Indian innovations are setting global standards

Though National Innovation Council (NIC) has not studied role of standards in promoting and influencing innovation eco-system, I do feel this is an issue which we cannot ignore further. What standards do is to make it obligatory for the users to conform to them and thus expand the creative space. If there were no standards, World Wide Web wouldn't have made so much progress or fostered innovations in so many sectors and social segments.

There are very few examples where Indian innovations have influenced global standards. Leadership in innovation space is almost impossible without that. I wrote about Sridharan, a Bangalore-based construction engineer, whose technology for earthquake proof braces was patented in USA where it was later adopted as part of civil construction standard. Anybody who uses this technology in their buildings has to pay a royalty to him. Indian standards as usual lag behind but the world did not hesitate in learning from him. I had discovered him during the Four Inventors of India workshops organised at IIMA in 1998-2008 after reading about 6,000 patents.

Let me now take examples of four innovations which SRISTI recently recognised at First Gandhian Young Technological Innovation awards, 2012 through www.techpedia.in at IIMA.

Four teams recently have developed ideas which can be pooled to new standards. Chintan Patel, Mayank D Patel, Mayank I Patel and Biren Patel, guided by  Prof YL Raol, Prof AB Patel of Laljibhai Chaturbhai Institute of Technology, Mehsana; Jainil Bhatt, Dhruvin Kagdi, Tirth Jani, Kunjal Jadav guided by Prof Tushar Patel, LDRP-ITR College, GTU; Dhruv Patel guided by Dr Nilesh M Bhatt, Gandhinagar Institute of Technology; and Harish Umashankar Tiwari, Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering, Pune have used variations on a theme using LPG gas to pass through a cold chamber, say a fridge before being burned in a gas burner for cooking food or harnessing waste heat energy from exhaust of an automobile for cooling driver's chamber, or harnessing heat from compressor of a refrigerator to generate hot water, a chamber to keep things warm and also save energy, elongate the life of compressor, etc. Sib Sagar Mandal of Assam was recognised by Honey Bee Network through NIF for using the heat harnessed through air pipe coiling around exhaust pipe of a three-wheeler and then using it to mix with fuel to increasing combustion efficiency.

There are two standards which can be changed. One, every fridge manufacturer must be obliged to attach a heat harnesser to the compressor so that energy consumption in the fridge goes down and user can harness extra heat for casserole or heating water. In fact, if pulses are kept in hot water for a while, they cook faster and save further energy. Some of the vegetables need not be cooked at all and they may become palatable merely by keeping in hot water, saving all the nutrients as well.

Two, standard can be changed or modified  to permit use of LPG gas for not just heating but also a cool chamber so that villages where there is no electricity have access to fridge for keeping milk, medicines and vegetables, etc.

Indian resolve to reduce carbon intensity in the economy by 20% will require a whole range of innovations and Honey Bee Network is showing the way.

Will policymakers listen? Will they let hundreds of crores of rupees collected from students in every technical university be invested in tech ideas of youth and informal sector? Will mandarins in central and state government rethink the entire higher education policy framework to unleash power of socially and ecologically responsible and sensitive youth? Will readers contribute, even if government does not?