Title: Sustainable product development through innovation for social impact

Authors: Eshan Sadasivan; Kapil Manoharan; Mainak Das; Shantanu Bhattacharya

Addresses: Design Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India ' Design Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India; Department of Bio Sciences and Bio Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India ' Design Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India

Abstract: In a large, emerging market like India, a better education system plays a significant role in the country's growth. Providing better facilities for nurturing young brains to learn efficiently needs a holistic approach of balancing the practical challenges along with developing the best possible solutions. The needs and aspirations of the people from subsistence marketplaces need to be considered while designing suitable products to address the problems. One such product which we have designed is detailed in this work: a school bag convertible into study table. The main intent of designing this product is to solve the problems of school children in low infrastructure schools which results from studying for long hours with poor posture. Incidentally, some of these problems can lead to untimely school drop-outs, which may directly affect the national literacy level. This paper emphasises the design innovation of high utility multipurpose school bag convertible into a study-table.

Keywords: social innovation; product innovation; product development; basic education system in India; social entrepreneurship.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSDES.2021.10041678

International Journal of Sustainable Design, 2021 Vol.4 No.2, pp.85 - 118

Received: 22 Apr 2020
Accepted: 26 Apr 2021
Published online: 08 Apr 2022 *

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