Project Objective: To develop a network for sharing and commercialisation possibilities for innovations for differently abled people.
Motivation: Each differently-abled person has a different type of disability and people outside their direct contact often do not know about the particular problems faced by them. A number of large NGOs have developed practices/procedures/products to specifically help these people and this knowledge can prove to be useful for parents/smaller NGOs working with disabled people. There may be scope of commercialising few of these products at a larger scale, hence increasing their availability, reducing their cost and at the same time building business models around them. Also there are a number of unsolved problems, waiting for innovative solutions, often left unaddressed as innovators may not be aware of them.
Preliminary Questions:
- What is the target group of people who will be willing to share and will benefit from such a network
- Should we work primarily with NGOs/ Parents/Differently abled people
- Can the model be monetized/Can people be incentivised to share
- Can we create a forum where problems faced by differently abled are posted and others can address them with their innovations/ students can use these as starting points for projects
Some answers from exploratory research conducted with two NGO’s:
- We don’t do any innovation
- We are an umbrella organisation/belong to a network-whatever we know we already share with other similar organisations across the State
-The same principles cannot be applied to different types of disabilities
- Vocational training for differently abled focuses largely on regular machines so that they can get employment in mainstream jobs- therefore there is a requirement that there should be no innovation.
-Outsiders rather than insiders are the ones who can come up with innovations- examples of small innovations by students from NID after observing the everyday life of blind students
-An unaddressed issue where innovation is required: Teaching geometry to blind students
Although the NGO’s were quite dismissive of the idea of such a network of innovations on some probing they did come up with problems that they wanted to be addressed. Another significant learning was that innovations in this area in particular once they become commonplace in a local NGO/ Community are not considered innovations and the fact that they might not be available to others with similar problems is not realised.
Motivation: Each differently-abled person has a different type of disability and people outside their direct contact often do not know about the particular problems faced by them. A number of large NGOs have developed practices/procedures/products to specifically help these people and this knowledge can prove to be useful for parents/smaller NGOs working with disabled people. There may be scope of commercialising few of these products at a larger scale, hence increasing their availability, reducing their cost and at the same time building business models around them. Also there are a number of unsolved problems, waiting for innovative solutions, often left unaddressed as innovators may not be aware of them.
Preliminary Questions:
- What is the target group of people who will be willing to share and will benefit from such a network
- Should we work primarily with NGOs/ Parents/Differently abled people
- Can the model be monetized/Can people be incentivised to share
- Can we create a forum where problems faced by differently abled are posted and others can address them with their innovations/ students can use these as starting points for projects
Some answers from exploratory research conducted with two NGO’s:
- We don’t do any innovation
- We are an umbrella organisation/belong to a network-whatever we know we already share with other similar organisations across the State
-The same principles cannot be applied to different types of disabilities
- Vocational training for differently abled focuses largely on regular machines so that they can get employment in mainstream jobs- therefore there is a requirement that there should be no innovation.
-Outsiders rather than insiders are the ones who can come up with innovations- examples of small innovations by students from NID after observing the everyday life of blind students
-An unaddressed issue where innovation is required: Teaching geometry to blind students
Although the NGO’s were quite dismissive of the idea of such a network of innovations on some probing they did come up with problems that they wanted to be addressed. Another significant learning was that innovations in this area in particular once they become commonplace in a local NGO/ Community are not considered innovations and the fact that they might not be available to others with similar problems is not realised.
Suparn Goel
Mehak Gulati
In India as we see today we really need development in this era. Even if you compare the developed nations with our developing stage nation, you will come to know that equal opportunity options are there in employment and study. Even buses do have facilities for differently able people. We can also start from small steps like firstly at lest providing proper facilities to them... and then go further with innovations.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Gaurav