Concept of Frugal Innovation & Affordability

Affordability Concept nowadays refers to lifestyles, incomes and how things can be designed, constructed and managed at a lower cost. At present, the scope of affordable design only limits to cost reduction. We talk about sustainability, innovation & affordability. Are we?

Entrepreneurs & Designers are bringing great innovation & products in the market for the betterment in the living standard of the society.

As designers, our passion for designing should reflect for & to the people.

Combining Simplicity, Self Reliance, Scalability, Craftsmanship, and Affordability with great frugal innovation can empower the living standard of middle & lower groups. We can position ourselves as a “fertile breeding ground” for frugal solutions to “problems without borders.”

Simplicity is all about adding the meaning & subtracting the obvious. Simple yet effective ideas are what get people’s attention. Products are environmentally friendly and sustainable due to design and quality. Innovations mask the real cost and deflect the search for more sustainable solutions. It is all about creating an advantage out of constraint. By facing scarce resources and institutional voids, frugal innovators create radical new solutions to problems. It’s about making things cheaper, but better, more appropriate and self-sustained. It involves using available resources in new ways, reducing or re-using waste or even re-thinking an entire system around a product or service

We need to need to move from “Concept of more with more” to not just “Concept of more with less” but “Do better with less.” Frugal innovation: Jugaad, a Hindi word that means a flexible approach to solve a problem, that uses limited resources in an innovative way. Objects of low value can turn into something of high value. Frugal innovation can be low tech, like the Mitti cool fridge made by clay, but it can also be about using high tech to make services more affordable and more accessible to all the user groups.

Innovation and Technology are made affordable and transferred to lower-income markets to solve social problems such as housing and infrastructure. At the same time, the solutions are qualitative, economical and sustainable. Being attentive, reactive and innovative.