Start-up working on cheap innovation

For Mansukh Prajapati, the western Indian city of childhood began before the sunrise, with a walk of six miles to collect soil for its family business.

“My father was a potter,” he remembers.

Often he used to wake up for his father’s rhythmic sound to work on his potter’s wheel.

“My mother and I used to get up at four in the morning and used to walk every day to get the clay.”

Used for water storage, earthen pots were a common object in Indian homes in the 1970s.

But the income from making utensils was low and the profession also came with social stigma.

“No one wanted to marry his daughter in a potter’s family,” says Mr. Prajapati. “He was afraid that he would be a burden of endless labor.”

The age of 31, a natural disaster marked the turn point for Mr. Prajapati.

Disastrous earthquake Gujarat killed in 2001 Destroy his family’s house and left a pile of pottery in the courtyard.

“A local reporter wrote that ‘the fridge of poor people is broken’,” Says Mr. Prajapati.

“Earthen pots keep the water cool in summer, so they are like a fridge. The idea is stuck in my head. Therefore, I decided to make a fridge from the soil, which does not require electricity.”

Without any formal training, Mr. Prajapati started experimenting with designs and materials.

“I first tried to make it like a modern fridge and even a water tank pair, but did not work”, he says.

“At one point I had $ 22,000 (£ 17,000) in the loan and I had to sell my home and small workshop. But I knew I would have to keep going.”

Four years of tampering in coming with a design that worked – with a small soil cabinet talk of water and storage shelves at the top.

As a movement of water through the porous earthen walls of the cabinet, it naturally cools the interior.

Mr. Prajapati says that it can keep fruits and vegetables fresh for at least five days – no electricity is needed.

They named it Mitikul or clay which remains calm.

Its affordable in $ 95 and now sold through 300 stores in India and exported to countries including UK, Kenya and UAE.

“The fridge is a dream for many poor families,” says Mr. Prajapati. “And such dreams should be within reach.”

Shri Prajapati’s innovation is part of the growing wave of grassroots entrepreneurship in India, which is operated by need.

Professor Anil Gupta, who runs a platform Honeybee Network to support such enterprises, is called “frugal innovations”.

“This is a mentality,” says Pro Gupta.

“Auspicious innovation solutions are about making cheap, accessible and available. Many of these innovators do not have formal education, but are solving real -world problems.”

It is difficult to put a number on such businesses, as there has never been a thorough study.

Professor Gupta says that such start-ups are important as they provide jobs in rural areas and start a cycle of economic change.

For example, Mr. Prajapati now employs 150 people in his workshop and cookware is out in earthen water filters and is experimenting with houses made of clay.

Another start-up that is expecting similar success, is run by Bijayasanti Tongbram in the northeastern state of Manipur.

She lives in Thanga village which is one of the largest freshwater lakes in India, folklore.

Lotus flowers bloom in abundance here.

“The people of my village use lotus flower petals for religious offerings. But their stems are often ruined and that is what I wanted to change and think about something durable,” she says.

A botanist by profession, Ms. Tongbram, developed a way of extracting fiber like silk from Lotus’s stems and now led a team of 30 women in their village, who spin threads in a yarn and knit them into unique scarves and clothes.

She says, “It takes two months, and 9,000 lotus stems to make a scarf,” she says.

Ms. Tongbram pays $ 80 per month to women.

“It’s not just about fashion. I am giving women in my village a chance to do something other than fishing and earning money,” she says.

Like many small business owners, she wants to scale-up and find new markets, perhaps abroad.

“Funding is the biggest challenge,” she says.

Professor Gupta of Honeybi Network agrees.

“There are government schemes and small grants, but rural entrepreneurs often do not know how to access them.

“Even enterprise capitalists who are looking at IT innovations, rarely invest in this type of start-up due to high transactions cost,” they say.

Nevertheless, innovators live in spring.

In Vijaynagar of Karanata, Girish Badragond is working on a tool to help the blind and partially seen farmers.

Their device described as a smart farming stick uses soil sensors and weather data to guide its users about crop status and audio messages and crops through vibration.

“There are many blind people in India who want to do farming, but they cannot trust others to guide them. It will help them to become independent and empower them,” Mr. Badragond.

They have sour mechanical parts from various shops and are hoping to get support for commercialization of their project soon. For now, he is having a round of government exhibitions.

“This is a prototype, but I hope people support me to change the lives of others,” they say.