Frugal innovations

To revive economy reinvent frugal innovations 

Human creativity is a natural, infinitely renewable resource — and it’s coming up with smart, cheap solutions to people’s biggest problems. people have learned to get more value from limited resources and find creative ways to reuse what they already have. For example, in India, a potter has created a fridge made entirely of clay that uses no electricity and can keep fruits and vegetables fresh for many days.

When commodities are scarce, people are forced to go within themselves to tap that most abundant all-natural resource — human ingenuity — and use it to solve problems. Frugal innovation can be low tech, like the clay fridge in India, but it can also be about using high tech to make services more affordable and more accessible to more customers.

Across emerging markets, some companies are taking these kinds of innovations and implementing them on a larger scale to help billions of people who may have low incomes but high aspirations. The only way we can sustain growth and prosperity is if we learn to do more with less. It would be beneficial for if developed and developing countries to work together to co-create frugal solutions that benefit all of humanity.