"I have to start with an apology." The audience laughed. Standing before a packed auditorium at Politécnico Grancolombiano in Bogotá, Peter Knorringa admitted that his Spanish was "basically non-existent". Fortunately, the audience had little reason to worry. Behind him, Spanish translations of his slides appeared on the screen, prepared the night before by María Alejandra Pineda Escobar, founder of Frugalis and one of Peter's former PhD students.
Moments earlier, María Alejandra had welcomed him warmly to the First Latin American Congress on Frugal Innovation, Social Technologies and Citizen Science. She described Peter as the person from whom she first learned about frugal innovation and as a mentor who had played a defining role in her academic journey.
The affection between the two was evident. But so was something else: a relationship that had evolved from supervisor and student into one of equal partners working together across continents on frugal innovation. That theme of transformation would run throughout Peter's keynote.
A World in Transition
Peter opened with a quote from Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci:
"The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters."
For Peter, today's monsters are not mythical creatures. They are the systems that drive growing inequality, environmental degradation, overconsumption and unsustainable forms of economic growth. The challenge, he argued, is not simply to innovate more. It is to innovate differently. And that requires a different mindset.
One of the central messages of his keynote was that frugal innovation should no longer be understood merely as the development of affordable products for low-income communities. That may have been part of the conversation a decade ago, but today the concept has evolved. Frugal innovation is increasingly about questioning assumptions that many societies have come to accept as normal.
To illustrate the point, Peter turned to a familiar object: the smartphone. Most users only use a small fraction of the functionality available on their phones. Yet consumers continue to buy increasingly sophisticated and expensive devices, often paying for features they never use. "We pay for one hundred percent of the functionality while using perhaps twenty percent of it," he explained.
For Peter, this is a symptom of a broader culture of overengineering and overconsumption. Complexity has become a sign of progress, even when it delivers little additional value. A frugal mindset starts somewhere else.
What functionality is actually needed? How can solutions be designed using fewer resources? How can we reduce complexity without sacrificing quality? The goal is not to make inferior products. The goal is to challenge the assumption that bigger, newer and more complex automatically means better.
Three Universities, One Idea
At one point, Peter turned to the origins of ICFI itself. The story goes back some twelve years, when Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam were looking for ways to give substance to their newly established LDE Alliance.
Together with two colleagues, Peter drafted a one-page proposal on frugal innovation. The pitch was simple. No single discipline can successfully develop frugal innovations on its own.
"You need an anthropologist," Peter explained, "to understand what people actually need." That was Leiden's contribution. "You need an engineer or designer to build something that works." That was Delft. "And you need someone who understands business models." That was Rotterdam.
Behind the simplicity sat a deeper insight. Technology alone is never enough. Successful innovation requires an understanding of people's lives, practical solutions that respond to real needs, and a model that allows those solutions to survive beyond the pilot stage. The proposal convinced the university boards and laid the foundation for what would become the International Centre for Frugal Innovation.
Looking back, Peter suggested that the idea remains just as relevant today. If anything, the direction of learning has become more reciprocal. For decades, development was often framed as knowledge moving from North to South. Today, Europe itself faces environmental and social challenges that require new ways of thinking.
"The Global North needs to learn to unlearn," Peter remarked. Rather than assuming solutions must come from wealthy economies, societies in Europe and North America have much to learn from communities that have long been innovating under conditions of scarcity, resource constraints and necessity.
In that sense, frugal innovation is not simply about designing products differently. It is about rethinking entire systems.
How Do We Inspire Young People?
The floor opened for questions, and the room shifted gear immediately. One of the first came from a teacher at a rural highschool. How, he asked, can young people be encouraged to engage with frugal innovation?
Peter smiled. It was a deceptively difficult question.
Teenagers are often deeply influenced by brands, status symbols and consumer culture. At the same time, they are also the generation most aware of climate change and environmental limits.
Rather than presenting frugal innovation as an academic concept, Peter suggested connecting it to questions that already matter to them. Why do we need increasingly expensive products? Do we really need all the functionality we are paying for? How can we produce and consume in ways that remain within planetary boundaries? Those conversations, he argued, may resonate far more strongly than any formal definition of innovation.
When Frugal Innovation Enters the Battlefield
One audience member raised a topic that seemed far removed from the conference's usual discussions of sustainability and social innovation. What should we make of the growing role of low-cost drones in conflicts such as Ukraine? Can these technologies also be considered examples of frugal innovation?
The question drew immediate attention across the room. Peter did not hesitate. In fact, he revealed that he is currently working on a blog exploring exactly this issue, focusing on how Ukraine has used relatively inexpensive drones in its defence against the Russian invasion.
While discussions within development studies often focus on peacebuilding and cooperation, reality sometimes forces us to confront more uncomfortable questions. What happens when a country is attacked by an authoritarian regime? How should we think about innovation in that context?
Referring to a recent article in The Economist, Peter noted that war has historically been one of the strongest drivers of innovation because technologies are tested under real-world conditions. What emerges is often a striking mismatch between cost and effectiveness. In Ukraine, relatively inexpensive drones have been used to destroy military equipment worth millions of euros. In some cases, technologies costing only a few hundred dollars have proven capable of disabling systems that required enormous financial investments and years of development.
This, Peter argued, demonstrates the disruptive power of frugal innovation. It fundamentally changes the rules of the game. From a pragmatic perspective, such technologies may even save lives by reducing the number of soldiers exposed to direct combat and replacing humans with machines in the most dangerous zones of conflict.
Yet Peter was equally clear about the ethical dilemma. "Things that are frugal are not necessarily good." Simplicity, affordability and efficiency are not moral qualities in themselves. For innovation to become truly transformative, it must remain anchored in sustainability, inclusion and social justice. Without those foundations, frugality is merely a characteristic of a technology, not a vision for a better future.
"I Want the Real Electricity"
Another participant asked about examples of innovation travelling from South to North. Peter responded with a story from Kenya.
In a village where solar-powered systems had been installed to provide electricity, one resident remained dissatisfied. "I want the real electricity," she told him. The audience smiled at the recognisable reaction. But the anecdote illustrated what Peter described as one of the greatest challenges facing frugal innovation.
The issue was not functionality. The system worked. The issue was legitimacy. People do not judge technologies solely on what they do. They also judge what those technologies represent socially. A solar-powered system may provide exactly the same service, but if it is perceived as a second-rate substitute for something better, adoption becomes far more difficult.
The obstacle is often not technological. The obstacle is psychological.
People may embrace sustainability in principle, yet reject solutions that appear simpler, smaller or less prestigious than conventional alternatives. Until societies stop equating complexity and consumption with progress, many frugal solutions will continue to be perceived as second-best options, regardless of how well they perform. The challenge of frugal innovation is not only to redesign products and systems. It is to redefine what people consider valuable, desirable and legitimate.
One Word, Many Meanings
Towards the end of the session, the discussion turned to language itself. Does the world need a universal definition of frugal innovation?
Peter's answer was immediate. "No."
Drawing on examples from India and Kenya, he argued that concepts such as simplicity and resourcefulness are deeply embedded in local cultures and histories. In India, the concept of Jugaad is often associated with creative problem-solving. At the same time, it can also imply working around formal rules and procedures. Because of these associations, many people do not automatically embrace the term. In Kenya, meanwhile, the word "frugal" itself has little resonance, leading local partners to use terminology that makes more sense within their own context.
What matters, Peter argued, is not agreement on a single label. What matters is the principle behind it. He referred to this as the "virtue of simplicity", an idea that appears across cultures, religions and philosophies while taking different forms in different places.
Maria Alejandra Pineda Escobar, Peter Knorringa, Juan Fernando Montañez
From Supervisor to Partner
The final question of the session shifted from innovation to collaboration. What made the growing partnership between ICFI and Frugalis so exciting? Peter's answer began with a story.
He recalled their very first meeting, when María Alejandra interviewed him before deciding whether he would be the right PhD supervisor. The audience laughed. "Normally, supervisors interview prospective PhD candidates," he remarked. "In this case, it was the other way around."
Looking back, Peter described the episode as revealing. What started as a supervisor-student relationship has gradually evolved into a partnership between colleagues who now work together as equals. For him, that transformation reflects something larger than a personal story. It embodies the kind of partnership that increasingly characterises collaborations between ICFI and its international hubs: relationships built not on hierarchy or one-way knowledge transfer, but on mutual learning, trust and shared ownership of ideas.
As participants slowly drifted towards the coffee break, conversations continued throughout the room. Some debated sustainability. Others discussed education, technology or local development. New contacts were exchanged. Arguments continued where the formal session had ended.
The questions raised that morning were far from settled. But perhaps that was precisely the point.