Innovation and micro entrepreneurs

Innovation is not necessarily high end. The synergy between high-tech science and the grassroots is throwing up technology-based solution for local problems. There are many innovative applications - from creating a tree climbing tool to producing a tool to generate energy from running tap water.

Even though these tools and solutions developed for the rural segment have opened up new markets for micro entrepreneurs, these innovators need support to increase the scale.

"It's difficult to scale something down, especially in the technology space. You need to make sure that what you are developing is reaching out to the bottom of pyramid," said Sanjay Swamy, CEO and founder, mChek.

"It's all about thinking right from the beginning. You need to get everything right - from technology to business needs - from the beginning point," said Dr. Vikram Sheel Kumar, chairman, Dimagi.

"The real challenges is a lot of people like the ones present here have innovated but have not reached to the bottom of the pyramid yet. We should be looking at scaling up the spirit of the image. At the same time, we should not only think about scaling up the size but also about taking innovation down. Also, we should not think about one size fitting all. There are continuous innovators; we need to make it available to all."

To scaling down the innovation, there is a need to understand the market well. "There is no innovation being successful without it. So there's a need to understand the need of the market," said Sanjay.

Who is driving the bottom of pyramid technology? "Young Indians, small startups and consumers themselves," said Dr. Sheel. 

There are two models of innovations: research-based and knowledge-based models of innovations. "We need to boost the later that will encourage diffusing entrepreneurship at the bottom," he said.

Most of the problems related to these projects are related to their design; they don't have good design. Also, "there are problems at the communication level. In fact, there is a lack of public support for these innovators. So there are several steps that we need to take. I see a lot of possibilities," said Dr. Kumar.