Innovation and India

In this article, Mayank Jaiswal, Villgro Fellow 2010, looks at how innovation in India differs from innovation in the West, and what might help bridge the gap.

I have always been intrigued by the question – why does systematic innovation and product design happen so much better in the developed world compared to the developing world?

In this piece, I have tried to triangulate the causes and potential solutions, using my reading and understanding of the book “From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation” by Rishikesha T Krishnan, talking to Heather Fleming (Co-founder, Catapult Design) and my own grey cells. I have also attempted to predict some future trends. First, it is pivotal to confirm whether the developed world actually does design better products than those of the developing world? I am not going to quote texts, tomes, or indices as mentioned in the book, but from  first-hand experience, the details and attention to efficiency, ease of use and the ‘user experience’ derived from a  salt shaker or   an  airplane, I can say product design is executed better in the developed world than the developing world.

This begs the question: are product design skills God’s gifts to certain individuals or are they acquired? I turned to Heather Fleming for answers. Fleming has worked with Engineers Without Borders both in Kenya and India. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University, where she teaches at the School of Design where she interacts with students from different nationalities.  Speaking to her, I got a sense that genetic disposition may not be a factor, i.e, you don’t have to be born with keen spatial or aesthetic sense. But the cultural differences surely are. For example, Flemming suggests that in the US there is an ‘innovative air,’ particularly in Silicon Valley. This spirit to innovate and make things better is ingrained deeply in the US due to the capitalist nature of society which rewards better processes and innovative solutions to problems.  India has slowly started emerging from the quasi-socialist model, moving towards a capitalist model for economic governance. I am not criticizing or condoning the reasons why India took the quasi-socialist route to develop after independence, since I believe that is a separate discussion altogether. However, it is a fact nonetheless and in this model’s focus was on provision of jobs and making mega industries with foreign help.

So is culture the only aspect? Not quite, there’s actually more! Applied design also has a strong role to play in developing a sound innovation system. Fleming pointed out that she went to Stanford to study design and right from the get go the focus was on applied design. This mirrors the discussion about educational institutions and academic institutes referred to by Krishnan in his book. The incentives for educational institutes in the US (and now China too) are tied much more closely to research and innovation as compared to Indian institutions. Also, the funding for basic science research like Physics and Chemistry is huge in countries like the US as compared to India. This leads to more innovative products, which in turns leads to more innovation and better designed products.

The academic research is followed by great infrastructural support. If an individual is passionate about innovation and product design there are a plethora of companies in the US one could join and hone these skills.  Apple, which makes the ‘coolest’ products, as well as more mundane businesses like Kellogg are working grounds for product designers. (Yes, Kellogg! I personally think they need to figure a way to increase the shelf life of their product, as well as use less packaging material.) Not to mention established design shops like IDEO or start ups like Catapult Design.

Are we to assume then that individuals do not matter? Is it just the infrastructure? Well, that would not be fully correct. Heather attributes Stanford for her ability to design for “American companies,” but it was her zeal and passion for sustainable design which led her to self-learn concepts of sustainable design (the basis of all of Catapult’s work). Due to her experience, Heather and Catapult incorporate a holistic view of design beyond the nuts and bolts to include questioning who the consumer, what competition exists and how the consumer use the product. Heather has actually taken a few pages from the business analysis book and uses it to design a complete, practical and implementable solution for her clients. Thus, it is not all about the infrastructure!

Finally, what does the future hold? Will the balance remain as is – developed world doing all the design and the developing world following along? This is a tough one, and one can but make educated guesses at best. We can clearly see a trend in countries like India and China towards innovation. There are more incubators opening and more incentives for academic institutions to do cutting edge research, but is the developing world there yet? I would say not really, that it is on the right track but still has a ways to go. On the other hand, is everything hunky dory for the developed world? Not really! The U.S state of Ohio recently banned outsourcing of federal or state government contracts.  It is getting tougher for foreign nationals to get jobs in the developed world, given that a major recession is going on and the developed world is facing unemployment issues, but the flight of talent to the developed world was a key reason for its cutting edge technologies.  Companies such as Microsoft, Intel have openly valued the role foreign nationals played in growing their companies. Thus these trends do not augur well for the innovation ecosystem of the developed world, but what has to be seen is do these trends continue when the developed world has come out of the recession.

Of course, an ideal situation would be when both the developing and the developed world ignite a healthy competition to attract human resources – the key to innovation – and simultaneously provide infrastructure to support them. In such a situation the world will come out ahead.

The author would like to thank Heather Fleming, Co-Founder of Catapult Designs who graciously gave her time to talk on the subject and review the draft of the article.