An innovation that solves one of the most common pain of farmers & manual labourers
Ganesh Jangir’s journey from a carpenter to an innovator left us, Inven Trust, overwhelmed. Yet another living example of ‘nothing is impossible’, this story is about an innovation that deals with a problem that affects every stratum of society and yet, unsolved. It is also about how innovation, even today, faces some age-old challenges. Read on..
Q. What’s your story?
A. My name is Ganesh Jangir. I come from a carpenter family in a formerly-semi-rural-but-recently-sprawling city called Jaipur, in Rajasthan, India. I am 30 years old and being from a carpenter’s family, I have always involved myself in making new stuff or even re-inventing household electronics. It wasn’t unusual to spot me working hard at an old piece of electronics or a rejected log, trying to make something out of them.
It always seemed to me that I could make waste useful. I guess that came out of my time in making wooden toys, household items and selling them to neighbours, in my childhood. And you’d imagine that I started in a fancy lab? That sense of sniffing problems never ended. As time progressed, I kept applying my mind and skills to solve problems around me. I ended up innovating quite a bit. I have more than 9 national and international patents.
Q. What does innovation really mean to you?
As much as I understand innovation, it means just one thing — solving the pain points of the mass or making existing solutions better and more affordable.
Q. What problem are you solving?
A. My latest pride is the JaipurBelt, a Spine and Body Support System for people who must work is the same positions for long hours or must repeatedly bend their backs or even for those who have spine and back problems like Kyposis, Spondylitis, Slip-Disk due to work load, age and lifestyle. It supports the spine and waist by sharing physical work load up to a predefined variable limit instead of restricting body movements. It’s a foldable, easy-to-use and handy device.
Q. Are you ‘crazy’ in your thinking, sometimes?
A. Oh Yes! I guess innovation or invention is essentially triggered by some ‘crazy’ thinking. It’s the essence of solving.
So, this was back at one time when I was helping my parents, in our farm. I felt an immense back pain after working for only a few minutes. It prevented me from working that day. I wasn’t sure of the cause so I asked some fellows also working there if they feel similar pain when working like this. I wasn’t too surprised when they said yes, they do experience pain. What came next surprised me — they said there is nothing they could do about it except taking rest. Now it didn’t strike the right chord in me. And that led to the invention of JaipurBelt.
