Innovation that is inclusive, socially connected, sustainable and attuned to the needs of everyone — Orchestrated to echo this theme, the Sunday launch of the Deccan Centre for Innovation and Design (DCID) here had a distinct social impact linkage.
Magsaysay award winner and Selco India MD, Harish Hande articulated it aptly when he said: “We can be that superpower of sustainable solutions if we can innovate for six billion people of the world!”
It was doable, provided the innovation targets were broad-based to include the poor. Innovators had much to learn from the poor.
“Two crore street vendors never go out of business, when the likes of Vijay Mallya never got it right with all the MBAs. Partner with them, since the poor has been subsidising us. We don’t pay them market rates,” Hande told a packed gathering at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) here.
Inclusive solutions mandated an understanding of the social realities. But there was no database. “You don’t find it by googling, because many of our problems are not even articulated,” said Hande. The education system, fostering another caste system, was totally out of sync to decipher this.
To be a society of innovators, the system had to learn to celebrate failures. Hande’s elaboration was sharp: “If a child breaks a toy, he would know what’s inside and become more creative! When a kid comes up with an idea, with what right do we reject it? Do we have the right to kill that idea?”
Launching DCID, Deccan Herald Editor K N Tilak Kumar was clear that the institute would be socially focussed. The latest offering from the K N Guruswamy Trust, DCID is designed to eventually morph as a platform to nurture social innovation and entrepreneurship. He said: “DCID is to become a resource centre, putting the citizens at the centre and evolving systems around them.”
Institute director, Arvind Lodaya reiterated DCID’s commitment to develop a culture of social consciousness, while boosting the skill-sets of potential startup entrepreneurs through a multi-pronged course-incubator-innovator approach.
Public lectures and events would eventually build a social impact startup community. Mumbai’s Dabbawallahs had demonstrated the remarkable success of a well-oiled social enterprise. So could social startups, if given the right leads, contended Arvind.
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