Making Social Innovation a Reality

'Social Innovation' is a new term for me. In a way, I could say that I was practicing the concept before I knew what the term meant. Back in India, when I was working as a design consultant, I came across this book by CK Prahlad called 'The Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid'. It spoke about the importance of treating low income groups as actual consumers, and not as receivers of donation or charity.

This book helped me learn about companies in India who have made a huge profits by operating in these areas, by selling products to consumers at the base of the pyramid, the other 90%. This inspired me to work on a project which would be made for this segment of the Indian population.

During my time as an industrial design student in Europe, I had always been taught to look at design as a 'luxury'. Keeping in line with the culture, I was taught to create incredibly expensive, but 'beautiful' products. I wanted to take a contrary approach, to design something for people who actually need it, and make it as affordable as possible. I started to work on 'Clip Collection', a line of extremely affordable and easily transportable furniture for rural areas. The concept is simple: The legs are made by bending a steel rod in 8 places to produce a 'clip-like' attachment at the top. These legs can clip on the tables and create an array of furniture pieces, like chairs, tables, shelves, bed, night stands, etc.

 

When I started to learn about Social Innovation, and how companies work towards 'the greater good' and at the same time strive to remain profitable and grow, I realized that the ideas I had to 'design for the other 90%' were not fantastical. Our visit to the CREATE Lab at CMU the past week further expanded understanding of social innovation. Here were a group of highly talented individuals who were creating amazing products driven solely by the passion to make people's lives better. I feel that this kind of passion, coupled with a clear vision would help make this furniture idea a reality. I am really excited to see what lies ahead!