Empowering People Through Innovations

By: Karin Wall

Innovation is a powerful tool, not only to create competitive organizations, but also to improve the daily lives of people in developing countries and emerging markets. Innovations can in many cases make a critical difference and contribute to empower people and make the world a more equitable place to be.

InnovationManagement spoke to GBS Bindra, Global Innovation Director at Logica and a passionate believer in the power of innovation.

– In my personal opinion you and I are sitting in this room, talking, in this environment, eating what we are eating, only because our forefathers had innovated and hence me and you coming from different backgrounds are chatting. Both of us have flown to be here. Clearly there has been enormous development that has taken place in the last centuries, and having been beneficiaries of this development, we owe it back to this world to encourage innovation even more, for the world to become a much more equitable world. Equal in a sense that people around the world will have equal opportunities and access to knowledge, to food and to resources.

If there is one thing that has to play a big role to make this world equitable it would be again be innovation.

– If there is one thing that has to play a big role to make this world equitable it would again be innovation. And, the reason I say innovation is because I include ‘democracy’  as one of the greatest  innovations of all times. And democracy along with other social, business and technology innovations has the capacity to transform the world quickly. However we have a very long way to go before this world becomes equitable and that’s why I´m very focused on doing everything that I can in my lifetime to accelerate innovation in the world. And I do that by encouraging creative use of technology to empower people.

Using new technologies to empower people

So in your opinion innovation is the number one way to make this world a better place and to create more wealth?

-Yes! And not only creating wealth, but also a way of creating opportunities. I think some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today emanate from a basic fact that it’s not an equitable world. If the world would be more equitable, there will be more opportunities for everyone and hence more progress and consequently less conflict.

Can you give us an example of when you have seen that innovations really made a difference and contributed to this word becoming more equitable?

-A good example of that would be how Indian fishermen are using the mobile phone. In India, we have this vast coastal area where village fishermen go fishing, not for a hobby, but for a living. What used to happen was that when they came back to the town marketplace to sell their catch, they would sell it to whatever the middleman would pay them. Because they had no idea of what was in demand or what price they should ask for.

-But nowadays, fishermen after they catch fish and when they are heading back they use their mobile phones to check several markets on the coast and find which will pay the best price. Based on the price they turn their boat to the market place which offers the best prices. And as a consequence they can get a much higher price than they would before the mobile phones. The innovators behind mobile telephony should be very proud because of the way it transforms the lives of people.

By Karin Wall, chief editor, InnovationManagement