I made this Wooden Fan. Can you Please Make me go Viral! The Best of Prototyping Ability and Social Media Strategy!

Dear Friends and Students

Today I received the above picture from one of my LinkedIn contacts! We need to appreciate this from multiple aspects. *First, if you closely observe the picture, the prototype is on an industrial scale. A Fan manufacturer develops such prototypes as part of their Design Thinking Process (Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test). Second, a humble boy is appealing. I am assuming he developed it on his own. Third, the social media caption! It became viral!*

India declared 2011-2020 as Innovation Decade! We are at the flag end of the decade (Dec 2020). There is a lot of work to be done. We need to promote Grassroots Innovators. They are the backbone of our country’s innovation growth.

National Innovation Foundation is working towards this cause. Every year NIF is conducting IGNITE awards. *You all must visit the following NIF website and appreciate these kids’ creative power*. Let me share 2019 IGNITE award ideas. Congratulations to all the following winners and their creative ideas.

Solar ironing cart, Vinisha Umashankar; Visually challenged friendly toilets, Baibhav Parida; Expandable food plate, Padmashree G.; Insect killing dustbin, Tanmay Kumar Sethi; Modified broom with dust collector for cleaning the ceiling, Swadha Krishn; Plate with inbuilt detachable glass, Vishwa Goswami; Quick finger duster for whiteboards, Archit Aryaman; Fast drying shoes, Devjit Prasad Majhi; Intelligent staircase, Anuj Mishra; Innovative shading tool for drawing, Raktim Das; Easy cleaning water tank, Sidhant Kumar; Stapler for leaf plate making, Suyash Patel; Spill-proof Kaangri, Asim Sikandar Mir; Perspiration absorbing shoe, Syeeda Banoo; Sickle housing first aid kit, Kishan Hanuji Thakor; Sleep-walking detector and preventer, Shivam Amritesh; Semi-automatic flower garland maker and packer, Surya A.J., Venkateswaran S. and Venuram R.R;

Like this, they are giving awards from 2008 onwards. These are real business ideas. They have every potential to commercialize.

*Proposal to Schools: Every school should have one weekly session (3 hours session) on Design Thinking. Currently, it is introduced in Engineering. However, it has to be introduced at the 8th Std level itself. This becomes a game-changer in taking the innovation mission forward*

Your Well-Wisher

 Ravi Saripalle

 i2itm.blogspot.com

 Source Inspiration: http://nif.org.in/ignite-award-function/23