How Brilliant Ideas Can Transform People’s Life

People often associate innovation with advanced technologies. It is indeed true that technology is often an integral part of innovation and technology advancement can enable innovation. However, many innovations occur from spark of ideas which do not necessarily involved advanced technology but more from understanding the specific needs and developping insights. The right combination of insights and leadership actions make innovation happen. This is especially important for developing countries that do not always have access to advanced technologies or the infrastructure to utilize advanced technologies. Here are a few examples of innovation which do not necessarily involved revolutionary technologies but either have made or have the potential to make differences in people’s life. (Sources of the reports are linked in the subtitles).

Carrying Water Made Easy by Hippo Roller

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have to walk every day to get enough water for their basic needs and transport it home in buckets. My family did the same for many years carrying water from river or wells by using buckets when I was growing up in China. The Hippo roller is a heavy-duty plastic barrel that can be flipped on its side and rolled home, via an attached handle, over rough terrain. 

Shipping Damages Went Way Down With A TV Image on the Shipping Box

VanMoof, a Dutch company, makes great bikes selling for thousands of dollars globally but more than 25 percent of its bikes were damaged before even being delivered. The problem was especially bad when shipping to the United States. In order to convince shippers to handle its products with more care, VanMoof began printing photos of TVs on its packaging. The boxes still depicted the bike, too, but at a glance it does look like you would find a massive widescreen TV inside instead of a high-end commuter bike. Damages miraculously dropped by a whopping 80 percent since then, according to the company. This creative idea is used for a high end bicycle, but the concept could be applicable to other applications to avoid excessive packages which are not always practical for many developping market products.

Levitation Images Saving Life

In a small fishing town of Iceland, a new pedestrian crossing has been painted that appears to be 3D by way of a cleverly-detailed optical illusion to improve pedestrian safety. Not only does the innovative design give foot-travelers the feeling of walking on air, it also gets the attention of drivers, who will be sure to slow down their speed once they spot the seemingly floating ‘zebra stripes.’ Several cities in the world, including a few streets in Beijing near where I live have adopted this innovation and no doubt saved someone’s life.

Microscope Adaptor for iPhone

If you have worked in a middle school or college science class, you probabaly have used a microscope. However, recording what you see and communicating to others of what you observe are not always easy. Would not it be cool you can share with your colleagues or friends a video of what you just saw. Here is uncomplicated innovation which could make it really easy. It is a microscope attachement for iPhone for taking photo or video. Based on what I could find on the web, it was invented by a PhD/MD student (Du Chang) at Cornell. It is truly magic and can be useful and fun for science education, especially for schools in remote locations with a small budget.

In summary, modern process of innovation and economic development mostly focus on advanced technologies, innovation in reality may happen in all different types of fields including low-technology applications. Opportunities in the developing markets are especially abundant and innovation can make profound differences in people’s life. Creative thinking and leadership to act upon the ideas are the key to make thing happen.