Reverse innovation in India

THEY say necessity breeds innovation. Perhaps there's no other country where this holds more true than India. The needs are overwhelming here. And whether it's refrigerators that run without electricity, heart surgeries for US$800 or the cheapest cars in the world, enterprising Indians and companies are constantly finding disruptive and innovative ways to address the needs of the 1.2 billion people who live here. This ingenious spirit is not dissimilar to centuries ago on the ancient Silk Road, when India was the source of complex and far- reaching ideas like Buddhism, Algebra and Ayurveda, the oldest school of medicine.

For The Silk Road: Past, Present, Future, a new CNN show, I began my journey in Bengaluru, India's Silicon Valley, to see how some companies are turning the very methodology of innovation on its head. Normally, new ideas are conceptualised and developed in advanced economies and then taken to emerging markets like India. But at GE Healthcare - a joint venture between India's software giant Wipro and General Electric - engineers are first creating inexpensive healthcare products to meet the needs of the 600 million Indians who don't have access to good healthcare, and then repackaging the low-cost innovative goods for global markets. It's called "reverse innovation", and it's changing the flow of ideas and saving lives.

Take a traditional baby warmer, for example. Most Indian hospitals, particularly in rural settings, can't afford them. The few that can, can't use them effectively because of infrastructural or social challenges unique to India. The power supply, for instance, is unstable, fluctuating from 80 watts to 400 watts regularly. GE Healthcare created a baby warmer that could handle such surges in electricity.