A coffee making machine by a school dropout

While getting ready for 41st Shodhyatra in Andaman, I met Sundaramji, a very dedicated farmer and Honeybee Network collaborator in Rajasthan who described the story of how he discovered an innovator who has made a coffee making machine.

Jitendra dropped out after 7th class in 2010 and has passed 10th by National open board in 2016 and started earning a livelihood by working as a farm labourer. Some years ago, he happened to attend a marriage where he saw a coffee making machine. The vendor had to make a cup of coffee at a time or sometimes a few cups in a jug. He started thinking about inventing the machine which will start at a prefixed time and make the desired number of cups of coffee. The story of Jitendra would never have been discovered if a series of connection were not made by the network to make him reach National Innovation Foundation (NIF) for an expeditious support.

Jitendra comes from a small village Charanwas in Nagaur dist., Rajasthan. There is a mechanic, Motiji Khichar from village Khicharon Ki Dhani near Charanwas who repaired minor problems in the tractor. Once there was a complicated challenge for which he had to go to a better mechanic. He had heard about Madan Lal Kumawat, a very experienced fabricator and mechanic in the region. Madan Lal had been honoured by the President of India for his innovation of a multi-crop thrasher. He had earlier been scouted by Sundaramji and thus both knew each other. When Motiji told the story of coffee making a machine to Madan Lal, he was very happy and immediately informed Sundaramji. Being impatient about discovering new innovations Sundaramji lost no time in sending a scout, Sajjan Singh to verify and document the details. Jitendra had attended a meeting by state minister some years ago but did not get much response despite having received assurances. The story could have ended there if Jitendra had not persisted with his vision of improving the adjusting coffee making machine.

He made two improvements:

1. The machine could be started when desired by pre-fixing time.

2. It could make the desired number of cups of coffee as decided by the user.

While there were earlier three coffee and food making machines by Ashok Dhiman (Haryana), Abhishek Bhagat & Rozadin (Bihar) they did not have these features. The farm labourer in a small village may not have heard about the network or for that matter even NIF. Many people are not able to appreciate fully the role of the Honeybee Network in locating such innovator in a remote corner of the country. One might consider these connections as coincidence. However, the probability of making such connections becomes much higher when volunteers guided by the philosophy of the network go out of their way to forge these connections. The task has not yet been completed. Soon after hearing about Jitendra’s innovation, NIF sent a staff for making a proposal to first replicate the existing machine costing Rs.10,000 and then make the next version of Rs.25000.

In future when you are coming back to home from work along with some friends you could direct such a machine to keep a needed cup of coffee ready when you arrive. Don’t forget to thank Jitendra and all the nodes which made the connection possible in the network when you find such a machine available in the market in the future.

I must confess that earlier version could not reach the market because Indian industry somehow did not feel enthusiastic enough about converting innovation into product and product into utilities. Thanks to the incubator set up by NIF, NIFientreC (NIF Incubation and Entrepreneurship Council) and regional and sectoral incubator at GIAN & SRISTI and other places such as Palle Srujana & SEVA.

The journey is long and expectations are high. But if we can collaborate to make connections possible not only in locating ideas but also diffusing them then the journey of an idea to commercial or social market may become shorter and smoother. If you know an incubator or want to join as fabricator, co-investor, entrepreneur or an established industry leader write back to us.

The author is founder of Honey Bee Network & visiting faculty at IIM-A
anilgb@gmail.com