With the news of Maruti setting up another plant in Gujarat, it is beyond doubt that Gujarat is emerging as a leading auto hub of not just India but maybe, south and southeast Asia and eventually the world. But there is a difference in the emerging properties of this hub which many may not have fully understood or appreciated. And that is the innovations in the roadside workshops and by school dropout mechanics. Let me share the story of Nasirbhai who I met yesterday, thanks to Sam Panthaky. 

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Nasirbhai has created so many innovations and distinctions in auto service and design that we must create a 'Grassroots Academy of Auto Innovations' around him. Honey Bee Network will back him up and ensure that his dreams come true in service of auto companies, users and others engaged in the value chain.

If you have things in your hand to carry to the car, you have to keep them on the ground, open the door and then place those things inside. If you need to use an ambulance and only two people are there lifting the stretcher, then keeping door open while taking the patient inside is not easy.  There could be many other situations in which when you go close to a car, you wish the door opens itself. 

Well, it is no more a wish. Nasirbhai having his workshop near Preyas High School, Khanpur, Ahmedabad, has already done it. The door will open only with the specific key in your pocket. And once you switch on the car, it will get deactivated. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjJss_VZdYU). GIAN is documenting his innovation and a patent will be filed very soon with the help of NIF. Then auto industry will be invited to license this technology so that Nasirbhai gets resources to invest in his other innovations. He has many dreams and if a fraction of what he dreams gets actualised, he will be changing the functionality of most cars in future.

He has trained around 10 young boys in repairing electronic and other parts of cars. How good he is in his skills can be gauged by the fact that many leading auto service stations dealing in a variety of imported or Indian car brands send electronic control modules to him for repair. Using a laptop, he repairs them and then, where needed, rewrites the programs in the chips. All this with education up to class IV only.

When we asked him about training the next generation, he mentioned that one of his four sons, Mushirbhai, works with him. But he has already trained around 10 young mechanics who are on their own. When he gets orders for various tasks, he distributes these among his former disciples without any consideration. He takes up those tasks which are challenging enough and he finds technically rewarding. He does not expect any share in the income of his disciples.

Right from his childhood, he was interested in tinkering with  things. He would repair radios, tapes and slowly became adept in repairing difficult electronic errors in cars of various makes. His father is a maulana and teaches children traditional religious scriptures.

When asked whether he would wish to expand his mission to help other budding innovative mechanics in the region, he readily agreed. SRISTI will keep a small social innovation venture fund for him. He alone will decide which ideas to invest in (no double signatures, no committee of so-called experts…) and we hope to trigger new functionalities, with a bottom-up approach.

SRISTI will offer internship to engineering students of GTU with this Academy through Techpedia.in, so that they acquire the sanskar of frugal empathetic innovations, generous spirit of sharing one's knowledge and skills. 

Hopefully, auto companies will offer a fair deal to him for licensing various innovations from him so that more and more grassroots innovators come forward and join hands with corporate sector to enrich India's innovation eco-system.

— The author is a professor at IIM-A