close
Friday March 29, 2024

Dr Yasser’s ‘Frugal Innovation’ launched

By Our Correspondent
September 21, 2019

LAHORE: An acclaimed new book on innovation was launched in Pakistan: Frugal Innovation – Models, Means, and Methods.

Author Dr Yasser Bhatti completed a 10-day book tour and presented to business leaders, government officials, policymakers, start-ups, faculty and students about his recent book. He shared lessons from the book on how businesses in Pakistan can pursue strategies that harness innovation and technology to profitably serve customers and promote inclusive and sustainable development.

Dr Yasser Bhatti is a strategy and innovation expert having studied at Georgia-Tech, USA and at Said Business School, Oxford University. He is first and only Pakistani to have been awarded a PhD from the prestigious Oxford University’s Said Business School. He is Chief Strategy Officer at Oxford Global Ventures, which provides entrepreneurs with incubation and acceleration support, and has lectured at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Imperial College London, and Queen Mary University.

Dr Bhatti stressed that as Pakistan is going through some testing times, the key aims of all businesses and organisations should be to assess the viability of innovative approaches and solutions that address the challenges faced by society, organisations and indeed the planet. Global challenges such as environmental pollution, social inequality or climate change, have driven an increasing need and demand for products or services that contribute value through enhancing environmental performance (e.g. low-carbon or renewable energy) or alleviating social issues (e.g. for the socially excluded, or to enhance social justice). He covered the need for harnessing emerging models of innovation and discussed the distinguishing features of different types of innovations, mainly sustainable, social and frugal innovation, but also grass-roots, inclusive and reverse innovations.

He explained that particularly frugal innovation has evolved over the last decade as a means to address local and global challenges associated with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Multinational organisations in Pakistan, local businesses, social enterprises, National Incubator Centres and ORICS at Universities can equip students with the skills and resources for thinking critically about the role of innovation in social justice and sustainable development. Throughout his talks the audience heard about real-life examples of innovations that are doing the impossible, i.e. providing high quality solutions at a fraction of the cost.

Dr Bhatti explained that for those wishing to pursue practice, the book will help them to understand how to identify, evaluate, study, develop and implement sustainable, frugal innovation in their future working lives. For those wishing to pursue research, the book will help them to produce theoretically informed and evidence-based analyses of case studies and explore research topics such as defining sustainable development, improving organisational sustainability through shared value, reducing tensions between economic and social drivers, formulating sustainable business models, and assessing the role of social movements in shaping public opinion, behavior and demand for new solutions, services, and policy reform.

Dr Bhatti said: “We have long looked at developed countries for solutions and innovations. Yet, these countries are now increasingly looking to developing countries to give them new insights into how to better resolve global issues. There exists an important gap in our present approaches to innovation in Pakistan - that is coverage of sustainable and frugal innovation. We need to value the role of innovation in addressing the grand challenges of sustainable development and social justice. CEOs and policymakers, like everyone else in Pakistan, face the management decision-making of designing and implementing new ways to improve social and environmental conditions. The focus on the social and sustainability aspects of innovation complements the more traditional focus on technology, market and policy led approach to innovation with a view to improving both social development and economic development.”