The Frugal Innovation Forum concluded successfully in Bengaluru on 25 April 2026. Organised by the Institut Français en Inde (IFI) in collaboration with the Alliance Française de Bangalore and Science Gallery Bengaluru, the two-day forum brought together innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers from India and France to explore how constraint-led thinking can drive sustainable and inclusive futures.
Held under the umbrella of the Festival of Ideas and the India–France Year of Innovation 2026, the Forum was co-curated by Navi Radjou, globally recognised management thinker and author of Jugaad Innovation.
The programme was structured around two defining dimensions of Indian innovation. The Full Spectrum traced the arc from grassroots, low-tech ingenuity — clay refrigerators, affordable voice prostheses — all the way to the space-age efficiency of ISRO, demonstrating that true innovation means crafting solutions rooted in local context. The Full Stack, meanwhile, centred on India's mastery of Digital Public Infrastructure and its next frontier, the Frugal AI Stack — building technology sovereignty through resource-efficient and inclusive systems.
The Forum also featured a cross-cultural jugalbandi between French and Indian innovators, with France bringing its growing low-tech and retro-tech movement, exemplified by Cédric Carles' work in reviving forgotten energy technologies.
The event generated rich exchanges on the complementarity between Indian and French approaches to innovation. India has long operated as a laboratory for doing more with less — from the Honey Bee Network's grassroots inventors to ISRO's cost-defying space missions. France, in parallel, is seeing a quiet revolution, with a growing retro-tech movement challenging the assumption that more complex always means more effective.
Speaking at the Forum, Dr. Jahnavi Phalkey, Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru, underscored that in a world shaped by resource scarcity and climate urgency, frugal thinking should be essential rather than peripheral, and that the Forum offered a meaningful opportunity for exchange between France and India on the role of art, science, and technology in innovation.
Mr. Gregor Trumel, Counsellor for Cooperation and Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of France in India, noted that the Forum went beyond a simple showcase of solutions, seeking instead to foster constructive dialogue on how frugal innovation can drive positive change across sectors and societies — and that its diverse range of speakers, panellists, and moderators each reflected that spirit as practitioners who have contributed meaningfully to change in their respective fields.
The Forum confirmed Bengaluru as a natural venue for this Franco-Indian intellectual exchange, and reinforced the IFI's commitment to fostering innovation partnerships that are grounded in real-world constraints and designed for lasting impact.
