Importance of Recognition for Rural/Frugal Innovators
How many times do you often hear Urban Participants referring to Frugal Talent from a typical Rural background making competition tough for them? It is rare at least when the talent is taking part for the first time. The above was the case at the recently held 3rd edition of Jagriti Yatra’s Sustainable Enterprise Awards 2019 in collaboration with CocaCola India, in Mumbai. I still remember the first-ever reception I received by one of the competents towards the Rural Innovators of Telangana getting selected for finals — “This time the finals are going to be tough only because of your Telangana innovators,” (while there were total 15 finalists across India with 10 from Telangana).
Out of the 6 winners across India, three Innovators from Telangana won at the third edition of Jagriti Sustainable Enterprise Awards 2019 in collaboration with CocaCola India, held on 28th and 29th November 2019, at SIMSREE college, Mumbai. The awards were given under the themes — Water, Recycle & and Agriculture.
Currently working for Rural Innovators of Telangana through Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), I was often hearing, often told, and looking at — the market for rural innovators, funding them, they should be given visibility, they should be provided incubation support — etc. Amidst the confusion that is currently being tackled in the state efficiently, I intended to concentrate on creating visibility and recognition, where I realised lately that the former serves a limited purpose, and the latter should be bought to scale-up the visibility.
When we started getting the stories of innovators published in the news platforms, it first built trust with regards to personal pain being the root of an idea, marketing a good idea, speaking about human impact, that it can be tried now (product or service), and in turn making the innovator stick to his passion of innovating irrespective of the many challenges she/he has to go through.
While this approach of VISIBILITY was only a momentum-setting one, it needs a development, which comes in the form of RECOGNITION that completes the purpose of Acknowledging the frugal innovations of Rural India.
When few Rural Innovators of Telangana who devised machines related to various rural problems were awarded among industry players at big-level industry awards in Hyderabad, a unique message was established. The platform not just awarded rural innovators but, introduced that Frugal Solutions impacting communities doesn’t (or probably “need not”) hold any presentations, annual projections, team setup, etc. This event made me realise that Rural Innovations have a greater scope of introductions, visibility and recognition not for the mere gratification but to tell the world that — to solve, create impact, and become changemaker, you need not prep but just Innovate in your area of knowledge — which is what is happening in the Rural Telangana.
Along the lines, I sent 15 applications of Rural Innovations to Jagriti Sustainable Enterprise Awards 2019 under the themes Agriculture, Water, and Recycle. The event that focusses on recognising and rewarding Social Enterprises, for the maiden time experienced Individual Innovators from Rural backgrounds participating, for which Telangana became the initiator of the same. The idea of sending in innovators is to set the stage of Openness with regards to Social Impact solutions. The reasons varied on:
1. To let the jury know that solutions can be generated irrespective of age, education, geography & demography, market understanding, team, etc.
2. To turn these Rural Innovators as catalysts, further exemplifying the Telangana Innovation-Ecosystem.
3. To become the first state to go beyond the enterprise model in the social impact sector.
4. To introduce the Rural Innovators to the concepts of pitching an idea or a solution, nurture their minds to develop the ideas.
It was a surprise package for the participants, jury, and attendees for having Rural Innovators presenting the solution, who can’t speak in the language of enterprise but present a pain that they have undergone personally, for which they spoke solution.
One of the important outcomes with regards to passion, and innovative thought-process, the event made the innovators instantly self-ideate right before the presentation on how their innovations could be scaled-up. A point here to be noted is that ideation is not a matter of ease, but it needs a lot of effort, which comes with personal experience, which was the case with those Rural innovators and their solutions.
The other outcome that happened, which coincidentally was supposed to be our message, and takeaway for enterprises in the social impact sector, was when the jury consistently questioned the whereabouts on marketing models, branding, target model, financial model, etc to the innovators on their innovations. A point that must be learned is that Innovation coming out of a Village by a Farmer or a Fisherman or a Mechanic an Unemployed Youth etc, is still far-fetched from an enterprise model, as their approach towards the problem is not Participatory. Because all the innovators who sold their solutions did it in an I2C model (Innovator-to-Customer) but not B2B or B2C.
To conclude, the very reason for making Rural Innovators participate in such an event could be sufficed in innovators’ language — “We didn’t know that there exist rules and a separate language to even tell the world that there is a solution to a problem. But we only realised that visibility to innovative solutions from rural areas at such platforms of diverse people is the need of the hour. It will only help us innovate better and more because we should know that frugal solutions create self-reliable communities.
