The start-ups working on cheap innovation

For Mansukh Prajapati, childhood within the western Indian metropolis of Morbi started earlier than dawn, with a six-mile stroll to gather clay for his or her household enterprise.

“My father was a potter,” he remembers.

Typically he would get up to the rhythmic sound of his father at work at his potter’s wheel.

“My mom and I might rise up at 4 within the morning and stroll for miles on daily basis to get clay.”

Used for storing water, clay pots have been a typical merchandise in Indian households within the Seventies.

However the earnings from making pots was meagre and the career additionally got here with social stigma.

“No person needed to their daughter married in a potter’s household,” Mr Prajapati says. “They feared she can be burdened with infinite labour.”

Aged 31, a pure catastrophe marked the turning level for Mr Prajapati.

The devastating earthquake that hit Gujarat in 2001 destroyed his household house and left a pile of smashed clay pots within the courtyard.

“A neighborhood reporter wrote that ‘the poor folks’s fridge is damaged’,” Mr Prajapati says.

“Clay pots preserve water cool in the summertime, so they’re identical to a fridge. The thought obtained caught in my head. So, I made a decision to make a fridge out of clay that does not want electrical energy.”

With no formal coaching, Mr Prajapati began experimenting with designs and supplies.

“I first tried to make it like the fashionable fridge and even added a water tank, however nothing labored’, he says.

“At one level I had $22,000 (£17,000) in loans and needed to promote my home and small workshop. However I knew I needed to preserve going.”

It took 4 years of tinkering to provide you with a design that labored – a small clay cupboard with a water speak on the highest and storage cabinets beneath.

As water trickles via the cupboard’s porous clay partitions, it naturally cools the inside.

Mr Prajapati says it could actually preserve fruit and greens contemporary for a minimum of 5 days – no electrical energy wanted.

He named it MittiCool or the clay that stays cool.

At $95 its inexpensive and now bought via 300 shops in India and exported to international locations together with the UK, Kenya, and UAE.

“Fridges are a dream for a lot of poor households,” Mr Prajapati says. “And such desires ought to be inside attain.”

Mr Prajapati’s innovation is a part of a rising wave of grassroots entrepreneurship in India, pushed by necessity.

Prof Anil Gupta who runs the Honeybee Community, a platform for supporting such ventures, name these “frugal improvements”.

“It’s a mindset,” says Prof Gupta.

“Frugal innovation is about making options inexpensive, accessible, and accessible. Many of those innovators haven’t got formal schooling however are fixing actual world issues.”

It is tough to place a quantity on such companies, as there has by no means been an in-depth examine.

Prof Gupta says such start-ups are essential as a result of they supply jobs in rural areas and begin a cycle of financial change.

For instance, Mr Prajapati now employs 150 folks in his workshop and has branched out into cookware, clay water filters and is experimenting with houses manufactured from clay.

One other start-up that is hoping for related success, is run by Bijayshanti Tongbram within the northeastern state of Manipur.

She lives in Thanga village which is house to certainly one of India’s largest freshwater lakes, Loktak.

Right here lotus flowers bloom in abundance.

“Folks in my village use the petals of lotus flowers for non secular choices. However their stems usually go to waste and that is what I needed to vary and considered doing one thing sustainable,” she says.

A botanist by career, Ms Tongbram developed a technique to extract silk-like fibres from the lotus stems and now leads a staff of 30 ladies in her village who spin the threads right into a yarn and weaves them into distinctive scarves and clothes.

“It takes two months, and 9,000 lotus stems to make one scarf,” she says.

Ms Tongbram pays the ladies $80 a month.

“This is not nearly vogue. I’m giving ladies in my village an opportunity to do one thing apart from fishing and earn cash,” she says.

Like many small enterprise house owners, she desires to scale-up and discover new markets, maybe abroad.

“Funding is the most important problem,” she says.

Prof Gupta from the Honeybee community agrees.

“There are authorities schemes and small grants, however rural entrepreneurs usually do not know learn how to entry them.

“Even enterprise capitalists who’re taking a look at IT improvements hardly ever spend money on these sorts of start-ups due to excessive transaction prices,” he says.

However, innovators proceed to spring up.

In Karanataka’s Vijaynagar, Girish Badragond is engaged on a tool to assist blind and partially-sighted farmers.

His machine, described as a wise farming stick, makes use of soil sensors and climate information to information its customers in regards to the crop situations and harvests via audio messages and vibrations.

“There are such a lot of blind folks in India who need to farm however they can not belief others to information them. This can assist them change into unbiased and empower them,” says Mr Badragond.

He has sourced mechanical elements from totally different retailers and is hoping to achieve help for commercialising his venture quickly. For now, he’s doing rounds of presidency exhibitions.

“It is a prototype however I’m hopeful that folks will help me to vary lives of others,” he says.