Inverted model of innovation: IGNITE ‘12
The unprecedented response to the IGNITE competition for children’s innovations by NIF has created new benchmarks of curiosity and creativity of children. Compared to around 4000 entries last year, this year 14889 children responded from 282 districts of 30 states and union territory. Selecting 32 children was not easy. Children have once again proved that they are far less patient with the unsolved problems of our society than many of us. The inverted model of innovation implies that children invent, engineers and designers fabricate and companies commercialize. The awards will be given by Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, former President of India on November 10, 2012 at 3 pm at IIMA campus. Those who want to be inspired so that they can overcome their own inertia would not miss this date. The rest can enjoy their comfort with inertia, inefficiency and inadequacy in dealing with the social problem. Each child would also get a copy of patent application filed in their names apart from seeing the prototype wherever feasible. The children are always advised not to make feasibility the enemy of desirability. In addition to the award winners, we intend to invite some children whose ideas were found very interesting even if not worthy of award. There were other children who had the courage to send absurd ideas. We intend to invite some of those kids also to attend the programme. Who knows what seems absurd today may become a reality tomorrow.
Let me share the ideas of youngest children under class eight this week. The ideas of the children upto class tenth and twelfth will be shared in the coming weeks. Mohammed Usman Hanif Patel from Jalgaon, Maharashtra, class two thought about a fan inside the house powered by the windmill on the rooftop mechanically. He also thought about a sorting machine for different sizes of oranges. Rajshree Choudhary, class five, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand would not let people use mobile phone while driving and has developed an interesting concept for that. It is a pity that while children are concerned about this bad habit, adults just ignore this basic etiquette of driving. How many lives would be saved by this innovation by preventing accidents caused by this habit is anybody’s guess. Shiv Shankar Kumar, class six and Ravi Ranjan class eight from Patna, Bihar would prevent people from driving vehicles without carrying their driving licence. The system they have designed would not let their car or other vehicle start till the driver’s licence has been acknowledged. Aditya Joshi, class eight, Pune, Maharashtra has conceived a spray which will make gloves or socks water proof when needed. The layer can be peeled off when not needed. Lakshya Kaura, Naman Jain, Manav Mitra, Utkarsh Hora, Amrit Dang and Sehaj Kataria are extremely concerned that many people meet with an accident while walking or driving with their headphones on because they can’t hear the horn or the sound of other traffic. They would rather have a device, which will capture frequencies above a limit and thus alert the user of the impending danger.
Charishma, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh has come out with an extremely creative solution to solve the traffic problems. We have all seen that in the morning and evening different sides of the road have excessive traffic. If dividers situated in between the road could be moved to left or right depending upon the traffic load on either side of the road, the space utilization and traffic movement can be optimized to a great extent. The traffic authorities may like to pay attention to this idea and experiment with mobile dividers on the road.
Kripesh Swain and Kumar Biswajeet, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa have thought about a very serious problem of our society. In the flood prone regions, there are times when all the wells and hand pumps are inundated and there is a severe water shortage. In some places, effort has been made to raise the platform of the hand pump a few feet to address this problem. The idea suggested by the children is a hand pump that will automatically raise with the onset of flood to ensure drinking water availability. Even if such a hand pump had to be raised to a higher level manually with some kind of retractable system, it would still be a great relief. Be ready to read about many more creative ideas in the coming weeks. We welcome entrepreneurs, designers, fabricators and entrepreneurs to join hands with the Honey Bee Network and NIF so that the inverted model can be implemented fast. Look forward to make our children believe that their job is to imagine and invent, the rest of the steps in the value chain will be taken care of by the country. Impatient children are the greatest asset of our country.
Anil K Gupta
