Innovation Vanguard: Technology and Frugal Innovation

The tech sector is always innovating. Always giving us something newer, better, faster than the previous version. The sector spans everything from cell phones to industrial power convertors. We have better medical imaging equipment, smarter cars, and adaptive prosthetics. And the technology industry has been one of the first to adopt frugal innovation practices.  Tech […]

The Social Impacts of Frugal Innovation

The world is full of really great combinations jam and bread, Batman and Robin, and social impact and frugal innovation. These combinations are natural and the separate pieces feel odd without their partners. And while that last one is new to the list; we are certain you won’t ever think about them separately again after […]

Supporting Environmental Sustainability through Frugal Innovations

There is no planet b. This is a climate action slogan. A reminder that we have only this one earth. This perfect planet which grows our food, gives us water, and even manufacturers the air we breathe.  This is it. And we are quickly destroying it. Plastic fills our oceans. There will soon be more […]

Circular Food Management in the Urban Regions of Austria

Food waste is one of the most pressing problems of our time. Especially within cities, the disposing of food, that would have still been edible, is a common concern. However, what if food waste could become a resource? Circular economy models promise that the loop of nutrients related to the food system could be closed […]

Social Impact of Climate Change: How It Is Accentuating Social Injustices

Climate change is real and it already is happening. So much so that the popular English newspaper The Guardian adopted an updated set of terms to better reflect the gravity and the urgency of the situation. Indeed, they are suggesting to refer to it not as ‘climate change’ but instead ‘climate crisis’ or ’emergency’. Emphasizing […]

How Frugal Innovation Accelerates Change in Austria and the Western Balkans

Frugal Innovation sounds like something your grandparents or great grandparents would say. They were children of the Great Depression and wars which left the world resource-poor and economically damaged. Looking around the marketplace today, we see a world ravaged by a global health crisis and two successive recessions a little over a decade apart. Consumers […]

What are we going to do about fast fashion?

Fast fashion is wasteful. I know, it is a line you have heard a million times before (or seen in print in a thousand different iterations). The problem is, we still haven’t changed, no matter how often it is said or written. So, it bears repeating. Fast fashion is wasteful. Just so we are all […]

How Innovation Leads the Cities through the COVID-19 Recovery

Covid-19 is changing the way we see everything, from the importance of scientific and media literacy to logistics. “The new normal”, as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says, is here and it seems like it will be like this for a while. And while we continue to confront this global health crisis, Covid-19 exposed some […]

Why Transport Poverty is an Issue of Social Exclusion

I come from a small village in the south of Poland, which does not have public transport. It also doesn’t have local government-funded transport connections to the bigger cities in a travelling distance. A private network of minivans, the only mode of transportation for those without a car, goes back and forth between Cracow and […]