Saraswati Seva Foundation’s drive to innovate and bring our solutions for development is the key to all our efforts. SSF believes in the philosophy that science is to serve the society & not vice versa. We innovate because we view innovations for human  well-being  as an organic unity. SSF is in tandem with the thinking that humans, science, and innovation aren’t to be viewed in any particular dichotomy. Aligning to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, SSF believes that new approaches in innovation are needed.

Harnessing innovation for sustainable and inclusive development requires change in the direction of key economic and social processes.

The concept of frugal innovation focuses on innovation by marginal groups themselves, particularly informal forms of innovation in the context of scarcity. Such innovation often entails on simple ideas and local knowledge. Innovant’s tech lab, is instrumental in introducing students to relevant technologies like irrigation automation using Arduinos. SSF has also set up hydroponic units in select schools and trained the students in growing organic agri produce using tech. SSF works to equip, empower & imbibe entrepreneurial values in the youth of under resourced families.

Grassroot  innovation seeks to  practice innovation in both technology and service provision in ways that include local communities in the knowledge, processes and outcomes involved. This includes a network of academics  , practitioners experimenting with alternative forms of knowledge & innovation processes. SSF’s multimodal e-Vehicle is an excellent display of using frontier technology (use of interrelated and interdependent technologies -IOT, drones , robotics and more)  Convergence of mobile and cloud computing, sensor deployment in machinery, and other technologies promises to provide quantum leaps in precision farming. Such innovations enhance the adoption of technology in rural areas along with revenue generation. This also supports linking urban rural supply chains. SSF’s fablab is an experimental learning space for local innovation opening the possibility of democratization of technology & making technological innovation an increasingly bottom – up process. SSF’s incubations have been a driver of informal experimentation with technologies  such as microelectronics, robotics, digital fabrication. Its main aims are to experiment with artefacts & modify them for novel purposes, and to create an unrestricted access to technology. It links traditional knowledge of carpentry , metallurgy & mechanics with new technologies such as software programming & basic electronics.

Inclusive innovation approaches are concerned primarily with extending the benefits of innovation to previously excluded groups, either as consumers of new products & services or as participants in new innovation processes. The main focus is on developing low cost products and services & new commercialization and distribution strategies to serve untapped markets. SSF’s  mobile van based health diagnostics is instrumental in providing e – health counselling, on – site telemedicine , healthcare diagnostics for elderly using IOT in rural areas. SSF’s agri lab proves to be a harbinger of strengthened entrepreneurial skills of people living in poverty , to help raise their incomes.

We are now living in the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4.0) , which is bringing together digital, physical & biological systems. While these moments are filled with ubiquitous uncertainties, SSF looks upon rural India as a reservoir of innovation. And is trying to unleash it, which was once a challenge. In order to capitalize innovation SSF follows dual formalism – innovation for faster growth & innovation for inclusive growth. Hoping that our march towards Tagore’s conception of social development ends the rapacious way in which we view earth today.