Tag Archives: India

Course on “Product Planning and Design for Frugal Innovations” at Santa Clara University

Posted on by
Prof. Herstatt teaching a SCU

Prof. Herstatt teaching a SCU

Taking the collaboration between Center for Frugal Innovation (CFI) and the Frugal Innovation Hub at Santa Clara University (SCU) to next level, we have developed a new course on “Product Planning and Design for Frugal Innovations” which is being offered currently to graduate students of the School of Engineering at SCU. The course has been developed by Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt and Dr. Rajnish Tiwari and covers modern tools and methods for product design and development. It is based on a five phase stage-gate process model which integrates all major tasks that need to be paid attention to while creating new products and services. Continue reading →

Talk with the All India Radio on Indo-German Collaboration in Technology

Posted on by
(clock-wise: Kaushik Roy, Stephan Buse, Rajnish Tiwari and Cornlius Herstatt; at the All India Radio in New Delhi. Photo courtsey: All India Radio)

(clock-wise: Kaushik Roy, Stephan Buse, Rajnish Tiwari and Cornlius Herstatt; at the All India Radio in New Delhi. Photo courtsey: All India Radio)

Recently, on a visit to India, the External Services Division of the All India Radio (AIR) expressed interest in speaking to Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt, Dr. Stephan Buse and Dr. Rajnish Tiwari, to discuss the avenues of Indo-German collaboration in the field of technology. The time of the talk could not have been more appropriate as the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was then on an official visit in India leading a large delegation. There was a keen interest being expressed in the public space about Germany and Indo-German collaboration.

The resulting interview, of about 22 minutes’ duration, and touching on different aspects of collaboration, was broadcast on Sunday, 11th October 2015, in the program “Dateline Delhi”.

Photo & audio file courtesy: All India Radio.

Continue reading →

CFI in News…

Posted on by

Recently, the Times of India (Pune edition, July 4th, 2015) carried out a report on avenues of Indo-German partnership, especially in the field of startups and research. The article, titled “Indian startups, research ideas catch Germany’s eye” was written by Ms. Roli Srivastava, who was “in Germany on the ‘Media Ambassadors India ­ Germany’ fellowship programme of the International Media Centre and Robert Bosch Stiftung”. Ms. Srivastava paid CFI a visit and talked with Dr. Stephan Buse and Dr. Rajnish Tiwari on various aspects of Indo-German relations and especially on “frugal innovation”. One aspect of this talk centered on a partnership that CFI has forged with Prof. Aravind Chinchure, chair professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Symbiosis International University in Pune (India). Her visit to CFI was preceded by a talk by Dr. Rajnish Tiwari to the group of “Media Ambassadors India Germany” at the International Media Centre of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, on the following theme “Partnering in the technical field: Current status and future scope for Indo-German relations”.

The following excerpts are from Ms. Srivastava’s report:

Continue reading →

A case of frugal organizational innovation in governance!?

Posted on by 
By: Rajnish Tiwari

Just noticed an interesting news item from India in The Economic Times of Oct. 22, 2014. The government has decided to put all replies to queries filed under the “Right to Information” (RTI) act online so that not only the person/organization having filed the query receives the information, but any interested person worldwide.

According to the report:

“Starting next month [i.e. Novemebr 2014], all replies given under RTI by ministries will be posted online, available for access to all and not just to persons seeking the information. This will mean unprecedented scale of disclosure and cheer transparency advocates […]. Until now, only the person filing the RTI application seeking replies from a ministry or a government department would get the reply and that too mostly via post.”

I imgaine that this move could be proably seen as a frugal innovation – an organizational innovation in the sense of the OECD/Eurostat definition of what an innovation is. By employing a high-tech/Internet-based solution the govt. can combat corruption while being able to dissemniate relevant information of public interest worldwide for almost no additional costs.

Read the complete news report: “Narendra Modi government takes RTI to another level: All replies to be put online” (Oct. 22, 2014), accessed: Nov. 2, 2014.

New article: “Positioning India as an Innovation-Driven Economy”

Posted on by

YojanaA new magazine article by Rajnish Tiwari on India’s still-less-recognized foray into innovativeness and why global rankings can sometimes paint an erroneous picture of the true extent of this phenomenon. The article has been published in “Yojana“, a multi-lingual magazine published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India (Vol. 58, Nov. 2014, pp. 45-48).

Continue reading →