
Jugaad, an inspired kind of duct-taped ingenuity - maheshs
http://economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/jugaad?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/questionsforsantoshostwal
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chime
This article both inspires and scares the hell out of me. If you've decided to
create a startup, you are in the same boat he was in 1991:

‘Yes. This is my career and I am going to make my career in ___________.
That’s all.’

It inspires me because of the happy ending of sorts for him despite the
hardships. Instead of being lost into obscurity, those late nights and years
of losses will count for something. It scares me because I think this year is
my 1991. I have decided on my career. ‘Yes. This is my career and I am going
to make my career in communication systems for the mute / disabled.’

The truly scary part is that every single success (for varying definitions of
success) story like this that I've read talks about how much the
inventor/entrepreneur suffered on the way. "X lost his job, house, savings,
significant order, family, friends, health, sanity, credibility..."

The potential for tremendous losses on the way to success is scary because
right now I already have everything I could ever want (loving wife, health,
family, friends, career, money, house). I can keep everything I have by
putting in my 8 hours/day or I can risk it all by saying "Hi world. I'm going
to build devices/software that will help cerebral palsy / paralysis patients
communicate better/faster with their loved ones."

Right now, I'm preparing for the latter by building my savings.

~~~
Retric
Just because someone hit a bad patch does not mean they needed to.

The obvious solution to me would be a pico controller connected to the pump
with a stopwatch battery backup. Basically it turns on for an hour starting at
say 2AM but ignores the time when the power is out. Total cost per unit should
run between 1$ and 5$ depending on build quality and interface.

You could even add pressure, flow, and or temperature sensors to notice if
something was wrong and or use more water when it's hot etc. But that's
probably overkill 90% of the time.

PS: Texting a cell phone is not a bad idea, but it requires someone to be
awake at 3am when you want to turn it on and adds several failure modes it
also costs more money.

~~~
deskamess
Your points are valid and your solution would work (especially the part about
watering for a total of an hour by automatically taking into consideration
power cuts, etc).

I wonder if there may have been an 'environmental' reason for his solution
(and hence his bad patches).

I lived in a couple of third world countries in the 1980s (in Asia and Africa)
and came over to the US in the early 90's for studies. One of the stores that
my electronics class prof introduced me to was Radio Shack. I could not
believe it - for an electronics tinkerer there was nothing better. Everything
you needed to build your (small) dream device seemed to be there (tools like
soldering irons, bread boards, capacitors, etc). And they were pretty cheap to
boot.

That ease of access to equipment is not available in third world countries.

So the solutions you come up use the accessible 'raw materials' available in
your environment. It may not be the most simple, or elegant, but it is
something that works. To the farmer the underlying technology is
understandable and accessible. And testable with a phone call!

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noahth
not sure why the reference to duct-tape. what's up with that? he and his wife
are both engineers and they prototyped in the middle of the night -- every
night!

~~~
gacba
I believe the duct-taped reference is an attempt to get Western audiences to
think about the article in the same light as Indian ones who understand the
term _Jugaad_ (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad>) loosely termed,
"innovative fix". Although when I think of duct tape, I immediately conjure
the term "cheap hack or fix", not the Jugaad connotation:

 _Jugaad is a survival tactic, whereas a hack is an intellectual art form;
i.e. Jugaad is the wile of the poor, and hack the pastime of the affluent
cerebral. Jugaad is a hack to get around or deal with a lack of or limited
resources, and has a class component to it - jugaad are things that poor but
clever people do to make the most of the resources they have. They do what
they need to do, without regard to what is supposed to be possible._

Read the Wikipedia article as there's some cultural background that a non-
Indian would fail to get about the richness of the term.

~~~
Jun8
Thanks for the W link, it was an interesting article. The part that you quote
caught my eye, too, although I strongly disagree with the idea expressed. This
is a _very_ narrow definition of "hack". As far as I understand _jugaad_ , it
is pretty much equivalent to what hack is, in its original form.

Edit: Edited the W article and put a note in the Talk page, let's see how
people respond.

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zb
This Jugaad sounds very similar to what we Kiwis call the "Number 8 wire"
approach. (New Zealand is a long way from anywhere, so a tradition developed
of making running repairs using whatever was at hand - specifically, farm
fencing wire - in lieu of shipping out spare parts.)

I personally find the mythology around this to be both a blessing and a curse
at times.

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jdc
This is a good example of choosing the right tool for the job.

Because they're skipping wire laying in favour of remote SMS control, I'd say
they're leapfrogging.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging>

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holychiz
he sounds like an awesome guy, but his wife sounds like an amazing woman too.
lucky bastard! :)

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k3dz
he might have figured it out much sooner if he had access to the internet when
starting out

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extension
Um, congrats on his success solving a big problem, but... it took him twenty
years to figure out how to flick a switch from a mile away?

Has anybody shown him these things?
<http://www.electronicplus.com/images/products/TN811C.jpg>

For that matter, is it so hard to run a mile of wire across a field?

~~~
kranner
"so hard to run a mile of wire across a field?"

It's hard to _keep_ that mile of wire from being pinched.

I remember how the highway authority here in Punjab had embedded blinking
lights into the road's surface, over some stretches of road, to help drivers
during our foggy winters. A few days after the lights went in, they were dug
out and stolen. So new ones were put in. Gone again. New lights. Gone again.
Finally the highway authority gave up and left the citizenry to its fate.

~~~
sanjayb
once a bus-stop was stolen. [http://www.mid-
day.com/news/2008/oct/151008-Borivali-bus-sto...](http://www.mid-
day.com/news/2008/oct/151008-Borivali-bus-stop.htm) . wire - hrmph ...

