Don’t Reinvent the Wheel. Innovate it

 

It is not about building something new or extra ordinary that we call innovation. It is about TRYING (see the emphasis on the word). In short, innovation is not to bring something new to the market. Something that was not tried before, but to failing, and then re-trying it. People are obsessed with bringing new products to the market.

Often these products are useless and don’t serve any purpose. They say that these things will revamp the world we live in. That’s not always needed. Civic innovation is about making current standards better. Of making things that actually help people and bring something positive that people can like and cherish and actually PAY FOR.

Let’s take an example of Karachi BRT project. The BRT project is a connecting bus transit project around Karachi. It makes sense and that’s why it was started. But think about it from a broader perspective. A project that is taking more than 15 years to complete is better or a ride hailing app that was made in just a year and that is not being used by 3 crore population of Karachi? Obviously the latter. And why? Because it is using what was already available instead of reinventing the wheel.
It not only employees regular people who drive their own cars. But also help people who were tired of high expenses of taxis and buses. They can now call the ride-drivers from their homes using a simple app and get to their destination without any worry.

In short, innovation is creating smaller projects that use the already given resources instead of trying something new that not only takes a lot of effort, expenses, and has little to no value. Or in this case, that takes years to complete and is than left abandoned.

Governments should focus on helping people come up with these small innovating projects that focus on innovating current ways of working, revamping the current methods instead of reinventing them from scratch. That is how the standards of living of people in an area can improve and that is the sole purpose of innovation in the first place.

Writing on Self Reflection by Hasan Shahid

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