspective

Abstract

Design is the act of transforming an existing situation into a preferred one. Taking this broad definition of design, the paper analyzes the process of grassroots innovations from a design perspective in the three phases of idea generation, experimentation, and implementation. The sample is chosen from award-winning grassroots innovations identified by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF). The different factors involved in each phase of design have been examined. The results indicate that most of the innovations which win awards belong to the mechanical innovations category and have application in the farming or agriculture sector. The innovations are designed using material resources from the surroundings of the innovators while personal savings often make up the necessary finance required to develop the innovation at the idea stage. Next, the different formal institutions involved in the experimentation stage providing technical and financial assistance for further design and development of innovations are also examined, to find that mostly technical institutions are involved in providing validation and modification services to the grassroots innovations. As diffusion of innovation is the preferred condition, the paper finds that most of the award-winning innovations are diffused through a market-based channel in which the innovator owns the manufacturing unit while in some cases the innovations are licenced to another entrepreneur.

Keywords:

• grassroots innovations
• design
• India
• innovation process

Acknowledgements

The paper has been developed from my doctoral dissertation at the Centre for Studies in Science Technology and Innovation Policy, Central University of Gujarat. I would like to thank NIF for maintaining a comprehensive database of grassroots innovations in India. I am thankful to my PhD supervisor Dr Hemant Kumar for his insightful comments. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments helped me improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.