My love and hate relationship with Innovation! – Rohan

“Innovation” a cliched word which people use free at will, add to any marketing content or context, just to make them sound cool, different, advanced and superior.

Even I am guilty of doing that! Most of the time it’s because of the audience, they love it. But, in my defense it isn’t always a gimmick, there is some truth to it.

I believe the concept of innovation is highly relative and totally depends on what you perceive as innovation. Innovation can be a mind-blowing idea, a new solution, a new approach and sometimes it can be a matter of seeing the same old things from a different angle and giving a new story. Sometimes people may call it as a gimmick, but if this gimmick is solving the problem! For me, that’s an innovation.

As a kid I used to think randomly about new ideas, one such idea was the infinite power generator, this may not be feasible in the real world, to be honest, I assumed this won’t work in the real world, otherwise, someone would have done it already.
(Irony: working on power generators now! )

Anyways as a kid, I used to ponder on such things. In another instance, I made an alarm clock which would play music instead of old common alarm sound (In the late ’90s). I am not a tech wizard, I used the available resources at my hand: Old clock, dad’s detachable car stereo player, DC battery charger and a couple of wires.

As I reflect back on my life, I would say the above instances would be my first experiences with innovation, as I understand. Back then I never understood how a person became an inventor. I really wanted to be one, but I am not a tech wizard or a science person, I was unsure about how I can be this person, who just makes a better solution, thrives to make world a better place. Hence, I left it and explored other interest like designing as a hobby and went on to become an engineer, like every other Indian.

Then next round of exposure came while working with a technology start-up incubator in 2009. There I got to experience products which were way ahead of its time. One of the projects which I worked on was an online portal (almost social network) for visually impaired. In 3 years, we had 5000 users from around the world. This was my first exposure to start-ups and to people who were creating brilliant products and people who took a different path than the norm. This was my first exposure with the social sector as well, deep down in my heart; I always wanted to explore this social sector, but I had to find a balance.

After this point, innovation was part of my product ideas in my start-up, where I explored various ideas, ideas which came out from different observation and experiences in life. Though the project never saw the light for various reasons, It was good learning.

After exploring my own businesses a couple of times and failing multiple times. I needed a break, and different atmosphere, hence Ashoka; I have been slowly exploring things hidden deep down in my mind. Ashoka was overwhelming exposure to dynamic colleagues and incredible network on social change makers.

I know Ashoka fellows are social innovators. I wanted to explore innovation, even though I have something which I want to work on. I am not ready to start my own again, for time being I want to try social innovation, by helping other people who are working for the society.

When I was searching for a master course, I was exploring different courses which dealt with innovation and not a typical Business course. Design thinking was a keyword I used while doing so. And the direction I always looked forward to Social Innovation.

For me social innovation makes people’s life better, It can be about sustainability, electric motorbikes, livelihood, empowerment, technology, cradle to cradle or bio mimicry design; literally unlimited sectors.

As I reflect back on life, I want to list out certain instances(things I heard and read), which kept pulling my need to explore new innovations.

Though these always attracted me, I was always let down by the thought that, I am not a technology geek or research scientist who can build things, I was aware I am creative, but I could never find a field where these combined, or rather I was not aware about how these merged. I mean even now this is scattered sector and in a way un structured in my opinion, it’s hard to define.

Since I joined the course, I have been juggling with the idea of social innovation or other sectors, as I was concerned about the salary in this sector and I have a student loan to pay off.

Which brings back to our Munich visit, I had a fantastic experience, especially regarding German history, Hitler’s army and their operational side; I further visited places in Berlin continuing my quest on this topic.

I visited the BMW museum, which is again I believe is one of the iconic car/ technology company and It was thrilling to see the evolution of them.

Among the workshop, social innovation workshop was my favorite, as it was a significant relief concerning the doubts I had! as I got one good contact and had a good conversation regarding this sector and how I can approach. Hence I am again happily looking forward to work in social innovation.