Social spirit of the corona times

With the world rushing to flatten the coronavirus curve, “jugaad” has captured the global zeitgeist as the defining social spirit of this time.  Defined as a flexible approach to problem-solving that uses limited resources in an innovative way, jugaad has become the operating premise for governments, firms, communities and individuals to cope with the shortages and shocks as local, national and global supply chains and business linkages fall apart. 

Jugaad hit primetime as countries scrambled to cope with thousands of Covid-19 patients while managing shortages of key equipment — from high-tech, high-cost rigs such as ventilators to low-tech, low-cost items such as testing swabs, masks, sanitisers and personal protective equipment (PPE) gear. 

To cope, car companies are now trying to make and assemble ventilators quickly, Indian alcohol and chemical firms as well as French perfumers are churning out hand sanitiser, the fire department has a new job — as de-facto disinfectors of the community, while those stuck at home from Germany to India alike are learning how to sew masks for themselves and other frontline professionals using YouTube videos. 

It’s not limited to the old economy. Medical hackathons are the rage as start-ups with strengths in artificial intelligence (AI) or 3D printing use the crisis to make an impact. 3D printing has been first off the blocks: Some printing protective visors and masks for frontline medical staff, while others solved the problem of broken-down ventilators by designing 3D printed valves and tubes and churned out printed splitters so that a single ventilator could be used to treat multiple patients. None of these 3D fixes passed the stringent vetting and regulatory approval processes, but right now if it saves lives, who cares? Such innovations could well upend expensive, black-box medical equipment makers who have thrived on small volumes and high margins due to a lack of options so far. Similarly, AI firms are working to track patients and those at risk using cellular data and predicting new clusters and virus curves. 

Taking advantage of this zeitgeist are governments. In Ohio, a portal through private-public partnership has been set up to overcome the hurdles in acquiring PPE suits for the state. Through collaboration, the government platform connects manufacturers with the information, materials and engineering expertise they need to repurpose and retool their factories quickly.

Here, Caring Indians, a crowd-sourcing platform started by engineers, scientists, doctors, project managers, accountants and agriculturists are bringing expertise together to build resources and medical equipment. One big success is a 24-month-old start-up that is developing a low-cost mechanical ventilator that can be mass-manufactured by the components available in India.

The BBC reported that within five days of starting, the Pune-based firm had three prototypes of a portable machine being tested on artificial lungs and by next week, if all goes to plan, they will be ready for patient trials. Priced at Rs 50,000 (compared with Rs 10 lakh for a traditional ventilator), the goal is to make 30,000 ventilators by the middle of May. While designs were accessed from MIT, an entire ecosystem was mobilised through the platform — from Pune municipal authorities that opened factories and shops to source the 150-odd parts needed to experts from IIT Kanpur and expat alumni doctors who consulted closely, tracked the trials and vetted progress and asked tough questions. A team of over 12 experts — pulmonologists, cardiologists, scientists and innovators — schooled the team on science and engineering as well as procurement and production. 

The jugaad zeitgeist is rapidly transforming other areas like work-from-home (WFH), telemedicine, remote learning and even entertainment, perhaps permanently.  Adjusting to a physically distanced mode of living has made humans virtually more social than ever before. Over the last two weeks, like many others my isolated family has done two video consultations with doctors on post-op care as well as numerous video calls and audio conferences to keep up with work, family and friends; logged on together to view live concerts and DJ performances and signed up to volunteer on a crowd-sourcing platform. 

It is easy to trivialise these jugaads but the long-term impacts could be far reaching. Whether it is remote education, WFH, telemedicine or travel, things are unlikely to snap back to 2019 norms. More likely many things will remain virtual and stay local even after we exit the crisis. For instance, any U or L-shaped economic recovery is likely to be further slowed by continuing curbs on social distancing until a vaccine is in circulation — airlines can forget about filling the middle seats in economy class, for instance, or crowded bars or bursting football stadiums. With the economic fallout expected to hit revenues in the coming quarters, many industries could see current arrangements being made permanent. Take IT companies which have resisted WFH models in normal times, citing infrastructure, security and client concerns as key reasons. Now with over 80 per cent of the industry on WFH mode and clients agreeing, many IT majors may use this opportunity to permanently cut office space and reduce costs for the firm and the employee (daily commuting time and expense). 

Automotive and other factories, which are being repurposed, could move to more agile manufacturing methods, including greater use of technologies such as 3D printing in their assembly lines. And if global supply chains get re-engineered to avoid reliance on China, for example, national priorities could change back to those in the 1970s and 1980s — building and maintaining a manufacturing core in the economy, for instance. In more ways than one, as a smart alec put it: “We’ll now find out whether that travel, that meeting was really worth just an email”. 

If you know of innovative jugaad to help India overcome this crisis, ping the writer at bagchip@gmail.com