If necessity is the mother of invention, then Prem Singh Saini is an exception. He is what one would call a compulsive rural innovator. His invention? A mobile phone remote-controlled switch that can turn on/switch off power. The 28-year-old school dropout from Haryana has been featured in the media but corporate help is still a far cry way. Still, he's been formally adopted by the NIF and his job, says Professor Gupta, is to constantly create. It's the first such adoption by an organisation under the IIM. Saini gets a fellowship to innovate while the organisation looks at ways to get more Sainis into its lab.
Sitting in a roomful of disembowelled cellphones, Saini worries that companies are not thinking of rural India at all. "Is there any point in talking about over half the population living in the countryside...without doing anything for them?" he asks.
NIF still has a long way to go in attracting the attention of corporate India, or to convince them to start micro-ventures with innovators at the grassroots. When asked why even an IIM has failed in this regard, Gupta had this to offer: "It's baffling that there has been no response. We have had some success in exporting some of the herbal produce to countries like Brazil and Australia. As for corporate India, we still live in hope." So do our humble innovators.
