Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), the nodal agency for promoting the culture of innovation, is hosting ‘T-Innovation Mahotsavam’ on 21st April. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
After providing a platform to spirited entrepreneurs through initiatives like T-Hub and V-Hub, the state government has resolved to take the culture of innovation to the grassroots level.
The focus of the initiative is to bring out creativity and channelize it towards innovation to help solve problems. The government believes that creativity is a resource that can lead to many innovations and solve problems at the local level with minimal intervention.
Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), the nodal agency for promoting a culture of innovation, hosted ‘T-Innovation Mahotsavam’ to mark the World Creativity and Innovation Day on 21st April with the theme ‘T-Innovation Mahotsavam’ in Gram Panchayats across the State. I was #stepoutinnovate with support. The Panchayat Raj Department organized an ‘Hour of Innovation’ – a webinar featuring students from various colleges – to introduce students to design thinking on the occasion.
As part of T-Innovation Mahotsavam, TSIC teams visit villages and organize innovation hours, sensitizing people to the importance of innovators who break stereotypes to find solutions to local problems . In the process, they were given the opportunity to identify problem statements, and steps were taken to enable them to come up with solutions on the spot. The teams looked at existing solutions to relevant problems, besides recording the concerns raised by the people.
Common problems in different villages of 33 districts will be identified and further probed by TSIC teams. This will then be followed by mapping of existing innovations or coming up with new ones.
According to State Chief Innovation Officer Shanta Thutam, the ‘Hour of Innovation’ is a one of its kind initiative by TSIC to unleash the creativity hidden in people at the grassroots level and develop solutions. The program envisages educating people at the grassroots level about the progressive ecosystem in the state. In the process, TSIC discovered several innovations through its flagship programs and these individuals came up with cost-effective solutions to address challenges at their level.
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The other objective of the program is to raise awareness among people to use problem solving and design thinking to cope with the challenges they face in their daily lives through frugal solutions.
IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan appreciated TSIC for coming up with a unique mechanism named ‘Hour for Innovation’ to reach out to the common man at the grassroots level as part of the innovation ecosystem. He said that the State has achieved many milestones in innovation since its formation and is now focusing on encouraging problem solvers and innovators in 33 districts.
Students were educated about the importance of creativity and innovation in everyday life and encouraged to pursue innovative ideas as part of a webinar organized in government colleges in collaboration with Wi-Hub and Inqui-Lab Foundation . The objective of the webinar was to convince students that innovation and creativity were inclusive, and that innovation was about developing an index where anyone could be creative.
Panchayat Raj Secretary Sandeep Kumar Sultania said that the innovations discovered and identified through TSIC needed scaling opportunities and the department was ready to provide support as required. He suggested that departments that require cost-effective and technological solutions to address grassroots challenges can procure innovations so that they can be commercialized.