People Centred Innovation with Base of the Pyramid

Sitting in the restaurant in a fancy Delhi hotel enjoying the cosmopolitan life around me must be the best ambience for sparking my path as a blog poster. And actually this post was supposed to be published long time ago, but alash… time flies. So here we go.

Innovating for a better future

I am very excited to embark on this new combined research and consultancy project about People Centred Innovation with Base of the Pyramid. For the next six months I will be exploring how we can create new products and business models to improve the life of the half of the world’s population who is getting by on less than 4 usd a day (in comparative purchasing power as if they were living in the US), and how we can put people first and include their needs and aspirations, and their knowledge and resources in this. The UN calls it Growing Inclusive Markets.

The research project is funded by Network for Research Based Userdriven Innovation – NfBI and I have the pleasure of being part of the team of very skilled people at the SPIRE – Research Center for Participatory Innovation – at University of Southern Denmark. My case in this project is based on my collaboration with Danish company Danisco, who provides bio-based solutions for food ingredients and other stuff. I am working as a consultant in the project team together with their innovation manager Flemming Vang Sparsø, and we are exploring how Danisco can develop products and business models that will improve the nutrition and income of people in the rural areas of India. (And this is by the way what brings me to India, but more about this a bit later).

The aims of the research project are:

1. To map the existing field of knowledge and methods for people centred innovation with BoP
2. To identify the key challenges and opportunities for companies in identifying and incorporating peoples needs and aspirations in innovation with BoP
3. To sketch a methodology for a people centred approach for innovation with Base of the Pyramid.

In the coming months I will keep you posted on the activities and insights during the project. Stay tuned…