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Jugaad Innovation

I picked up this book from a used book-store recently, attracted by the title.  A big fan of rural innovation, I was excited to read about ingenious inventions where cleverness, thrift and enterprise lead to great outcomes - and was not disappointed. The book starts with the story of MittiCool which is jugaad at its finest. And that is only one of many dozen examples culled from around the BRIC countries. 

The authors describe western innovation as doing more with more - throw money and resources into R&D and expect it will produce results, pay for itself. They point to evidence that such has not been the case and the ROI for innovation investment has fallen woefully short. The jugaad style is all about doing more with less and while it may not be the most optimized for scale, it does deliver an amazing amount of value. So there is a great deal to learn from the masters of jugaad. 

I remember first stepping into a Michael's upon my arrival in America. It was unclear to me why such an overabundance of craft supplies - what if any craft was even possible with such surfeit of material?  I had prided myself in being able to up-cycle and re-cycle things into decorative pieces. In fact, many of my "creations" were given as gifts to family and friends because the jugaad that went into their production was appreciated by them.

I thought the whole idea of an enterprise like Micheal's was a mistake. Craft cannot exist with abundance of materials because that will kill imagination and creativity. The end product using supplies from a craft store may look a lot better than one of my jugaad efforts with empty perfume bottles, old sari borders, broken glass bangles and earrings with missing parts. But in level of craftiness the jugaad piece would come miles ahead. No surprise either that I have not produced anything remotely creative with odds and ends since coming to America. More with more does not seem to be working out for me. I seemed to have thrived with way less. Such is indeed the case with the many examples of rural innovation in this book. A great read.

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