20,000,000 babies are born prematurely every year and 4 million die. That's 450 every hour. 1 every 8 seconds. So begins the pitch from a relatively new nonprofit called Embrace. Their focus is creating affordable technologies for low income communities in the developing world that improve health and save lives. Their mission in their words:

Designed by students in a Stanford class called Entreprenurial Design for Extreme Affordability, the infant warmer you see above costs less than 1% of traditional incubators. And it works where there's no electricity. Here's how it works:

Simplicity is a key factor in successfully designing technology-centric products for poor communities. Which begs the questions: Doesn't simplicity also sell in the U.S. and other "developed" countries? So is there a market for this infant warmer in our hospitals for less sick babies, or for home use which would allow families to transition from hospital to home sooner? Same story for GE's handheld electrocardiogram device (designed for emerging markets) that I blogged about in a prior post. 

From the work we've been doing over the years with medical device companies and their customers, the answer is a resounding YES.

And BTW, Embrace has many partners, but none from the med device industry. I smell opportunity!

For India, GE Healthcare produced a hand-held electrocardiogram (ECG) device with cutting-edge technology that is much smaller, much simpler, and less than half the cost of traditional ECG machines. Here's one of their launch videos:

GE's inexpensive pocket-sized ultrasound device, designed for the Chinese market, turns out to have broad global appeal. Tata Motors in India has produced the Nano, a $2,200 car, which has stimulated "cheap car" development in the U.S. and many other markets.

There are numerous examples of high quality products and services produced and sold in India, China, and other countries at far lower cost than in the West. Emerging markets (formerly known as developing countries) invite us to make do with less. That leads to frugal/disruptive innovation.

I believe these five principles are key to creating a frugal innovation mindset and successfully innovating: 1) Start with a blank slate - zero-based thinking, not with the deductive approach of simply stripping away features from the existing expensive product. 2) Think of the end user customer as different, not deficient. Don't compare with the stereotypical Western lifestyle. 3) Don't overgeneralize and assume all people in an emerging market are the same. Segmentation principles apply as they do anywhere else. 4) Proactively consider and take advantage of the numerous brand enhancement and cause marketing opportunities. 5) Think simple, which means less is more. What's the minimum feature set your customer needs?

Don't be surprised when your simpler cheaper product has greater appeal than your traditional product in developed markets too. In fact, plan on it.