Invention creates a product for the first time; Innovation improves products to create new ones and is in no way inferior to inventions
Several readers wanted to know more about FITTLE, the game innovated by Tania Jain from NID, Ahmedabad with the help of LVPEI, a play device with which blind children (or adults) not only learn to understand shapes, but also the Braille word for them . The child is given a set like a puzzle and if it fits correctly, they can also run their finger through the area with the word for the shape (letters for f, i, s and h) using Braille. This is a fun way to learn both braille and the shape of things. You can find out more on the page> http://globalaccessibilitynews.com/2014/02/03/
3D Printing-Puzzles-Help-Students-with-Visually Impaired-Feel-the-Words /. Some others asked if FITTLE was an invention or an innovation. Puzzles are not new, they existed and were on the market before Tania was born. Likewise Braille. But what Tania Jain had was an idea. With the idea of letting blind people learn shapes as well as words, she put together two existing “products” and launched a new one. She did not invent Braille or the idea of a puzzle, but made a significant contribution with existing products and services. It’s the idea that matters. What she did, merging two existing elements into a new one, is an example of innovation.
Why is it not an invention? Because invention in the purest sense is the creation of a product for the first time or the introduction of a process. Mr. Louis Braille first invented the Touch and Learn script. This is what someone did centuries ago with the form-fitting idea of the puzzle. By defining invention for the first time as a product and innovation as improving an existing product to create a new one, we are not putting invention on a higher pedestal than innovation. Both are creative acts and therefore commendable. People are talking about the late Apple Mr. Steve Jobs and his iPod as an exceptional innovator. Yes he was, but remember what he did. As Tour Grasty, co-founder of online video editing company Stroome, points out, the iPod wasn’t the first portable music device. SONY came out with its Walkman in the early 1990s. MP3 devices were also on the market. What made Apple innovative was that it combined all of these elements of design, ergonomics and ease of use – in a single device. The innovation here has been the development of an easy-to-use product that combines unified music recognition, delivery, and facility.
Also note that you don’t have to be a PhD or a highly trained engineer to be innovative. Steve Jobs was neither, nor is Tania. Anyone with a creative mind can be innovative. Look at the household cool box that we use all over India during the summer. It used to be attached to the window like air conditioners and kept the room nice and cool. (Now we have a portable model with wheels). What went into the production? Four products already available: an exhaust fan, a submersible water pump, a prefabricated frame fitted with fragrant leaves of khus khus grass (or vettiver), and power supply.
Prof. Anil Gupta from IIM Ahmedabad has not only compiled a list of such “Desi” innovations, but also helped and supported them and helped us all to recognize and admire the creative minds of their innovations. It’s called the Honeybee Network and lists many of the admirable innovations of the ‘aam admi’. My favorite there is that of an older Bihar villager who developed a bicycle with inflatable rubber tires that he uses to cross a river to meet his lover on the other bank.
Basically, innovation is actually a “fix” or “hack” and in the highest degree – tablet, iPod or iPhone. The river crossing bike and Co. are often ridiculed by city residents as Jugaad or Make-do, just because it is not “cool” or “high-tech”. But the cooler sells millions of times and also makes money. High-end models to the taste of the gated community people are also available. Packaging seems important in order to sell well.
To paraphrase Tom Grasty, “So how do you know if you’re inventing or innovating? Consider this analogy: if innovation is a pebble thrown into the pond, innovation is the ripple that the pebble creates. The ripple can cause a wave. The wave observer is the entrepreneur. The pebble is the invention, the ripple, the innovation and the wave watcher of entrepreneurs.
dbala@lvpei.org
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