Learning Innovations

The first introduction i had with innovation during my child hood, i had been an average EQ child with some good skills in drawing and painting. The primary objective during my school days to go to school was to attend drawing classes and spend time in drawing room with our teacher Mrs. Manjula Singh. What we know today about art & skills is all her guidance and efforts to shape both the brothers. The creative thinking and skill development started from my school kendriya vidyalaya, Tughlakabad.

My first introduction to innovation started with observing my father doing "out of box" work during 1980's. He was a electronic engineer by profession with good knowledge in telecommunications. His approach to work on various things had always four primary objectives: 1. Highly cost effectice products 2. Grass Root elements and 3. Reusablity of junk and used objects always left for kabadivala's 4. Sustainablity. I remember distinctly that when our handpump was removed from one location in the house and shifted to another location, a lot of pipe was unused in the process. The boring of other handpump required thick gage pipe and therefore the residue to previous hand pump could not be used. He has then developed a range of furnitures made of those pipes, a cot which has interesting design elements, a coffee table and a book rack, the bore of the previous handpump was used as water absorbing & filtering drainage system known as "sokhta". His ability to transform these basic elements into meaningful ideas has been phenomenal, oftenly what we treat as garbage has been highly important to him. We often kept observing these developments and our minds started working on shaping things around us in more useable & functional based model within the given context. His designs of lamps coming out of "OLD dalda dabbas" or "clothes rack" made from broken bamboo & jute cots were some finest piece of work. This was our first interaction to innovation and design that convinced us to think lateral for rest of our lives.