Activities

We are involved in creating long term programs using “Systems Thinking” and “Design Thinking” benefiting emerging economies as well as the developed world in the following areas:

Innovation Projects

We work with leading Multilateral organizations, R&D organizations, Multinational Businesses, SMEs, Startups, Nonprofits, and Funding organizations on delivering well defined project outcomes in a timely manner.

InnoFrugal Conferences

This includes our annual conference to co-create a frugal ecosystem in Europe and local conferences organized around the world under a licensing agreement.

Impact Investing

Facilitate matchmaking between startups, SMEs, non-profits, and Impact funds

Podcasts

We use podcasts to bring year round engagement with our stakeholders and spread the know-how on frugal innovations and impact investing.

Workshops

Frugal Innovation ideation, strategy, business modeling, and leveraging processes like Circular Economy, DIY, Open Innovation, Social Enterprise, Lean Methodology, BioDesign, etc

Advancing Frugal Innovation: Insights from Our White Papers

At InnoFrugal, we are dedicated to exploring and promoting frugal innovation, the art of “doing more with less” to create simple, affordable, and high-performing solutions for underserved populations and resource-constrained environments globally. We believe that such innovation is crucial for addressing pressing global challenges and fostering sustainable development.

Leveraging AI and Digital Innovations for Frugal Innovations – A Status Update (April 2020)

This white paper examines the pivotal role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other digital innovations, including the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, and Mobile Technology, as enablers of frugal solutions. As of early 2020, these technologies presented significant opportunities to address critical global challenges such as poverty eradication, improving health, promoting quality education, and fostering economic development in disadvantaged communities. The report highlights how AI and digital innovations drive efficiency, productivity, and sustainability across various sectors like healthcare, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing. It also discusses key challenges to widespread adoption, including initial costs, data quality concerns, and the “AI divide”.

Key areas covered include:

  • Defining Frugal Innovation and its core principles: affordability, optimal design, simplicity, accessibility, and sustainability.

  • The “Jugaad” and “Reverse Innovation” paradigms, demonstrating how solutions from emerging markets can spread to developed ones.

  • The digital landscape in 2019, focusing on the capabilities, limitations, and ethical considerations of AI, IoT, Big Data, Cloud Computing, and Mobile Technology.

  • Synergistic applications of AI and digital innovations in healthcare, agriculture, energy access, and manufacturing for frugal outcomes.

  • Challenges and opportunities for scaling digital frugal innovations globally.

State Of Digital Innovation In The Global South (June 2015)

This white paper provides a comprehensive overview of the digital innovation landscape in the Global South as of mid-2015. It reveals a dynamic yet complex environment primarily driven by the widespread adoption of mobile technologies, which enabled a “leapfrogging” phenomenon over traditional fixed-line infrastructure. The report also addresses the persistent digital divides (urban-rural, gender, socioeconomic) and the growth of emerging digital sectors like e-commerce, digital government services, and fintech. It highlights the Global South’s potential as a source of innovative, affordable, and globally relevant solutions despite challenges like inadequate infrastructure and low digital literacy.

Key areas covered include:

  • Defining the Global South in 2015 and its socioeconomic characteristics.

  • The state of digital infrastructure and connectivity, with a focus on mobile technology adoption and internet penetration.

  • Emerging digital sectors and innovation trends, including e-commerce, digital government services, and fintech innovations.

  • The rise of local innovation ecosystems and startup development.

  • The application and relevance of frugal and reverse innovation in the Global South.

     

We are involved in creating long term programs using “Systems Thinking” and “Design Thinking” benefiting emerging economies as well as the developed world in the following areas:

Product Design and Development

Help businesses diversify their offerings to grow in emerging markets

InnoFrugal Conferences

Our annual conference to co-create a frugal ecosystem in the Nordics along with local editions with world class partners in cities across the world.

Trainings and Workshops

Frugal Innovation ideation, strategy, business modeling, and leveraging processes like Circular Economy, DIY, Open Innovation, Social Enterprise, Lean Methodology, BioDesign, etc

Impact Investing

Facilitate matchmaking between startups, SMEs, non-profits, and Impact funds
Workshops

We help businesses diversify their offerings to reach cost-sensitive and eco oriented B2B and B2C customers

We believe that the Nordic countries can get back on a sustainable growth track mainly not just by domestic growth and exports to developed countries but they must increasingly come from their offerings to emerging economies.

The issue here is that emerging economies require solutions that have “affordable excellence” for B2B and B2C sectors.

Our workshops are very interactive and focused on driving business results. We provide participants with a range of creative problem solving, interdisciplinary thinking, and innovation tools and techniques and coming up with a framework for immediately applying these skills.

We will help you with

 

  • Design and Innovation Strategy
  • Design thinking
  • Interdisciplinary approach
  • Applying your skills to develop viable solutions
  • Use our framework to support your innovation activities
InnoFrugal Conference

Why do a conference?

InnoFrugal annual conference in Helsinki is a global conference and is a forum for best practices, policy analysis, latest thinking, and successes in frugal innovation. We do this conference to bring together experts, executives, entrepreneurs, impact investors, VCs, and policymakers from across various domains such as Technology, Education, Energy, Environment, Food, Healthcare & Water.

It is a multi-day conference comprising of Speaker sessions, Panel discussions, Workshops, Product demo/showcasing, and Investor meetings. There are exclusive networking opportunities during on all the conference days.

We also license select strategic partners across the globe to do local InnoFrugal events to create awareness on frugal innovations to achieve the UN Sustainable development Goals.