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 recollects.

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 every single day to get clay.”

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

However the revenue from making pots was meagre and the occupation additionally got here with social stigma.

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

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

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

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

“Clay pots maintain water cool in the summertime, so they’re identical to a fridge. The thought bought 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 maintain going.”

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

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

Mr Prajapati says it could maintain fruit and greens recent for at the very least 5 days – no electrical energy wanted.

He named it MittiCool or the clay that stays cool.

At $95 its inexpensive and now offered by way of 300 shops in India and exported to nations together with the UK, Kenya, and UAE.

“Fridges are a dream for a lot of poor households,” Mr Prajapati says. “And such desires needs 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 do not have formal training however are fixing actual world issues.”

It is troublesome 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 properties made 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 dwelling to certainly one of India’s largest freshwater lakes, Loktak.

Right here lotus flowers bloom in abundance.

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

A botanist by occupation, Ms Tongbram developed a solution 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 trend. I’m giving ladies in my village an opportunity to do one thing aside from fishing and earn cash,” she says.

Like many small enterprise homeowners, she needs to scale-up and discover new markets, maybe abroad.

“Funding is the largest problem,” she says.

Prof Gupta from the Honeybee community agrees.

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

“Even enterprise capitalists who’re taking a look at IT improvements hardly ever put money into 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 gadget, described as a wise farming stick, makes use of soil sensors and climate knowledge to information its customers in regards to the crop situations and harvests by way of 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. It will assist them develop into impartial and empower them,” says Mr Badragond.

He has sourced mechanical components from totally different outlets and is hoping to realize assist for commercialising his undertaking quickly. For now, he’s doing rounds of presidency exhibitions.

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