Singapore University of Social Sciences

The objective of OEL324 is to provide students with the conceptual tools and learning experiences to develop a deeper understanding of Indian startup culture vis-à-vis the experience of unequal development. This objective will be achieved through a combination of experiential learning, e-learning, classroom activities, and participation in an overseas trip to Bangalore and Mumbai. Bangalore became known as the Silicon Valley of Asia for the ubiquity of firms and educational institutions that churn out quality IT products and talents. Many of these talents began with dreams of working for western tech giants like Google, but in recent years, they have gravitated towards entrepreneurial ideas that seek to address the problem of scarcity/unequal development. Just like many other global cities where entrepreneurs gather, Bangalore is highly internationalised and cosmopolitan, and hence no longer presents an accurate representation of Indian cultural pragmatics. Mumbai fills in this learning gap for its “Jugaad (innovative fix)” mind-set that the locals employ to overcome day-to-day challenges associated with unequal development like ground logistics, water & waste management, and selling-buying in retail market. Mumbai offers a great challenge to all entrepreneurs as well as a unique learning opportunity on how to fix these problems in a cost effective and sustainable manner, keeping in mind the self-interest imbalance between people who will benefit from a solution and people who uses the inefficiencies as a means of daily livelihood. Through reflecting on the relationships between Bangalore’s startup culture and unequal development in India, students would be able to better appreciate how a cultural invention like Jugaad not only evolved from having to deal with the inequalities of everyday life, but also how it has seeped into the domains of commerce and technology.