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AES SPEAKER SERIES #7

Jugaad & Frugal Innovation

Insights from Navi Radjou

Navi Radjou
Fellow at Cambridge University & Best-Selling Author

June 2, 2020
5 - 6 PM (CEST)

Webinar

Zoom

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Event Registration

Innovation is a key driver of growth for firms and nations worldwide. But we can no longer rely on the "more for more" innovation formula — costly R&D, resource-intensive and polluting supply chains — that sustained growth in the West for decades. We need a new approach to innovation that is inclusive and sustainable in today’s global context of climate change and growing inequality.

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The United Nations (UN) has acknowledged the world needs $5 - 7 trillion in funding to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is mission impossible since post-COVID-19 all countries worldwide will lack the funds needed to invest in SDGs. But this scarcity can also be an opportunity. Tighter budgets, climate change, new technologies (3D printing), and empowered customers and conscious Gen Y and Z are compelling businesses and governments to learn to "do better with less". It’s time we all learn to innovate better with fewer resources.

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Radjou will discuss the past, present, and future of Frugal Innovation, a radically new paradigm to generate greater social and economic value using fewer resources. Frugal innovation is a breakthrough concept born in India, where it's long known and widely practiced as jugaad—the ingenious ability to solve problems with limited means. Millions of entrepreneurs in emerging markets such as Africa, China, and India are using frugal innovation to leapfrog the West in education, finance, energy, and healthcare.  Radjou will reveal how the private, public, academic, nonprofit sectors could adopt frugal principles and techniques to boost agility, innovate efficiently, and co-create an inclusive, healthy, and sustainable society.

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Join our public AES Online Speaker Event “Frugal Innovation & Jugaad” on Tuesday, June 2 from 5 to 6 PM (CEST) via Zoom. Please register via the button below.

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We are delighted to welcome Navi Radjou, an Indian-born French-American scholar, an innovation and leadership advisor, and a bestselling author based in New York. Navi’s most recent book, Frugal Innovation: How To Do More With Less (with a foreword by Paul Polman, ex-CEO, Unilever), published by The Economist in 2015, shows how companies can innovate faster, better, and sustainably in today’s customer-driven global tech economy shaped by climate change. In our webinar, Navi will give insight into the concept of Frugal Innovation, followed by an open Q&A.

About the Speaker

Navi Radjou is a New York-based innovation and leadership thinker who advises senior executives worldwide on breakthrough growth strategies. A Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, Navi has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Previously, he served as vice president at Forrester Research, a leading technology research and advisory firm in Boston. In 2013, Navi won the prestigious Thinkers50 Innovation Award – given to a management thinker who is re-shaping the way we think about and practice innovation. He delivered a talk at TED Global 2014 on frugal innovation (over 1.8 million views).  

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Navi co-authored Frugal Innovation: How To Do Better With Less, published by The Economist in 2015, as well as the global bestseller Jugaad Innovation (over 250,000 copies sold worldwide). He is a sought-after keynote speaker and widely quoted in international media. Born and raised in Pondicherry, India, he holds dual French-American citizenship. He attended Ecole Centrale Paris and Yale School of Management. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is a life-long student of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vipassana meditation.

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Find out more on http://naviradjou.com/

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