Negative Innovation

The most beautiful thing about Sunday mornings is that they allow you to spend an extra hour or so on the bed, cozying up to the warm feeling of not having to rush to office. As usual, I woke up around 8 and took me sometime to get back to my usual self. It seems that the sleep had got better of me. But a cup of harmless platonic tea did the trick for me. As I glanced over the paper, this thought crossed over my mind. A few weeks earlier some of my colleagues in office went gung ho over a video that showcased an fingertip based web interface. It surely was a great technological innovation I felt but what disappointed me was the thought that, “ After all how many poor or underprivileged lives would this innovation help benefit?”. None, was the answer. Why do then people go crazy over such innovations? Well, as I was jostled back to reality, I decided to coin a new pseudonym for such inventions. I decided to call them “Negative Innovations”. Innovation for me is something that would help the larger mankind, something that would bring bring smiles to more faces, better more lives at the same cost. Micro Financing to me is one of the best innovations to have occurred to a country like India. We need more of such innovations. Designing an android to clean our house or designing a technology that helps use surfaces as touch screens is not the need of the hour for us. Till the day comes when our population is better served, can afford good food for three times a day and can avail of good education and housing, I would unwillingly have to call some of the innovations as Negative Innovations.