Fostering Grassroots Innovation

Recently, I was given the opportunity to attend Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia’s Malaysia-India Grassroot Innovation Workshop. It was an honor to be there listening to the Grassroot Innovation Guru, Prof. Anil Gupta himself talk. Before I proceed, lemme tell you what “Grassroot Innovation” is.

“Grassroots initiatives are innovative networks of activists and organisations that lead bottom-up solutions for sustainable development; solutions that respond to the local situation and the interests and values of the communities involved. In contrast to conventional, incremental green reforms, grassroots initiatives seek to practice deeper, alternative forms of sustainable development.

The initiatives involve committed activists who often seek to experiment with social innovations as well as using greener technologies and techniques in areas such as housing, renewable energy, food, and alternative money. They frequently seek to create new social institutions and ‘systems of provision’ based upon different values to those of the mainstream. Examples include community renewable energy initiatives, eco-housing, local organic food schemes, and community currencies such as time banks.”

Source: Grassroots Innovation

Too long? Thought so. In a layman’s words, these are innovative solutions created to solve day-to-day local issues. Real-life examples:


Example 1:
Need: I wanna make homemade organic fishcakes
Issues / problem statement: Deboning a fish takes too much time.
Solution: Picit ikan guna belakang tapis. Big bones takde, isi ikan pun dapat
Commercialised solution: Tapis with berat, material, design, i.e. saiz lubang big enough to get maximum isi ikan with minimum effort.


Example 2:
Need: Separate egg yolk and whites for baking
Issues / problem statement: How la to separate? They come together! Can use hands but not hygienic.
Solution: Pecahkan telur dalam something that would hold only the yolk and let the whites turun.
Commercialised solution: Egg separator yang beli dekat kedai bakery tu.

p.s: If my interpretation of the above is wrong, tolong betulkan ye. Tq!

Solution macam ni orang2 yang involved in that kerja je yang terfikir sebab they are the ones who would come up with solutions to make their jobs easier. These creative people are everywhere. Sekolah, kedai2 jual nasi lemak, office people, you, I, they're EVERYWHERE! Tetapi, makcik2 student sekolah, you and I yang creative2 ni maybe takde business acumen. Reti pikir je. So it’s someone’s responsibility to go look for these innovations and find someone to support their commercialisation. This is how the model can work: Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia is doing. YIM = find. Business incubators / TPM = support. Gomen, angels and venture capitalists = fund.

Jadi kalau ade sape2 yang rase dia ada solution creative tu, pegi la contact orang yang berkenaan okey! Prolly they can get you somewhere. Kot2 dapat jadi millionaire ke.

Alright, I started the entry to write about children and innovation. Turns out the intro itself is too long. Nanti next entry aku tulis pasal children and innovation, ok?

p/s: the above picture are only some of the agencies that incubate and provide funding. There are many others that do the same thing. For list of business incubators, can msg me. For list of funders, visit SME Info Portal.

p/p/s: all pics are from google. I googled "orange men".