Democratizing innovation - Accenture/media/accenture/conversion-assets/... · The Honey Bee Network is a voluntary network of like-minded individuals, innovators, farmers, scholars,

Democratizing innovationMaking innovation the driver of inclusive growth

Foreword 04

Executive summary 06

Why democratize innovation? 08

Forces driving democratization 13

Democratization 1.0 16

Democratization 2.0 20

Time to act 28

Acknowledgement

The images used in this report feature some of the grassroots innovations from across India as acknowledged and scouted by the National Innovation Foundation – India and the Honey Bee Network.

Building upon the Honey Bee Network philosophy, the National Innovation Foundation – India, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, set up in 2000 at Ahmedabad, provides institutional support in scouting, spawning, sustaining and scaling up grassroots green innovations and helps their transition to self supporting activities. For more information on these and various other innovations supported by the National Innovation Foundation – India please visit www.nif.org.in

The Honey Bee Network is a voluntary network of like-minded individuals, innovators, farmers, scholars, academicians, policy makers, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who believe in the creativity and knowledge at the grassroots. A Network having presence in more than seventy five countries, what has made Honey Bee Network tight knit and efficiently functional is its philosophy. Honey Bee signifies a philosophy of discourse, which is authentic, accountable and fair. Honey Bee Network, over the last twenty two years has documented more than 1,50,000 ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices. Honey Bee, true to its metaphor, has been the source of pollination and cross-pollination of ideas, creativity and grassroots genius, without taking away the nectar from the flower for ever. For more information, please visit www.sristi.org

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Hand Operated Water Lifting DeviceInventor : N. Sakthimainthan, Tamil Nadu

An efficient way of pumping water to meet requirements in a cost effective way has always been a challenge in rural India. Sakthimainthan from Tamil Nadu developed - using locally available materials - a hand operated water lifting device.

Simple in design, the device delivers high water discharge and at a much lower cost compared to conventional hand pumps, bucket pumps, and bicycle operated pumps.

For more information, please visit www.nif.org.in

Source: National Innovation Foundation-India

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ForewordInnovation is the key driver of growth in any economy. As we have emphasized for the past two years, in the Indian context the focus on innovation must follow a special path of inclusiveness – involving everyone in the country, not just those who produce and consume at the high end.

This report marks the third installment in a trilogy. In our joint AIMA- Accenture report of 2009, we described the opportunities for growth in the economy, the obstacles in the way of successful innovation, and the keys to innovating for high performance. Last year’s report examined the concept of inclusive business models: the new approaches businesses must take to ensure that they are reaching the poor and geographically remote as employees, consumers and innovators. Now, in this final report on our theme, we

reveal a framework for democratizing innovation by making sure everyone has a chance both to participate in the process and reap the benefits from new products and services.

We have spoken to diverse audiences about what exactly inclusiveness is and about terms such as frugal/Gandhian innovation. A pictorial representation of the “Three Triangles Model” has been helpful to communicate the idea more succinctly (see the diagram below).

The left hand side triangle represents the type of innovation. At the top end of the triangle, there appear just a few innovations which are technology or product-based. They are usually well-recognized and applauded as great innovations. They are indeed deserving of the approbation they receive because they tend to be the first-in-the-world variety, for example, the iPAD or

Google. The right hand triangle shows the beneficiaries of the innovation, typically the haves of the world. The middle triangle, which is inverted, represents the high level of visibility that such an innovation receives.

At the lower end of the left hand triangle, there are many innovations in number. They receive a low level of recognition because they are not quite so visible. However, as the last triangle demonstrates, the beneficiaries of such innovations are many, far more than the elite at the top of the triangle.

Type of Innovation Level of Visibility Societal Impact

High

Low

The Haves

The Have-nots

• Technology led• Product-based• First in the world• e.g. IPad

• Value-led• Business Model based• Difficult to replicate• e.g. Arvind Eye Care

A

B

C

The three triangles model : More for less for more for less*

(*More benefits with less visibility for more people at less cost) Model Courtesy

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It is always important to reiterate that the focus on inclusive innovation is not solely a matter of improving society, although it is that too. Rather, inclusive and democratized innovation is also the way in which businesses can find growth in a country of more than a billion people, many of whom are poised to enter or move up within the middle class.

Innovation is not only a matter of iPads and cool apps, such as Google Street View, useful and popular as they are. It is also about the small jugaads that the common man in India devises to solve his day-to-day problems. It is about new refrigerators made from mud; chickens that can withstand disease while producing many more eggs than by way of standard poultry; internet kiosks that connect small farmers in villages to provide access of weather forecasts and pricing information; and much more.

But even more is needed in this “Indian decade of innovation.” We need new and better ways to make sure that

small but important innovations don’t get lost—that the process for capturing ideas becomes, in effect, institutionalised. And at the other end, we also need to ensure that when ideas bear fruit as new solutions, new ways of improving daily life, they have the furthest possible reach.

For this report, we focused in part upon India’s massive youth population, conducting a unique survey of students across the country. The Indian youth has a strong entrepreneurial streak, but it will need guidance and support if it is to contribute to India’s growth through innovation. Many will soon be active and productive players, contributing to the economy; some are already doing so.

Finally, it must be emphasized that this task is not one for business, or government, or any other group to carry out on its own. Rather, business and government, in collaboration with the institutions of civil society, must all come together to bring about a process of democratized

innovation, whose ultimate aim is ‘true inclusion’, encompassing each and every member of the society.

As we conclude this trilogy of reports, perhaps the most enduring message that we wish to leave behind on the challenge and opportunity in Indian innovation is that of the entrepreneurial spirit and fundamental optimism driving India’s economy and people today.

R Gopalakrishnan

Director Tata Sons

Dr R A Mashelkar

National Research Professor & President – Global Research Alliance

Anish Gupta

Managing Partner – Products Operating Group, Accenture India

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Executive SummaryIndia holds a significant resource that it has yet to fully tap: the innovation potential of its people. Just as political democracy can lift nations by building on the combined power of its citizens, “democratized” innovation can help lift countries’ economic systems and lead to more sustained profitable growth for individual companies by leveraging the collective ideas of the larger population. This is the central message of this report – the last in a trilogy that began in 2009.

In its first collaborative research report two years ago, Accenture and AIMA showed how high performance within companies was being increasingly defined through innovations that simultaneously delivered profits and inclusive growth. In 2010, we unraveled the power of business model innovations to bring about those dual benefits.

The 100-plus discussions we conducted with experts, entrepreneurs, academics and business leaders during the first two years of our research exposed us to many developments heralding disruptive change in the nation’s innovation landscape. Innovations of great potential had already started happening far away from organized research labs, with ultra-low budgets. Farmers, shopkeepers, small entrepreneurs and workers on the shop floor had transformed themselves into frugal innovators. People were becoming increasingly eager to help shape new business models.

A growing mass of people spanning socioeconomic levels and regions of the country had become more connected to each other and to the economy, thanks to technology. Innovations in frugal engineering and in IT were empowering people, especially the millennial generation, with the tools and platforms they required to dream, experiment and contribute to the collective good. The ability of organizations to capture and make use of these ideas had substantially improved, thanks to a revolution in communications and information technology.

Organizations were therefore better placed than ever before to benefit from innovations of the people and by the people, and to launch innovations for the people.

In 2011, we therefore decided to unravel the contours of this evolving opportunity and provide a framework for businesses, governments and civil society to generate profits and create social value through the democratization of innovation. We decided to go out and find if the youth (between the ages of 15 and 25) was ready to actively participate in this innovation journey. We therefore conducted a first-of-its kind survey to gauge the way people in this age-group perceive innovation and also their own role in the country’s economic development.

Key findings Our research shows that a democratic version of innovation will not only drive the country’s agenda of inclusive growth but also unlock corporate profitability.

In our survey of 1,000 students, 74% said they would like to contribute toward innovations that could improve products and services available in the market. Note that this desire is not entirely for personal gain: 43% of respondents said that a key motivator for sharing innovations was to help people benefit from their ideas.

We found several stakeholders in the Indian economy making efforts to democratize innovation in recent years, including government bodies, companies, not-for-profit organizations, and research institutions. Yet while many of those ventures have succeeded, they largely represent individual and isolated efforts.

Our analysis revealed that a coordinated, end-to-end approach would provide corporations, governments and civil society organizations with a unique platform to unlock the imagination of 1.2 billion minds.

Drawing lessons from the experience of various stakeholders, as well as the recommendations that came from our survey, this report sets forth a framework for action. The framework – “Democratization 2.0” – clearly defines areas for collaborative action toward democratizing innovation and includes metrics for evaluating the actions.

Democratization 2.0 The framework identifies five areas for organizations to engage in collaboratively in order to democratize innovation:

• A greater awareness about the innovative talent within their workforce can help companies save precious resources. For example, an oil refinery in Baroda had to be shut down every 15 days because a key component was getting blocked. A foreman developed an ingenious solution, a simple heating coil, which prevented the blockages and eliminated the need to stop production. This saved millions of dollars for the company and improved the country’s energy profile.

• Alliances can accelerate the pace of innovation, reduce the cost of innovation for companies and help them launch products faster and cheaper. Consumers themselves are a major source of innovation.

Danish toy company Lego allowed hobbyists explicit permission to let their imaginations run wild after the launch of “Mindstorms”. Soon, dozens of web sites were hosting third-party programs that helped Mindstorms users build robots that Lego had never imagined. In a span of a few months more than 40 Mindstorms guidebooks provided step-by-step strategies for getting the most out of the kit's 727 parts. This approach to product development helped boost sales of “Mindstorms” significantly.

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• Companies can leverage such alliances to help innovators authenticate their innovations, through prototype testing, revenue-sharing, and other market functions. Future Group has joined forces with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to commercialize grass-root ideas by creating products to be sold at its outlets. The company is already gauging consumer response to prototypes of the mitti cool refrigerator (an earthen refrigerator using the concept of an earthen pot to keep things cool) and mitti cool nonstick pan (clay pan) at its Big Bazaar stores in Gujarat. The products’ creators retain intellectual property rights and get a royalty on sales.

• Reaping the true benefits of democratized innovation will require the application of new processes. Companies will have to experiment with innovative business models in order to create value. For instance, when Keggfarms created the “Kuroiler” – scientifically developed poultry stocks for production in village households – it invested in creating a commercially viable business model to support its product innovation at the same time. As of 2010, Keggfarms had served more than 1 million rural households and generated US $89 million with the Kuroiler.

• Finally, awards and new forms of recognition—approbation—can incentivize people across age-groups to innovate and build risk-taking mindsets. IGNITE is a nationwide competition conducted by NIF to harness the creative and innovative spirit of school children. The competition recognizes the best technology ideas and innovations, and aims to instill innovation in a generation of future Indian leaders.

Action agendaMaking democratized innovation a reality will require concerted and coordinated actions from entities throughout the Indian economy. They will need to think and act differently to profit and create social value. We advocate the following steps.

• Businesses must develop an ecosystem of credible partners that can help the organization identify and forge robust alliances with appropriate innovators. They must create an open and flexible innovation infrastructure that allows innovators from inside and outside the company to share innovative ideas and benefit from their success, such as “boot camps” for promising young students, and innovation expeditions for the current workforce.

In addition, companies must reform their current organizational architecture to more effectively capture the benefits of new ideas and must also nurture an organizational culture that respects and rewards democratized innovation. For example, a company can sponsor the prototyping and commercialization of inclusive innovations developed by its employees.

• Government must establish an open-access database of grass-roots innovations in all national languages, in order to spread greater awareness among the population. It can also adopt the best practices of other governments, such as (from Denmark) funding user-driven innovation studies to better understand how businesses and users can contribute innovations. Or (from Australia) create an intellectual property regime that protects incremental inventions for a shorter period of time with a low threshold test for “inventiveness.”

The state or national authorities can allocate a certain percentage of the District Innovation Funds to foster collaboration between agencies.

In addition, state innovation councils must explore the use of existing infrastructure, such as postal infrastructure, to secure ideas from grassroots innovators.

Lastly, the government must institutionalize an award of the stature of the highest civilian award in India (the Bharat Ratna) for a person whose efforts in the field of democratization of innovation has helped solve a problem of national proportion.

• Not-for-profit organizations (such as chambers of commerce and management associations) must work with state and central education boards to introduce a detailed curriculum aimed at spurring innovation, as they did for consumer education, with the support of consumer organizations. These organizations can also serve a technological function, establishing innovation desks, creating web pages on innovation, and providing links to websites such as Techpedia, Honeybee network, CSIR, SRISTI, and GIAN on their homepages to help connect innovators across the country.

These groups must also focus on connecting small and medium enterprises to local engineering schools to expose students to the real-world problems of industries nearby.

Measuring success How will stakeholders recognize the success of a democratized innovation? A table in the report lays out key metrics for each of the five elements in the “Democratization 2.0” framework.

If managed well, democratized innovation holds tremendous power to open new avenues of profitable revenue generation while also bringing benefits to the society as a whole. There are thousands of innovators waiting in the wings who are capable of accelerating India’s national pace in the direction of a prosperous and happy society. “Democratization 2.0” provides a unique “action-framework” that businesses, government and civil society organizations can adopt to achieve this worthy goal.

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Why democratize innovation?As India continues to traverse an inclusive growth trajectory, the country must tap into the innovation potential of all of its citizens. India has a rich innovation heritage, but many of its best ideas and improvements—to products, corporate governance and business processes—do not reach their full potential because they occur in isolation. By harnessing the ideas of people throughout the country, from all regions and socioeconomic levels, a more democratic version of innovation can drive the country’s agenda of inclusive growth.

India can take a leaf from Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote that “Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.” There is a growing consensus that the nation’s economic growth needs to be driven by a similar democratization process.1 A truly innovative economy, leveraging the contributions of all of its citizens, will result in more ideas of the people and by the people that can enhance the performance of businesses, governments and other organizations. Equally important, it will also result in ideas that are for the people, improving living standards and overall well-being, particularly for those who reside on the fringes of growth.

This is the main finding of a joint research venture between Accenture and the All India Management Association (AIMA), the last of a trilogy of joint research projects.

Growing momentum In its first collaborative research report launched in 2009, Accenture and AIMA showed how high performance within companies was being increasingly defined through innovations simultaneously delivering profits and inclusive growth. In 2010, we unraveled the power of business model innovations to bring out those dual benefits.

The 100-plus discussions we conducted with experts, entrepreneurs, academics and business leaders during the first two years of our research exposed us to many disruptive shifts impacting India’s innovation landscape. Innovations of great potential had already started happening far away from organized research labs, with ultra-low budgets. Farmers, shopkeepers, small entrepreneurs and workers on the shop floor had transformed themselves into frugal innovators. People were becoming increasingly eager to help shape new business models.2

Other recent research by Accenture confirmed the interest within business on democratized innovation. In early 2011, Accenture conducted a survey of more than 100 manufacturers from nine sectors. More than half the respondents were keen to use technologies such as cloud computing to increase the transfer of ideas from their employees in the service of innovation. Almost half the respondents expressed interest in co-developing new products with their business partners during the same period.3

Hence in mid-2011, we decided to produce a report that would not only make stakeholders aware of the growing importance of democratized innovation to their growth and expansion, but would also provide them with a framework to generate profits and create social value.

Motivated youth As a part of this research, we decided to go out and find if India’s youth were ready to actively participate in this innovation journey. We conducted a first-of-its kind survey to gauge the way people in this age cohort perceive innovation and also their own role in the country’s economic development

In our survey of 1,000 young Indians aged 15 to 25 years, 75% said they would like to contribute toward improving products and services available in the market. Some 51% want businesses to establish interactive collaboration channels to facilitate innovation by users.

Perhaps more notable, 43 percent of the respondents said that a key motivator for developing and sharing innovations was to help people benefit from their ideas (see Figure 1).

Clearly, youth want to play a larger role in innovation, and that interest creates a national opportunity.

Two kinds of valueThe nature of that opportunity is clear: innovation, especially when democratized, can help companies find new avenues of profit while at the same time creating new levels of social value.

Organizations can reap tremendous benefits by leveraging the participation of people, especially youth, from cities and villages distant from the usual hubs of innovation. Such people combine diverse socio-cultural backgrounds with a zest to innovate, which can help organizations frame path-breaking research questions and provide vital insights on product acceptability, overall utility, and methods of use, from the earliest stages of ideation. With intelligent planning and forethought, companies can build and maintain effective networks that encompass the ideas and support of these individuals at very low cost. The innovation infrastructure thus becomes “talent heavy” and “cost light” at the same time.

Involving employees in creative thinking motivates them, increases their sense of ownership, enhances the speed of production and delivery, and helps lower attrition. For example, the

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rollout of Tata Motors’ Indica, India’s first indigenously built car, less than three years after it was announced would not have been possible without workers’ participation in the innovation process. Assembly line operators, organized into self-directed teams, were encouraged to share their ideas; some were incorporated into the Indica’s design. The result was a more satisfying work environment for employees, more efficient processes and, ultimately, a fast, profitable rollout of the vehicle.4

New ideas of this order provide more than a new technology or product for the market and profits for the company that develops them. They can also create a larger impact with unprecedented intangible value across wide sections of the society. India has witnessed a number of such product innovations. For

example, Shantha Biotechnics developed a hepatitis B vaccine that costs just US $1.25 per course, compared to competing versions from multinationals that cost US $125. The low-cost vaccine has improved the lives of millions of people not just in India but worldwide.5

The Bhabhatron 1, a machine used to treat cancer with radiation therapy, is another example. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Tata Cancer Research Centre and Panacea Biotec came together to overcome the long-standing hurdle of expensive (and imported) cancer treatment tele-therapy machines, which made treatment cost-prohibitive for many patients. By applying the right innovation processes, this group developed an indigenous machine at a fraction of the cost of competitors’ imports.6

Why democratize innovation? The passion for innovation has gained increasing momentum, and India’s youth are eager to do their part. Given the combination of societal and business benefits that come from including large numbers of people in the process and outcomes, the need for it is clear.

Figure 1: Key motivators for sharing innovation amongst respondent youth

29%

14%

43%

33%

3%

Understand if it is innovative

To get recognized

To help people benefit from your idea

All

Other

0% 10% 50%20% 30% 40%

Source: Accenture Survey, 2011

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This report derives from several research sources. Apart from reviewing the existing literature including media resources, academic journals, corporate annual reports and business studies, Accenture conducted discussions with experts including academics, government officials, c-suite executives, heads of industry associations and young entrepreneurs. In addition, All India Management Association (AIMA) and Accenture conducted a survey of about 1,000 youth in the age group of 15-25 across the country to understand their views on democratization of innovation.

When asked if they would be keen to enhance the value associated with the products they use by contributing towards their innovation, 74 percent of the respondents marked in affirmative (see Figure 2).

Moreover, one out of every two respondents is of the opinion that the society will be in a position to develop high quality affordable products for people across income levels by facilitating people’s participation in innovating products and services. (see Figure 3).

This survey also examined the various barriers that the youth face in order to participate in innovation. Lack of information about forums to conduct structured discussions on problems and solutions was

identified as a key barrier. The youth also cited absence of structured initiatives at the level of school, colleges and universities to discuss innovative ideas as the second most important barrier to their participation in innovation processes.

The survey also revealed that young people are keen to participate in innovating across sectors such as education and healthcare. Other sectors that interest the youth are transport, FMCG, and media and entertainment.

The youth openly expressed the expectations they have from various stakeholders. Following are the actions youth want various stakeholders to take towards democratizing innovation:

• Educational institutions should re-design course curricula motivating students to find solutions to problems.

• Businesses must develop interactive collaboration channels/platforms to facilitate innovation by users of their products.

• Government should build a systematic open-access database of innovations across the nation.

• Civil society organizations should work with educational institutions towards changing their curricula to seed innovation mindset in students.

Research Methodology

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Figure 2: Percentage of respondents keen to enhance value of products through innovation

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

1%

Not at all

9%

All the time

25%

Rarely

65%

Most of the time

Figure 3: Impact of people’s participation in innovating products and services on society, businesses and economy (percentage of total responses)

20%

15%

11%

3%

1%

37%High quality products will be available abundantly

57%Products affordable to people across various income levels will make it to the market

31%People will become more entrepreneurial

31%Ways to optimally utilize products and conserve resources will emerge

31%Scalable solutions to solve day-to-day problems will evolve faster

56%Quality of products will improve

Participation of people from disadvantaged sections of society in organized markets will increase

The consumers will be left with products that satisfy tastes of few

Innovation will suffer as industry will get confusing signals

Resources will get wasted

Other



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Low cost bamboo windmill Inventors: Mushtaq Hussain and Mehtar Hussain, Assam

Looking for a low-cost alternative to pump water in the fields for the winter crops, Mushtaq and Mehtar Hussain of Assam devised a simple windmill made up of bamboo and tin sheets.

NIF facilitated its testing at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati and supported them under the MVIF scheme and the micro incubator scheme.

Looking at its potential, in Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network- West (GIAN –W) has installed several units of this windmill in the salt farming area of Kutch in Gujarat.

For more information, please visit www.nif.org.in or www.gian.org

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India is now at a unique juncture in its history, with several demographic and technological trends combining to create a highly conducive environment for democratizing innovation. These trends include the development of new communication and information technologies, India’s strong culture of frugal engineering, emergent population of Millennials, and rising income levels, among others. In the aggregate, these factors provide an opportunity that India cannot afford to miss.

Increasingly prevalent technologyNext-generation technologies such as mobility solutions and cloud computing are helping foster commercially viable platforms that can push education, finance, and healthcare to India’s massive rural markets. Inexpensive mobile phones, broadband internet, solar lanterns, drip irrigation systems, and mobile ATMs are empowering large sections of the Indian population, including lower ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, to connect with organized markets. These technologies, particularly in communication, are thus arming people with tools to dream and experiment individually or collectively, and transcending literacy and geographic barriers. A growing mass of people spanning income, social and cultural strata, even in rural areas, is steadily becoming accessible, anytime, anywhere to companies, governments and organizations. (see Figure 4)

Growing depth and scope of frugal engineeringIndia has had a rich history of frugal engineering that dates back to the Harappa times, and this culture continues to inspire Indian engineering even today. Products including the Tata Nano, the Jaipur Foot, and GE’s Mac400 ECG machine, which was designed specifically for the Indian market, illustrate the growing depth and scope of frugal engineering in the country. This concept is now challenging the boundaries of sustainability and affordability. Products and solutions

resulting from such frugal engineering continue to empower the society at large, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid.

Microspinning is another example. Traditionally, the Indian textiles industry consisted of small, low-capital networks in rural areas that could produce competitive products and services. But the recent consolidation in textiles has threatened many rural textile jobs. In response, IIT-Chennai developed a “microspinning” machine that offers a fiber-to-fabric textile chain. Each machine has the potential to accommodate 100 rural families, and in the aggregate, the technology can lead to a more balanced and ecologically sound textile industry for India.7

Interestingly, the development of complex products based on frugal engineering has not been limited to large R&D labs. In India, around 600,000 technology students spend six months of their final year in engineering college working on technology projects. This means that more than 3 million months of “youth-power” gets devoted to solving real-world problems. Technology forums such as ‘techpedia.in’ are highlighting various frugal engineering projects developed by such graduating engineering students, spanning the manufacturing and services industries. Many of the more highly rated innovations (such as, a low cost solar water heater, bio-gas power generator powered by a bike, a betel nut cutting machine) on the site provide scientific solutions to problems of national proportion.8

Millennial generation Demographics is another factor pointing to more democratized innovation in India. More than a third of the country’s current population of 1.2 billion is between the age of 15 and 35 years.9 This is a massive opportunity, not only through the sheer size of the youth population but also through the character that such an age group lends to the workforce. Millennials are used to collaborating with diverse coworkers from other age-groups, countries, and cultural backgrounds. They have a “can-do” attitude and look for feedback about how they are doing frequently – even daily. They want a variety of tasks and expect that they will accomplish them all. Most notably, Millennials are the most connected generation in history. As such, they are a strong driving force behind democratization.10

In particular, globalization and the growing emphasis on education have helped raise the role of women within the Millennial generation, in both the workplace and in public life. Expanding on the role of homemaker that they play so successfully – and in many cases under severe resource constraints – women are wired to be innovative. As consensus builders at home, women leaders are better tuned to democratization at the workplace.

Forces driving democratization

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HMT & DRK paddy varietiesInventor: Dadaji Khobragade, Maharashtra

Dadaji Khobragade of Maharashtra selected and bred HMT rice variety from the conventional ‘Patel 3’, a popular variety developed by Dr. J. P. Patel, JNKV Agriculture University, Jabalpur.

This variety has an average yield of 40 – 45 quintals per hectare with short grains, high rice recovery (80%), better smell and cooking quality in comparison with the parent ones.

Most remarkable feature of the variety is the thinness of grain. It has been included as a standard reference for thinness by Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers’ Right Authority (PPVFRA).

He developed the DRK rice variety through selection from “Deepak Ratna” variety, also developed by him. The selection was based on phenotypic characters viz. intermediate plant height (130 cm) and lengthy spikes (22 cm). The variety is resistant to biotic and abiotic stress with the yield is about 60-80 quintals per hectare.


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For example, Chhavi Rajawat, the sarpanch (or village head) of a community called Soda, in the western state of Rajasthan, was able to bring transformative technology to her village. Just 30, Chhavi is not only the youngest sarpanch in India, but also the only one with an MBA degree. Soda village has partnered with a reputed software company to develop an internet and intranet portal, complete with a technology education lab. The portal will provide Soda’s 10,000 inhabitants online access to information on village funds, along with citizen services such as birth and death certificates and land records.11

Assertive consumersIndian consumers are more educated and aware than ever before. With growing income levels and increased awareness of their cultural preferences, they are demanding greater customization in the products and services they consume. This is resulting in new market dynamics, with companies competing to satisfy diverse consumer demands across the country. No longer price is the only key differentiator. Our survey validates that consumer awareness is rapidly increasing, with more than a third of youth respondents saying that the products they consume lack innovation in areas such as price, after-sales service, quality, durability, and product effectiveness and performance (see Figure 5).

Figure 4: The wired population in India’s rural regions

Jan 07 Jan 08 Jan 09 Jan 10 Jan 11

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

33

62

110

191

274

Mobile subscribers (million)

Figure 5: Areas that lack innovation (percentage of total responses)


36%

36%

Others 5%

39%After sales service

11%Product design

23%Product features

40%Price

38%Quality

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Product effectiveness and performance

Durability

Source: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

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Democratization 1.0Stakeholders in the Indian economy, including the government, companies, not-for-profit organizations, and research institutions, continue their efforts in the space of democratizing innovation. Several of these ventures are worth noting, as they represent efforts that have spurred awareness of innovation and greater participation by non-traditional innovators, and resulted in substantial benefits to society.

The Indian government has launched several programs that help drive participation for innovators, such as the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP). Run by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, TePP offers technical guidance and mentorship to promising innovators, along with financial support in the form of a grant, without any obligation of repayment.12 As India’s largest network program, TePP has nearly 30 outreach centers, mostly in university campuses, which have screened about 10,000 raw ideas and have funded about 450 of those ideas since inception (see Figure 6).13

The New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) is another government-backed innovation venture. The country’s earliest and largest public-private-partnership effort within the R&D domain, NMITLI has been operated by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) since 2000-01. NMITLI provides funds in the form of grants to its institutional partners and as soft loans at a meager 3 percent interest rate to the industrial partners. It enjoys an unprecedented brand image and is considered a role model in the domain of public-private-partnership initiatives launched by a federal government. Its projects cover diverse areas ranging from liquid crystals to biotech molecules to advanced nano-materials. NMITLI has catalyzed development of a low cost embedded computing platform to replace conventional PCs for day-to-day office work. Three variants of SofComp devices have already been launched.14

The government has not only facilitated participation of people, but its various departments have also innovated programs that have impacted millions. The journey started, probably, with the Green Revolution and has expanded in areas such as education, healthcare and insurance. Over the years the government has ensured inclusive growth through its numerous development policies. Government of India’s national health insurance program, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), aims to provide families living below the poverty line with insurance coverage. To ensure seamless delivery of insurance services they have issued biometric enabled smart cards containing fingerprints and photographs to all insured.15 So far, more than 25 million families living below the poverty line have been enrolled under the program in almost all states, ensuring that the benefits of innovation reach even the low-income rural populations.16

Within the private sector, several large businesses have already created structured platforms to democratize innovation within their workforce, such as the Tata Group Innovation Forum, Mission Kurukshetra initiative within Reliance Industries, the AGNI initiative at Maruti Suzuki, and the Rural Immersion Program at Godrej. In addition, Nokia’s “Bhasha 2011” (Language 2011) platform taps into the collective innovation of students to develop solutions to increase the use of local languages on mobile phones. The aim is to remove the linguistic barriers for value-added mobile services in non-urban geographies.17

A number of organizations in the services space are signing up too. Microsoft’s Ultimate Potential (UP) program launched in 2006 has the mission to make technology available to the people at the middle and bottom of the pyramid. It is collaborating with local academics to co-develop wireless computing solutions for deployment in Indian villages. Another instance is Microsoft working with International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), to set up Rural Knowledge Centers (RKCs) across India. The RKCs aim to provide computer literacy and IT-enabled services to Indian rural communities, with a special focus on empowering women in these areas; an apt example of how to improve awareness about innovation while also transferring its benefits to the socio-economically challenged.18

Last, a number of not-for-profit organizations and academic research institutions have taken steps to support the democratization of innovation.19

The Honey Bee Network is a platform, spread over 75 countries, where like-minded individuals, innovators, farmers, academicians, policy makers, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) come together to recognize grass-root innovations. Over last twenty years, Honey Bee has prepared a database of the traditional knowledge and grassroots innovations and has documented more than 100,000 ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices.20

16

The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) was setup at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) with support from Gujarat Government and Department of Science and Technology (Government of India) to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. The centre provides seed-funding, incubation, mentoring, training, knowledge dissemination and best practice research required by budding entrepreneurs.21 A number of successful new entrepreneurs have risen from the ranks of CIIE, such as Ecolibrium Energy, Innoz Technologies, Gridbots, to name a few.

Clearly, organizations throughout the Indian economy are extremely interested in democratizing innovation. However, while these represent successful efforts thus far, the country could achieve far more in a shorter span of time by synchronizing and coordinating such efforts. This calls for articulation of an actionable framework that will clearly define areas for collaborative action and will provide metrics to measure gains. We call this framework – Democratization 2.0

Figure 6: Total number of Phase-I & Phase-II projects supported under TePP

Source: Ministry of Science & Technology, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research

August 1998- March 2008

August 1998- March 2009

August 1998- December 2010

Phase I – Innovation incubation 240 319 450

Phase II – Enterprise incubation (for those who complete Phase I)

NA 9 15

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Herbal cocktail for pest controlInventor : Ishwar Singh Kundu, Haryana

Experimenting with different herbs known for their pesticide properties, Ishwar Singh Kundu, Haryana developed a multifunction herbal formula, which can be used as a bio-fertilizer, soil enhancer and insect pest control formulation for a variety of crops.

This formula, called ‘Kamaal 505’, is a concoction of herbs.


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Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is a consortium launched in 2008 by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) India to provide affordable healthcare to the developing world. Essentially, OSDD functions as a global platform where the best minds can collaborate to develop solutions to tropical diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, leshmaniasis, and others. Since its founding, it has emerged as the largest open innovation drug-discovery platform in the world for such conditions, with more than 4,800 registered users in 130 countries. Already the consortium is creating the world’s biggest online repository of information about the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium and how to combat it.

The OSDD approach is to conduct early stage research in an open environment through a highly collaborative process involving best minds from around the globe. In the drug-development stage, OSSD collaborates with partners like contract research organizations in the pharmaceutical sector and public-sector institutions with development capability.

The research is conducted in developing countries that have a high prevalence of tropical diseases yet still have certain production capabilities, allowing OSSD to bring in skilled talent at an affordable scale.

To get its drugs to the market, OSDD relies on the pipeline for generic pharmaceuticals. That reduces the burdens of intellectual property constraints and lowers costs, allowing generics manufacturers to produce the medicine and sell it anywhere in the world. In this way, OSDD applies open-sourced innovation at the development phase and leaves the distribution of drugs to market forces.

Thus far the Indian government has backed OSDD with about INR 460 million (about US $12 million), targeting an overall project outlay of about US $46 million. Given that this amount is a fraction of the typical development cost for even a single drug, the consortium demonstrates how the process of collaborative, democratic innovation can generate significant results at lower costs.

Open Source Drug Discovery – Democratization of innovation goes global

Source: Open Source Drug Discovery website http://www.osdd.net/

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Democratization 2.0The proposed framework is based on the paradigm – inclusive growth through democratized innovation.

The framework identifies five areas for organizations to engage collaboratively in order to deploy this paradigm. These five areas of action are: awareness, alliances, authentication, application and approbation (see Figure 7).

Awareness

Fundamentally, innovation at a fully national and democratic level cannot happen if innovators aren’t aware of the problems that need to be solved, or if companies cannot connect with the innovation talent available within the country. With the right awareness and connections, innovators introduce businesses to launch completely new products, processes, and solutions that they may have never considered. For example, at a large oil refinery in Baroda, a tube in the air demand analyzer had to be cleaned periodically, requiring that the refinery be shut down every 15 days. A foreman in the refinery realized why this was happening—as gas in the tube expanded, it cooled, leading to the precipitation of salts which clogged the tube. He also devised an ingenious solution: a heating coil outside the analyzer, which prevented the formation of salts. The system no longer had to be shut down, saving millions of dollars for the company.22

Some of these innovations can have a significant benefit on certain trades and communities. By working with salt producers, the Central Salt and Marine Research Institute (CSMCRI) developed a technique that uses sea bittern—a residue generated from the production of salt from sea water—to produce magnesia and potash at the end of the production process. As a result, what was once a byproduct now generates value for salt producers. Moreover, this innovation has enabled India to produce its own potash and reduce the import bill. Remember, India imports more than a million tones of potash every year.23

Alliances

Forming alliances with communities helps companies discover faster innovation methods, helping get new products into the market at much lower costs. Small innovators benefit, as they now have a predictable access to technology and infrastructure which lets them conduct complex experiments. As noted by MIT professor Eric von Hippel “the joy and the learning associated with membership in creative communities”24 drives people to generously share their time.

After LEGO launched “Mindstorms”, within weeks, a graduate student reverse engineered a key part (RCX Brick) and posted all of his findings, including detailed information on the brick’s underlying firmware, online. Several other engineers quickly followed suit.

Instead of worrying about market cannibalization and sending out IP-violation notices, LEGO allowed hobbyists explicit permission to let their imaginations run wild. Soon, dozens of Web sites were hosting third-party programs that helped Mindstorms users build robots that Lego had never thought of and may have taken a longer time to launch. Students were designing sensors that were far more sophisticated than those included in the factory kit. In a span of a few months more than 40 Mindstorms guidebooks provided step-by-step strategies for tweaking performance out of the kit’s 727 parts.25 This helped boosting sales of “Mindstorms” significantly.

Authentication

In collaboration with innovators, organizations can unravel new technologies to create prototypes and structure innovative institutional mechanisms to help authenticate and evaluate the commercial potential of new ideas. India’s largest retail house Future Group has tied up with National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to commercialize grass-root ideas by creating products to be sold at its outlets. The joint initiative, called “Khoj Lab,” will apply Future Group’s consumer insight, marketing, and distribution strength to the ideas of innovators associated with NIF, with the goal of launching affordable products. The company is allowing select innovators to test prototypes at Big Bazaar stores in Ahmedabad (Gujarat), such as the Mitti cool refrigerator and Mitti cool nonstick pan.26 Significantly, the original creators of the products will retain intellectual property rights and get a royalty percentage on sales.

Application

In order to push the true benefits of innovations to people with sufficient scale, organizations must develop and apply unconventional business models. The AIMA-Accenture study (2010) titled “India’s Quest for Inclusive Growth – Achieving High Performance through Inclusive Business Models” discusses how some companies have already embarked on such a journey. For example, Keggfarms developed a special chicken stock known as Kuroiler specifically for rural villages. The company distributes day-old chicks to rural villages, where they are sold by “young vendors” to local households. The chickens lay 140 to 160 eggs a

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year, far more than standard poultry stock. As of 2010, Keggfarms had served more than 1 million rural households and generated US $89 million in rural income.27 ITC and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) have developed similar initiatives, all aimed not only at unlocking value for themselves but also to help women, farmers, and rural youth develop their own enterprises.

Approbation

Awards and new forms of recognition are an essential means to spur people to innovate in greater numbers. Recognition must not be restricted to monetary rewards and to particular age-groups. For example, IGNITE is a national competition to harness the creative and original ideas of school children and foster the innovative spirit in these future leaders of society. The IGNITE 10 contest (which ran from October 2009 through September 2010) drew more than 2,100 entries from students in 161 districts of 29 States

and Union Territories of the country. The ideas ranged across sectors like energy, the environment, transportation, general household utility items, and more.28

Action agenda “Democratization 2.0” requires businesses, governments, and not-for-profit organizations (such as chambers of commerce) to take concerted and collaborative actions. We advocate several clear steps.

Businesses

• Develop a vision about broader and more inclusive innovation: Organizations must embed the spirit of democratized innovation in their value framework. Leadership should foster relationships with micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), through immersion programs (similar to those implemented at Godrej Industries in the context of rural markets) that expose senior and mid-level management to small innovators who hold the

potential to develop unconventional ideas and improvements. The result of such a visible emphasis on innovation can transform companies. Productive minds within the organization start thinking about how to solve the problems they see every day, and exploring methods to integrate these ideas into their own work.

Figure 7: Five areas of action

Application

Approbation Awareness

Alliances

Authentication

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Rapid Compost MakerInventor : Gurmail Singh Dhonsi, Rajasthan

Gurmail Singh Dhonsi of Rajasthan observed earthworms converting biomass into compost. He found that the decomposition can be hastened if biomass is aerated, humidified and properly mixed.

He had conducted few experiments and developed first machine in January 2007. The tractor mounted machine can aerate, humidify and mix the bio wastes.


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We recognize that such a change will not happen overnight. It takes time, especially in large organizations, for a critical number of leaders and employees to develop such a belief structure and set the process in motion.

• Build capabilities to benefit from innovation: Democratizing innovation can be unwieldy if not properly managed. Accordingly, organizations must build new capabilities and a systematic approach to generate profits from democratizing their innovation value chain. We recommend the following:

Ecosystem of credible inclusive partners: As the innovation ecosystem becomes democratized, businesses find themselves exposed to a lot of unconventional approaches and solutions. Crowds of innovators, customers, and users generate ideas—some at very nascent stages—and organizations are challenged to make sense of it all. In such a situation it’s important to build a credible ecosystem of partners at the “back end” who can provide you vital insights on the market potential of a particular idea/innovation/innovator and the best way to form an alliance. This is especially true regarding innovations that aim to serve the poor, which often require nontraditional business models to become commercially viable.

Open and flexible innovation infrastructure: At present, many businesses are geared to deliver to the crowd. If they do have an innovation infrastructure in place, it is somewhat insular and hierarchical, with well-defined slots for employees and external stakeholders to participate. In order to harness democratized innovation, these companies must create a systematic innovation infrastructure that can accept and quickly analyze information from the crowd. They must develop an innovation value chain that puts all stakeholders on an equal footing. This

opens up opportunities to collaborate and helps in development of platforms that facilitate the questioning of existing problem statements and methods. More than 50% of the youth we surveyed have sought such interactive platforms from businesses.

In this regard, companies can learn from the experience of businesses such as LEGO, which has engaged its passionate consumers to help develop new products (discussed on page 20)

Companies can learn from the experiences of Innocentive, an entity that connects companies, governments and other organizations to diverse categories of “problem solvers”. The Innocentive platform facilitates breakthrough solutions at low costs and minimal risk.29

A robust democratized operational architecture: The right innovation infrastructure will trigger needed changes in the company’s organizational architecture. This often entails new positions, responsibilities, and layers of management oversight.

ITC is a good example—the company continues to implement a program called e-Choupal, which helped democratize the use of information technology by farmers to discover prices for agriculture produce at their doorstep. To launch new products and services on the same platform through a process of co-creation with communities, ITC added new layers of responsibility at every level, from junior associates through top management. In particular, ITC had to keep pace with the rapidly evolving tastes and preferences of low-income customers as their connectivity improved. A critical part of this effort was training front-line employees to glean insights through engaging conversations at the grass-root level. Middle management was tasked with experimenting new product & service offerings riding

on those insights, while higher-level management took on the challenge of crafting inclusive business models based on those experiments.30

• Build a culture that rewards democratization of innovation: While a number of organizations have started institutionalizing awards for innovation, it’s time that a special recognition is given to democratized innovations. For example: a company could sponsor prototyping and commercialization of a proof-of-concept of an inclusive innovation developed by its employee. If the product is new to the market, the company can help the employee develop an authentication mechanism, along with offering access to the innovation immersion programs typically reserved for senior leadership.

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Laxmi Asu Making MachineInventor : Ch. Mallesham, Andhra Pradesh

Before weaving various patterns on the loom, a hand winding process of yarn is required in the traditional ‘Tie & Dye’ Pochampalli silk saree tradition. This is a very tedious and time-consuming and limits the number of sarees a waver can produce.

Ch. Mallesham, a traditional weaver, has made a device to mechanize this process.

History was made the day, when for the first time a machine was used for Asu process, which was done by hands for centuries - leading to a Social and Financial Revolution.


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Government

As with businesses, we have several recommendations for governments.

• Build a systematic, open-access database of innovations to increase awareness: Perhaps the single biggest step that the National Innovation Council (NInC) established by the Government of India can take is to develop a nationwide database, with information about current innovations, their applications, and the innovators’ coordinates. The database should be web-accessible through a portal, regularly updated, and published in all the recognized official national languages.

• Take specific measures to foster alliances and applications:

Comprehensive study: Taking a leaf from studies conducted by the Danish Government, the National Innovation Council (NInC) can initiate a study of the most promising innovation models, with particular focus on integrating users and consumers in the corporate innovation projects.31

Finance Grand challenges: The government at the federal level must set ambitious targets in diverse areas (e.g. ultra low cost rural refrigerator, ultra low cost rural electrification, ultra low cost internet access, extremely affordable drugs, ultra low cost vaccines and diagnostics, etc.) and finance solutions by inviting competitive bids of alliances/consortiums towards achieving the same.32

Promote national and international alliances with a specific emphasis on agriculture: The Government must facilitate active collaboration among organizations such as Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), CSIR

and other specialized bodies nationally as well as internationally to cross-fertilize innovations towards enhancing productivity of the agricultural sector.

Finance frugal engineering design: In order to accelerate and solidify India’s global position in the area of frugal engineering, the Government must promote the interest and investment of small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to utilizing design and transforming design activity into manufacturing products. Governments at the Centre and in States can formulate a funding scheme wherein a design company or an academic institution established in India and the SME can be co-applicants to acquire such funding. The funding support can take a form of a matching grant calculated based on 50% of the approved project cost.33

Make optimal use of the postal infrastructure: State innovation councils (SICs) set up by the National Innovation Council can tie up with state level post offices and can institutionalize a mechanism whereby innovators can reach SICs their idea by submitting it the nearest post office. The SICs on proper review can identify the ten best ideas and can felicitate these innovators twice a year and recommend awardees to national bodies responsible for implementation of programs such as TePP etc.

Form district level venture funds to support innovative ideas in public systems: The 13th Finance Commission has granted Rs.10 million per district for the creation of District Innovation Fund [DIF] aimed at “increasing the efficiency of capital assets already created” and “to fill in gaps in public infrastructure already available at the district”.34 The government can mandate use of certain percentage of these funds to conduct innovations towards improving efficiency of schemes such as DOTS, NREGS and PDS (e.g. use of RFID technology to verify proper allocations of grains under the public distribution system to beneficiaries)

Create a Indian version of YOZMA35: Drawing lessons from Israel’s YOZMA initiative in the space of venture capital financing, the NInC must create a fund that is not designed to make direct investment in start-ups, but simply act as an intermediary, dishing seed capital to a specific number of venture capital funds willing to invest at least a minimum percentage of funds in inclusive innovation projects. The NInC-Fund can provide up to a certain percentage of the capital for each of the venture capital fund and give the general partners the option of repurchasing its share at the end of 5 years. If the venture capital funds chose to exercise the option, the call price can be equated to the principal amount plus the cost of money at that point of time.

• Develop a set of cost-effective fast-track authentication mechanism to protect intellectual property: Following the footsteps of the Australian intellectual property rights regime, the government needs to legislate a regime providing patent protection to incremental innovations for a lower period of time with a relatively low threshold test for “inventiveness” and a streamlined granting process. Thus patent protection will be available to small and medium entrepreneurs at relatively low cost, and protect products or processes for a relatively short product life that may not satisfy the threshold test for inventiveness applicable to Standard Patents.

• Create more prestigious awards: Sanshodhan Ratna award (Innovation Jewel award) – an award of the stature of ‘Bharat Ratna’ – the highest civilian honor in India, needs to be institutionalized. A person who has made contribution to democratizing innovation in the nation must be bestowed with such an award.

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Not-for-profit organizations (chambers of commerce and industry, management associations)

• Create education initiatives and other awareness measures:

Work with the government to introduce innovation in the education curricula: At present, no school or college curriculum in India introduces young minds to innovation in a structured manner. While some private universities have started requiring research papers on innovation as a part of the graduate engineering curriculum, public universities have yet to explore this topic systematically. To seed innovation in the minds of youth, chambers must work with state and central boards to develop a detailed curriculum on innovation from grade eight. (There is a model in place for such an approach — these organizations launched a similar consumer education curriculum with the support of consumer organizations.)

Organize innovation shodhyatras in collaboration with educational institutions: Youth surveyed expressed a demand for educational institutions to organize shodhyatras (search expeditions) to raise awareness about innovation. As with curricula, chambers can collaborate with educational institutions on these ventures.

• Forge connections:

Connect local small and medium enterprises to local engineering schools: Chambers and other nonprofits can facilitate a structured interaction between local small enterprises and engineering students, to bring innovative minds closer to real-world problems.

Collaborate with state innovation councils (SICs) to bring development to specific tehsils: In collaboration with state innovation councils, chambers can approach zilla parishads (local government body at district level) to identify key developmental problems for tehsils (administrative sub-division of a district) in that region. If these organizations can identify a problem across various tehsils, they can offer a district-level competition for engineering colleges to help develop solutions. Workable solutions can be financed by the State government.

Connect established industry with innovative entrepreneurs: Learning from experiences of NASSCOM (which has created platforms such as “Emerge 50”, which identifies and awards successful emerging IT & ITeS companies based on new ideas, products, processes and technologies), chambers of commerce at the state level must establish structured initiatives to connect large businesses with innovative entrepreneurs across a range of industrial segments.

Metrics measuring benefits associated with actions taken The following are examples of metrics which can be utilized by various stakeholders to evaluate their performance in each action area. These metrics provide the stakeholder valuable insights on the efficacy of the initiative in the space of democratization both from a commercial and social perspective.

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Area Metrics

Awareness • Number of ideas and grassroots innovations valuable to the company and/or society discovered.

• Number of people and potential beneficiaries made aware of the benefits of a particular inclusive innovation/relevant innovation with inclusive impact.

Alliances • Number of new methods/new technologies utilized to form alliances.

• The period of time for which the alliance lasts in a mutually beneficial manner.

• Ratio of number of new innovations to total number of alliances forged.

• Number of hours spent with communities (external to the organization) as a percentage of total time spent on innovation

• Number of innovation-process interactions outside the firm as percentage of innovation-process interactions conducted within the firm.

• Ratio of, new lead users connected, to number of members in the innovation team across the firm.

• Number of grassroots innovations capable of having societal benefits refined for industrial use.

• Ratio of resources spent to forge new alliances to profitable revenue generated/social returns gained as a result of new alliances.

Authentication • Time taken between the prototyping and the final product launch phase.

• Ratio of actual to budgeted costs towards securing IPR by forming alliances to authenticate innovation vis-a-vis costs incurred during a solo innovation-effort.

• Ratio of products commercialized to products prototyped with the support of external alliances in comparison to ratio of products commercialized to products prototyped without any external collaboration.

Applications • Cost savings in terms of expenditure on various marketing channels deployed due to inclusion of local people in the sales and marketing value chain.

• Ratio of people from communities outside the organization to skilled employees in marketing and sales functions.

• Number of new applications derived of the same product through user participation

Approbation • Number of awards received by/awarded to a democratized initiative.

• Number of innovations benefiting at least 25% of the target/impacted population from remote areas or socioeconomically underprivileged, in two years of launch.

• Ratio of revenues/social returns generated through product based on democratizing innovation to revenues/social returns generated through normally innovated products.

• Ratio of ideas generated to ideas commercialized (both inside and outside the organization).

• Level of job satisfaction within employees in a democratized innovation initiative as compared to those who innovate under normal circumstances.

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Time to actDemocratizing innovation holds tremendous power for the Indian economy. There are thousands of innovators across the country—working on their own or within corporate workforces—on ideas that have the potential to substantively improve the quality of governance and magnitude of corporate profitability. While these innovators can accomplish impressive things acting independently, they can truly transform society if they collaborate via a formal and structured innovation process that can channel their best ideas.

This is the moment to reach out to them. As businesses, you will gain new ideas and new talent that will open doors to new markets and new customers. You will be introducing innovative products into markets cheaper and faster as your bulky innovation infrastructure will become open, leaner and responsive. Governments and civil society organizations will find social returns from its interventions increasing, as innovators from the outside will start providing solutions to improve targeting and deepening outreach.

To remain competitive as a nation and create a more inclusive society, it’s time we seriously start taking measures to democratize innovation from today.

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Onion Transplanter Inventor: P S More, Maharashtra

P S More of Maharashtra has developed an affordable, semi-automatic transplanter for timely sowing of onion seedlings.

A tractor drawn semi- automatic unit, the machine can perform three functions at a time - transplanting the onion, applying the fertilizer and making the irrigation channels

The inventor had declared his technology as an open source technology for the society to benefit.



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1 Maira A. (2011); “Charting a different course”; http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Charting-a-different-course/articleshow/10418144.cms

2 Accenture and AIMA (2009 and 2010); “Innovating for High Performance in India” and “India’s Quest for Inclusive Growth: Achieving High Performance through Inclusive Business Models”

3 Accenture (2011); “High Performance Manufacturing: India’s next opportunity”

4 Accenture and AIMA (2009); “Innovating for High Performance in India”

5 “India: An Emerging World Leader in Biotechnology”; http://www.scienceboard.net/community/perspectives.215.html

6 “BARC unveils Bhabhatron 1”, Deccan Herald, March 31, 2005

7 Accenture and AIMA (2010); “India’s Quest for Inclusive Growth: Achieving High Performance through Inclusive Business Models”

8 www.techpedia.in

9 UN Population Statistics

10 “Managing Millennials: Eleven Tips for Managing Millennials”, Susan M. Heathfield, About.com

11 “India's youngest sarpanch, MBA Chavvi Rajawat makes her village Soda India's 1st IT-enabled one”, Economic Times, September 2, 2011

12 TEPP Open Innovation Network; http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/TEPP/tepphome.do;jsessionid=C14C9166FF8F7C589F481410AE0A3EAF

13 “From Innovation to Industry Creation: Chartering the Role, Impact and Performance of Government Innovation Programs at Higher Educational Institutions in India” Electronics & Electrical Communications Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, India

14 NMITLI; http://www.csir.res.in/external/heads/collaborations/nmitli.htm

15 Accenture (2011); “Inclusive India: How Project Aadhaar Can Drive Growth and Social Change”

16 Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana Website; http://www.rsby.gov.in/

17 “Bangalore wins Nokia Bhasha 2011 National Design Competition”; EFYTimes, July 22, 2011

18 “Microsoft Unleashes India’s Creative Capitalism”, Navi Radjou, Jean-Pierre Garbani and Edward Radcliffe, October 2008

19 Honey Bee Website; http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/

20 Honey Bee Website; http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/

21 CIIE Website; http://www.ciieindia.org/

22 Gupta, A. (2010); “Leveraging Innovations for Inclusive Governance”; Indian Institute of Management; Working Paper; October

23 “Technology aggregation and licensing experience at CSMCRI”, Pushpito K. Ghosh, Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute, July 2009

24 Hippel E. (2005); “Democratizing innovation”; MIT Press

25 “Geeks in Toyland”, Wired, February 2006

26 “Future Gr, NIF tie up to commercialise indigenous innovations”, Economic Times, December 14, 2010


28 IGNITE 2011; http://www.keralaevents.com/event_India_ignite-2011

29 INNOCENTIVE; http://www.innocentive.com/about-innocentive


31 For more on the Danish government initiative read: http://www.newnatureofinnovation.org/programme_for_user-driven_innovation_developing_a_lead-user_based_innovation_model.html

32 Mashelkar, R. (2010); 18th Naval Tata Memorial Lecture

33 This initiative is based on the Design Smart Initiative implemented in Hong Kong

34 Finance Commission Division notification F. No.37(1) FCD/2010 towards utilization of grant in aid for District Innovation Found

35 YOZMA was initiated in 1993 in Israel with the stated goals of: 1) building a vibrant, self-sustaining VC industry; 2) attracting foreign VC firms as partners and mentors; and 3) promoting promising, exportable technologies in Israel.

Yozma began with a pot of US $100 million organized as a government-owned fund of funds. The fund was not designed to make direct investments in start-ups; it was simply to act as an intermediary, dishing seed capital to 10 new, private, Israeli venture capital funds. Each (independent) VC fund receiving capital was required to raise an Israel-specific fund, attract at least one (reputable) foreign private equity partner and one Israeli bank partner, and structure itself as a limited partnership. Yozma, as a limited partner (LP) in each fund, would provide up to 40% of the capital for each fund (up to $8 million), and give the general partners the option of repurchasing its share for up to 5 years. If the fund chose to exercise the option, the call price was the principal amount plus the cost of money (5-7% at the time). (Source: Avidor J. (2011); “Building an Innovation Economy: Public Policy Lessons from Israel”; Northwestern Law School and Kellog School of Management; Law and Economics Working Paper Series; 11-18; May)

References

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Authors Anish GuptaManaging Partner, Products Operating Group, Accenture, India [email protected]

Raghav NarsalayAccenture Institute for High Performance [email protected]

Senior Editorial TeamDavid Light, Armen Ovanessoff, Mamta Kapur

Special thanks to AIMA for conducting the youth survey for this study.

About All India Management Association (AIMA)The All India Management Association (AIMA) is the national apex body of the management profession in India. Over the last five decades, AIMA has contributed immensely to the enhancement of management capability in the country.

AIMA has a broad base of 59 Local Management Associations including two cooperating LMAs abroad, with a membership crossing 30,000 in number. AIMA is a non-lobbying organization, working closely with Industry, Government, Academia and students to further the cause of the management profession in India. AIMA is represented on the Boards of India’s premier Business Institutions like Indian Institute of Management – IIMs. AIMA is also represented on Boards of Government bodies including the All India Council for Technical Education, National Board of Accreditation, National Productivity Council to name a few.

AIMA makes a salutary contribution to management learning and practice in the country by offering various services in the areas of testing, distance education, research, publications and management development programmes.

AIMA brings to the Indian managers, the best management practices and techniques through numerous foreign collaborations with professional bodies and institutions. AIMA is a member of the Asian Association of Management Organisations (AAMO) and works closely with several international management institutions like INSEAD, St Gallen Foundation etc. in organising international conferences and management development programmes.

www.aima-ind.org

About Accenture Institute for High PerformanceThe Accenture Institute for High Performance creates strategic insights into key management issues and macroeconomic and political trends through original research and analysis. Its management researchers combine world-class reputations with Accenture’s extensive consulting, technology and outsourcing experience to conduct innovative research and analysis into how organizations become and remain high-performance businesses.

DisclaimerThis Report has been published for information and illustrative purposes only and is not intended to serve as advice of any nature whatsoever. The information contained and the references made in this Report is in good faith, neither Accenture nor any of its directors, agents or employees give any warranty of accuracy nor accepts any liability as a result of reliance upon the information, advice, statement or opinion contained in this Report. This Report also contains certain information available in public domain, created and maintained by private and public organizations. Accenture does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timelines or completeness of such information. This Report constitutes a view as on the date of publication. Accenture does not warrant or solicit any kind of act or omission based on this Report.

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ContactsAnish GuptaManaging Partner, Products Operating Group, Accenture, India [email protected]

Raghav NarsalayAccenture Institute for High Performance [email protected]

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 236,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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Democratizing innovation - Accenture/media/accenture/conversion-assets/... · The Honey Bee Network is a voluntary network of like-minded individuals, innovators, farmers, scholars,