Value for Many

Imagine this. You’re a confident young engineer, with an outstanding university pedigree. Now, you’re part of a project team, and together you’re called upon to create something as commonplace as the car. But you’re given such severe cost restrictions that you’re wont to throw your university books out the window, if not scratch your head and bang it against the wall.

Your director tells you, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it!”

This is a talk by RA Mashelkar at TED India, and he offers lessons not just on innovation and philanthropy per se, but also on human capabilities under severe constraints. Below are screen shots from this talk.

It may be a surprise for many of us to know that the majority of the world is impoverished. Never mind access to Facebook. Never mind possession of a computer or mobile.  The ultra poor among us don’t even have easy access to drinkable water, let alone anything remotely technological.  Theirs is pretty much a world of low-tech or no-tech.  

So Mashelkar challenges us:

Media and technology experts and laypeople alike may speak as if the internet ruled the world. As if the staggering number of Facebook members, about 750 million today, defined social relationships. Well, this figure represents just 11% of the world population.  So vast swaths of our fellow citizens are not posting status updates or checking each others’ photos. Facebook is arguably an internet giant, but its dominion is actually small.

So how do we, with our media and technology firepower, do good for the majority that need our help but don’t necessarily have the means to secure it?

This TED Talk speaks to what is possible with the creation of the ultra low-cost Nano car and Jaipur Foot. Some of the posted comments were critical of what Mashelkar shared. Granted, helping the poor is not an easy endeavor and sometimes solving one problem begets another problem, such as traffic gridlock and pollution because of car affordability among the masses. Still, his message is important to heed:  The problems of the poor can be solved, perhaps just in part but solved indeed.

In the end, I found his challenges inspirational.

• We’re not talking about low cost, but ultra low cost and extreme affordability. 
• We’re not talking about exclusive innovation, but inclusive ones so that the many can benefit as well. 
• We’re not talking about incremental innovation, with lengthy development period, but disruptive, transformational innovation done at fractions of the usual time. 
• We’re not talking about wide-ranging (concave) talent, but convex lens leadership meant to harness the power of uncommon focus on a challenge.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD