Cisco: Innovating in India for India and the World

Its more than 25 years since Texas Instruments set up its development centre in Bangalore, heralding a trend of top technology companies locating R&D and engineering centres in India. While there have been occasional stories of these Indian centres leading product development activities for new products, we are beginning to see a jump in sophistication of these efforts.

 

Cisco’s ASR 901 Cell Site Router that won the Nasscom Innovation Award 2012 for New Technology Advancement yesterday is a good example of this trend. Cisco set up its Engineering Centre in India in 1998. More than 640 patent applications have been filed since then, and more than 370 patents granted. But when the ASR 901 was launched in October 2011, it was the first product conceived, developed and launched entirely from India. Centered around the ASR 901 and related products is the Provider Access Business Unit, the first full-fledged BU being run from India with complete profit and loss responsibility for this product line.

The case for building telecom products out of India is clear. While capital expenditure on telecom is increasing at the rate of 15% per year in the developing world, the growth rate in the developed world is only half of this. India has been, in recent years, one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world. India also has some of the largest telecom companies with Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance each having more than 100 million subscribers.

 

Products like the ASR 901 router seek to straddle seemingly irreconcilable requirements. The ASR 901, for example, simultaneously aims to be low cost and feature rich. On the one hand, the product is designed to meet the critical requirements of telecom companies in developing countries – low up-front capital costs as well as operating expenses; protection of existing investments in earlier technologies and standards like 2G; ability to maintain high reliability levels in harsh operating environments; and rapid scalability. On the other, the product is designed to provide the next generation of cell site router technology like 4G and features like multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) - a mechanism in high-performance telecommunications networks that directs data from one network node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network addresses, avoiding complex lookups in a routing table (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiprotocol_Label_Switching ), and thereby making the network more efficient.

 

According to Cisco, there are four distinctive features of the development of the ASR 901:

 

1. The first is frugality of the innovation process. Using specially-designed or custom-built components can enhance performance but comes at a cost. Instead, in the case of its power module, the ASR 901 team modified an off-the-shelf power module that was both compact and low cost. The ASR 901 is economical in its use of power.
2. The second is advances in the design of the timing architecture. The ASR 901 team developed an optimised precision time protocol (PTP) system based on the IEEE 1588v2 standard by going back to the standards, re-architecting the PTP software stack, and using a mixture of experimental and analytical techniques to optimise performance. PTP is a protocol that is used to synchronise clocks across a computer network (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Time_Protocol ) and improve the accuracy and efficiency of the network.
3. The third is the advanced Internet Protocol (IP) and MPLS feature set. The ASR 901 allows the use of both IP and TDM, thus straddling both old and new technologies.
4. The fourth is the development of a complex and sophisticated product in an ecosystem that lacks the ideal features to support such development. Cisco drew on its global network, re-locating senior personnel from its US offices to the India engineering centre to fill capability gaps. The product enabled building local capabilities – e.g., qualification and compliance of the product with different geographies was done from here, thus building local familiarity with such processes. Cisco worked closely with some of its Indian partners to develop the product – this helped launch the product in October 2011 though development started only in June 2010.

 

The ASR 901 is being tried out by telcos all over the world. Given the advanced features and the higher propensity of companies in the developed world to try out new technologies, it’s not surprising that the first customers are from there. But it has features that make it attractive to telcos from emerging markets as well, and adoption should follow.

 

Innovation from India can be visible in the global end-product market, meet the latest technological standards, and yet be rugged, versatile and cost-effective for emerging country markets. Cisco’s ASR 901 shows that this is possible.

 

 

 

Intuit: Innovating for India

Started in 1983 by Scott Cook, Intuit is a legendary software company with marquee products like Turbotax and Quickbooks. Almost 30 years after its founding, Intuit retains the vision to be a “Premier Innovative Growth Company.” But what I like about Intuit is that they are as concerned about how and why they grow as about growth itself.


Intuit has been around in India for some time. Its Money Manager product available online through Moneycontrol.com is a user-friendly product to manage personal finances. But Intuit India is now grappling with some tougher problems as it reaches out to underserved and more challenging markets. Fasal and txtweb are two products that signify this approach.

Fasal

http://fasal.intuit.com/index.html

As we all know, agriculture is very important to the Indian economy with 60-70% of India’s population living on farms and our growing need for food. But the typical farmer feels undervalued, stuck and consigned to his fate as he struggles against market forces. Farmers get only 40% of the retail price of the products they sell. And, there is lots of volatility in the market. Farmers often end up under-selling their produce due to lack of appropriate information about demand and prices. Farmers’ income can improve dramatically if they get a better price for their crop – that’s the problem that Fasal tries to solve.

Most Indian farmers sell their produce to intermediaries/agents who work in large mandis (Indian wholesale markets). These agents bring farmers and buyers together. Fasal gives farmers real-time prices of crops in different markets through sms. Each farmer gets an SMS customized for his particular crop, location and land holding. Early results show 90% of the farmers benefit, and 15-20% have a greater price realization as a result. Fasal currently covers 600,000 farmers in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The target is to reach 1 million farmers by mid-2012. Farmers are currently registering at the rate of 20,000 new registrations/ week so the target is within reach. Fasal will also be extended to 2 more states this year.

While a possible final goal is the creation of a transaction platform, the current revenue/monetization model is based on advertising. For example, a fertilizer or pesticide company can reach specific customers (remember the sms messages are targeted to crop and location!). P&G, a leading tractor company and Godrej are some of the companies that have used Fasal for targeted advertising. At the technological core of Fasal are complex “matching algorithms” that link farmers to potential buyers/agents.

Txt Web

90% of Indian mobile users do not have internet access. Nor does half the world’s population. 90% of handsets in India are not smart phones. How do you empower these people to get information comparable to people who have internet access?

Txt Web enables this – it enables (limited) internet access and access to other information through the sms. For example, if you sms <@wikipedia malaria> to 92433 42000, you will get the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on malaria. You can dig deeper as well – all the hyperlinks in that paragraph are numbered in the text you receive, and if you text back the appropriate number you get information on that particular hyperlink.

SMS <@cricket> and you get the latest cricket score.

Txtweb now has many user-developed apps created primarily by students, and now increasingly by start-ups. Many engineering colleges use txtweb in their campus placement processes. Txtweb has 1.5 million users in 1 year. The cost to Intuit is the cost of the messages + the cost of maintaining the platform. Efforts are on to monetize this application.

How Intuit runs the Innovation Process

Intuit India uses the same innovation processes that have made Intuit a successful software company in Silicon Valley.

In spite of Intuit’s age and size (it’s now a $4 Billion company), it continues to espouse the values of a startup. All employees have 10% unstructured time and products like Fasal have come out of employee-generated ideas.

Intuit wants big impact from its innovations. Their goals include:

1. Everyone at Intuit to utilize their unstructured time to innovate with impact.

2. Intuit India to deliver 1-2 impactful innovations that enter the business unit pipeline.

Innovation at Intuit has to meet the following criteria:

It should solve a “big unmet need” (customer-driven innovation) that Intuit can solve well (technology-driven advantage) in a way that offers Intuit a durable competitive advantage (based on Data4Design principles; it shouldn’t be something that a few engineers in a garage can do!). Fasal clearly meets these criteria: for farmers, market information is a huge need; Intuit has developed patented algorithms that help the matching of farmers and agents/buyers; and Intuit India is strongly immersed in the lives of farmers.

The D4D Principles

• Deep customer empathy

• Go Broad to Go narrow

• Rapid Experiments with Customers

Intuit is well known for its “Follow me home” approach that uses deep qualitative insights based on immersion with users. Intuit reports that one starts seeing patterns in “Follow me home” after about 20-25 customers/users. They use “5 Whys” to drill down deep and overcome any changes in behavior due to observation by Intuit.

How does Intuit incentivize employees for innovation?

• Unstructured time

• Big rewards for outstanding innovations – one employee got a $1m reward recently for a particularly impactful innovation

• Intuit founder Scott Cook chooses 5 – 7 outstanding ideas from among employees every year. People who proposed these ideas get 3 – 6 months to work on their own or other projects.

Organizational Innovation to enhance Research Output: the IITB Monash Research Academy

India faces the challenge of enhancing its research capabilities, and improving the quality of research from the twin perspectives of rigour and impact. This challenge is particularly acute in areas like energy, water, and information technology that are key to India’s development and future growth. Our policy makers have several proposals to make this happen – sector-specific research programmes; setting up new IITs, IISERs and universities; grants to create research infrastructure in existing institutions; and international cooperation agreements with leading industrialized countries and their institutions.


One exciting programme that has the potential to be a trailblazer in enhancing research capabilities and output is the IITB Monash Research Academy (IITBMRA), a joint venture between the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and Monash University (Australia). http://www.iitbmonash.org/

Monash University is one of Australia’s leading universities, with strong expertise in engineering and technology. Like many other universities across the world, about five years ago Monash identified India as an important country to engage with. But while most other universities have preferred to target India’s large demand for undergraduate education, Monash has chosen a more challenging yet potentially rewarding track – concentrating on advanced students at the PhD level.

To do this, Monash has formed the IITB Monash Research Academy with one of India’s leading engineering and technology institutions, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB). The IITBMRA has several distinctive features:

• It is a genuine joint venture agreement with strong participation from both Monash and IITB. The governing board has equal representation from both institutions.

• It has a stellar advisory council including eminent professionals like N R Naryana Murthy and Ramesh Mashelkar who are actively engaged in guiding the Academy.

• The IIBMRA has a board of industry partners who are potential sponsors and users of the research being done in the programme. These include some of Australia’s top companies. Indian companies are gradually signing up as well.

• The IITBMRA offers the opportunity to work on cutting edge problems under joint supervision of IITB and Monash faculty. The problems are in six themes of importance including clean energy, water, biotechnology and stem cell research, and advanced computational engineering.

• Specific research problems in these areas have already been identified. Students typically apply to work on these specific research problems. Many of the problems have a strong cross-disciplinary flavor. Pre-identification of problems should make the programme quicker to complete and also enhance impact.

Students admitted to this programme get a chance to do part of their work at Monash with all expenses paid. They also get a higher scholarship than the typical IIT PhD scholarship.

The programme hopes to have 350 PhD scholars by 2015. Over time, it will also build stronger links with industry and establish long-term research programmes with industry. The benefits for India are clear – a large cohort of well-trained researchers; better designed doctoral research projects; and, creation of the ability to take on larger, long-term, impactful research programmes. This could be a useful model to help take the IITs, which have so far been better known for their undergraduate teaching programmes, into the orbit of the leading research institutions of the world.

While Monash University deserves credit for piloting such an innovative arrangement, IIT Bombay's leadership must be congratulated for taking an important step towards the building of long term research capabilities in the country.

Innovation and the Indian Airline Industry

Why does the Indian airline industry struggle for profitabiity? And, what role does innovation play in airlines becoming profitable? My recent article in Outlook Business addressed these issues....

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_JQN9Y6fQRsNWY1ODQ4ZWMtMTgwOS00NDYzLTg4ZjAtYmI0MThiOWE4MmYw

Commercialising Chemical Process Technology

On December 28, I participated in a special session of the Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Annual Conference, Chemcon 2011, held at the MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore. (As usual!) I spoke about the challenges faced by India in enhancing innovation output based on my book From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India.

 

But, for me, the most illuminating talk of the afternoon was on commercialization of technology by Dr. Rakshvir Jasra, currently Senior VP (R&D), Reliance Industries. Dr Jasra has been involved in the development of 25 process technologies and holds 21 US patents, in a career that has spanned roles at IPCL, CSIR (CSMCRI) and RIL.

 

Dr. Jasra presented case studies from his tenures at IPCL and CSMCRI, and drew conclusions for successful commercialization from these case studies.

 

While at IPCL, he was part of a team that worked on a molecular sieve for ultra-drying of cracked gas. Their first effort resulted in a prototype that was installed in the Nagothane plant of IPCL (covered by Indian Patent No. 178403 dated March 5, 1998). But the sieve did not perform – it disintegrated into powder. Jasra was the juniormost member of the team – he was sent to the plant to find out what was wrong. He identified the problem - the binder to zeolite conversion was not complete. The reason: the heat treatment rate was not sufficient to develop the tetrahedral silicon which would give the sieve strength. The team returned to the lab and worked on changing the process to solve this problem. The next trial was a success – they developed a superior molecular sieve covered by Indian Patent No. 190949 of 2003 and US patent 20050119110A1 June 2, 2005. At that time, this sieve was better than sieves made elsewhere.

 

Dr. Jasra explained some of the characteristics of this project that enabled its success: (1) Development was a “pull” from the adsorbent business; (2) R&D and manufacturing plant were parts of the same organization – this facilitated the innovation process; (3) R&D had gained some credibility through regular technical support to manufacturing. This allowed them to try out new sieves in the plant; (4) the top management was supportive – this positive internal ecosystem helped; (5) Commercial trials involved only moderate risks (easier); (6) rather than trying to find excused for the failure of the initial sieve, the IPCL R&D team admitted failure and tried to find out what went wrong - learning from a failed trial is important – this made them re-look at the mechanism of binder to zeolite conversion.

 

The second process innovation Dr. Jasra spoke about was a De-olefin process for food grade Hexane from Udex Raffinate. This involved IPCL, IOC and Engineers India Ltd. The IOC refinery was the world’s first plant producing Food Grade Hexanes from Udex Raffinate by clay catalytic process. There was a rich C6 stream but a high 5% percentage of olefins. IPCL R&D, EIL (for process development and engineering) and IOC worked together to develop an eco-friendly process for olefin removal from hydrocarbons (Indian patent No. 179409 of 1999). But there was some delay in adoption by Indian Oil.

 

Dr. Jasra described his lessons from this project: (1) the then IOC R&D director was the champion; (2)This was like a relay race – the speed, expertise of each team had to synchronise and converge towards a goal; (3) the delay in adoption indicates that commercialisation of an obviously beneficial process may also need efforts and strategy to be accepted (a different set of people is needed to make a good business case).

 

While at CSMCRI, Dr Jasra worked on a commercial process for Styrene Epoxide production. There were drawbacks in the existing process for styrene epoxide, a useful chemical for perfumery. CSMCRI developed a benign process inspired by a publication in JACS resulting in US patent 7,235,676 of 2007. The process was licensed to two medium-sized companies. Dr Jasra found that these companies preferred a one-time licensing model to a model where they had to pay continuous royalties.

 

Another project was for Recovery of Pd (a precious metal) from Pd-phthalocyanine complex adsorbed in silica for a pharmaceutical company. This process resulted in savings of Rs. 50 lakhs per year and is covered by US Patent No. 7, 108, 839 of 2006 and EP 1576200 of 2006.

 

He finally spoke about a project undertaken again while at CSMCRI to study the Chemistry of producing ANC and CAN from rock phosphate [2 patents]. This project was for a leading fertilizer company and was based on precipitating calcium carbonate from an inorganic waste from a nitrophosphate plant. It was not commercialized though it was technically successful, possibly because the project champion at the customer’s end passed away. The customer did a useful job of project monitoring that helped rapid execution of the project.

 

Dr. Jasra’s Overall Conclusions for the factors facilitating technology commercialization:

 

• A proper internal ecosystem is essential 
• R&D / innovation team has to build rapport, credibility with the customer / business
• Alignment with the business/customer is essential
• Commercial trials are likely to be done only if the risks are moderate
• Never defend failures
• A champion is needed for technology development
• Development and commercialization of a technology is like a relay race where speed, expertise of each team has to synchronise and converge.
• As far as commercialization is concerned, other reasons may over-rule technical ones
• Vendors can be important partners in the process
• It is possible to replace an existing process only if gains are huge (depends on the context!)
• Aggressive strategy approach is needed to get buy-in
• Realisation of royalty is difficult

 

Godrej chotukool - challenges in disruptive innovation

At the recent CII Cost Congress held at Bangalore, Sanjay Lonial, General Manager, Disruptive Innovation, Godrej Appliances gave a fascinating presentation on Godrej’s Chotukool as an example of a disruptive innovation.

What’s a disruptive innovation? Companies often take existing products developed for mature markets and pull out features in an effort to reduce costs and re-design the product for use by consumers in cost-sensitive markets. Sanjay pointed out that such de-featuring tends to over-address needs. Instead, disruptive innovation provides no advanced features, but meets unmet needs. It provides superior performance along a different set of dimensions.

The objective of Godrej’s disruptive innovation s group is to do a “meaningful job….addressed through simple solutions….implemented with a winning business model.”

One objective of disruptive innovation is to remove barriers to consumption. Chotukool, a cooling product is one such low-cost solution for non-users. The focus of development of chotukool has been on the job / context – it is designed for people living in a one-room house, with no big need for ice; instead, it seeks to provide “just right” features and adequate functions.

Chotukool is quite different from a conventional refrigerator. It seeks to cool in the range of 5 to 15 degrees centigrade rather than the much colder temperatures achieved by a refrigerator. Cooling time of chotukool is longer at about 220 minutes compared to 90 minutes for a refrigerator. Chotukool weights only 9kg and is therefore easy to move around and transport. It’s capacity is considerably smaller than a typical refrigerator (43 litres vs 170 litres) and power consumption is also much less (15 to 65 W against 90 – 100W).

The chotukool offers several advantages – it has no moving components, is almost service free. Compared to the 200 components of a refrigerator, it has only 20 components. It is easy to use, easy to clean, easy to move, and can work on an inverter.

Godrej experimented with several cooling technologies, and finally solid state cooling chip was chosen. In fact the development of chotukool has involved a series of low cost experiments, and the product strategy has been “emergent,” based on learning and adjustment. Co-creation was an integral part of the chotukool story – several inputs came from a co-creation workshop held with women members of self-help groups on 7.2.2009 at Osmanabad.

A big challenge Godrej faced was how to reach consumers? – this needed business model innovation. For maximum reach, Godrej decided to partner with India Post. Chotukool requires demonstration and education which doesn’t happen in the trade, so Godrej was reluctant to use traditional trade channels.

Godrej decided to pilot the product in 4 districts to avoid competition, and slowly build up. Kiosks have been set up in post offices (in the 3 states where chotukool has been launched) for demonstrations. Orders are booked through the Post Office – the PO’s epayment system is integrated with Godrej’s ERP system. The postal van delivers in a week’s time and most customers don’t seem to mind the wait.

Godrej also sells chotukool B2B. For this, Godrej uses a separate “direct to shop” model – for a shop keeper, using chotukool translates into extra earnings of Rs. 50 / 100 per day.

To control costs, Godrej has been careful with tooling investments, supply chain costs (they don’t want to create a “poverty penalty” of adding on costs for delivery to distant places – hence they use the Post Office). There has been no advertising so far.

Chotukool sells at a retail price of Rs. 3790 – currently the full price has to be paid upfront and there is no EMI-based selling. Sanjay was non-committal about whether this would change. Chotukool is currently available only in 3 states; Godrej believes there is a need to maintain a long term relationship with customers.

Chotukool is a great story, but a recent report in DNA newspaper (December 5, 2011) quotes George Menezes, COO, Godrej Appliances, to say that 15,000 chotukools have been sold in Maharashtra so far. Given the size of the state and the potential market, that doesn’t seem to be a huge number. This raises some interesting questions. How do consumers see the price-performance equation of chotukool vis-à-vis that of a refrigerator? Are the barriers to the commercial success of chotukool distribution and logistics as Godrej seems to believe, or the acceptance of the product itself? And what are the implications for disruptive innovations for the Indian market?

Stanford India Biodesign Program's Medtech Conference

The Stanford India Biodesign Program (SIBP) http://biodesign.stanford.edu/bdn/india/ organised a one-day Medtech Conference at Delhi on December 5, 2011. The conference performed two tasks – it underlined the challenges in developing appropriate medical technologies for the huge health challenges faced in India, and gave an update on what the SIBP has achieved so far in addressing these challenges.

 

I thought the conference did a great job on both fronts.

 

What’s the problem SIBP is trying to solve?

 

In his presentation, SIBP director, Dr Balaram Bhargava of AIIMS drew attention to the huge health inequity we see in India. Expenditures on healthcare put a heavy burden on poor patients. While most countries in the developed world have either a strong public health infrastructure or an insurance-based system for reimbursements, in India 78 per cent of health expenditure is from the patient’s pocket. One third of patients borrow money to pay medical bills. Public expenditure on health is low by any standard.

 

 

 

Dr. Bhargava pointed out that poor quality, high cost devices are a burden on the healthcare system. 80 per cent of devices are imported, and alien to users. Training people to use them correctly is a difficult task. Designing the right devices is a great opportunity. India has highly qualified people, a genetically endowed intuitive sense, and the business and clinical expertise required to commercialise these devices. India can be a laboratory to develop and test innovations for large local markets. New programs like NRHM, RSBY, state level insurance, health sector innovation council, and universal health coverage are proposed that promise to change the health landscape in India. Dr. Rajiv Doshi mentioned that other positive signs are that a medtech regulatory system is being created, and that 65 per cent of Indian manufacturers are focused on low end devices.

 

Other speakers referred to a projected 15 – 20% growth for the Indian medical equipment market. India is slated to be the cardio vascular and diabetic capital of the world. With all these burgeoning health needs, Astra Zeneca expects India and China to become the top global innovation centres by 2020.

 

Other speakers mentioned the importance of lower complexity of new medical devices to break through skill level barriers, reduce costs and facilitate volume expansion. Another important trend is to move towards devices that can be used by the consumer or at home rather than in a formal hospital setting. Adoption of new medical devices can be a problem though - hospitals don't want innovation, but just ask for reduction in the cost of existing products. Where purchase through tender by the government is involved, the process of changing specifications to help the purchase of low-cost medical equipment is challenging.

 

Speakers also mentioned the lack of adequate investment outside the area of ICT. The challenge is to step up R&D: Indian device manufacturers spend only 1% of their sales on R&D compared to 11% in the US!

 

What is SIBP?

 

SIBP is a novel initiative of Stanford University, working with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and IIT Delhi with support from the Indian government’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to create the a biodesign ecosystem in India. Every year, SIBP chooses 4-5 SIBP fellows – typically doctors and engineers – who form teams to work on the design of new medical devices appropriate for India. These fellows get trained in the design methodology at Stanford, and then put it into practice working at the SIBP lab at AIIMS in New Delhi. SIBP fellows are expected to take their product innovations all the way to the market.

 

Another director of the program, Stanford-based Dr Rajiv Doshi mentioned that the SIBP was started within 4 months of the first workshop in 2007. The objective is to go beyond well known and much touted examples of innovation such as the Jaipur foot and Aravind eye care. India has the potential to be a hub of low-cost medical devices.

 

Why is SIBP important?

 

In my perspective, the main strengths of SIBP are: (1) the observation-based needs identification approach; (2) the user-centric approach to device design; (3) the creation of cross-disciplinary teams; (4) the seeding of an innovation capability for tomorrow – whether these devices or enterprises work or not, I am sure the SIBP fellows will play a significant role in innovation in India over the long run.

 

What has SIBP learnt so far?

 

Dr. Doshi argued that the Biodesign process developed in the US is relevant to India, particularly the elaborate needs identification process. But there are differences too such as different criteria in needs filtering, and how intellectual property is treated. He summarised some of the lessons learnt so far: (1) identify needs through direct clinical observations; (2) do not assume that the Indian market is like western markets; (3) devices need to be Inexpensive, with a low upfront cost; (4) Devices are better off if they are manufactured locally and use simple materials; (5) but they need to be more rugged because of the tougher local environment.

 

Dr. Joshi mentioned that the support of the government has been very helpful. Some of the things that have taken time are creation of infrastructure, clinical access, and the drawing up technology transfer guidelines. “Training the trainer” programs will help scale up. A new center at IIT Madras promises to expand the SIBP beyond AIIMS and IIT Delhi.

 

What has SIBP achieved?

 

17 SIBP fellows have filed about 20 patent applications so far. Some of the SIBP highlights:

 

• Avijit, a SIBP fellow and his colleagues used the SIBP mantra of “Identify, invent, implement” to come up with 600 device needs. They finally narrowed down their efforts to the important problem of neonatal resuscitation. Birth asphyxia results in 210,000 deaths/year in India. Existing methods to combat this asphyxia such as bag mask ventilation exist but requires skills that the average healthworker often lacks. A low cost, easy-to-use alternative is the goal and "Neobreathe" is the product Avijit and his colleagues are working on to solve this problem.

• Nitin Sisodia, another SIBP fellow and colleagues are focusing on identifying early hearing defects. They have developed “Sohum”, a novel hearing screening device. This device based on brainstem evoked response audiometry and advanced signal processing eliminates the need for sedation and reduces the need for skill.

• Pulin, a 2009 SIBP fellow and his colleagues are working on a limb immobilisation device. Many accident victims are mishandled in the critical time soon after their accident leading to complications and loss of limbs. Existing protocols require that the patient is immobilized because the exact nature of the injury is rarely known immediately after an accident. But existing products are not effective. Pulin and his colleagues are developing Relligo, a low-cost, easy-to-use solution for this problem.

What can we learn from experiences elsewhere?

 

 

I resonated with the call given by Youseph Yazdi of the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) at Johns Hopkins to focus on "Innovative partnerships" rather than "technology transfer." Given India’s poor record in technology transfer, I really think that innovative partnerships are the way to go.

 

What’s the potential of lowcost medical innovation? The sky’s the limit if you go by the powerful example of the Day of Birth Alliance in Africa. This alliance of Jhpiego’s Innovation Development Program, CBID and the non-profit arm of Laerdal Medical is pushing the boundaries in a critical public health area. Cervical cancer screening through the pap smear test can't be replicated easily in the developing world because it involves multiple visits and is expensive. Instead the Day of Birth Alliance has developed a single visit approach for screening cervical cancer through direct visualisation of pre cencerous lesions using cooking vinegar. A cryoblation equipment that requires USD 2000 and industrial grade gases has been replaced by a USD 75 cryoblation gun that can be used with non medical grade CO2!