Low cost innovation and developing countries

Gerry George is Professor and Deputy Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and serves as the Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre at Imperial. The Centre facilitates Imperial College’s strategic commitments in India for joint research initiatives and educational programmes in innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Professor George was awarded a prestigious Professorial Fellowship from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to develop a research and practice agenda on resource-constrained or inclusive innovation. He examines technology, service, and business model innovations that consume few resources, yet can be leveraged to create employment and wealth for organisations that champion them. In so doing, these innovations enhance social and economic wealth of impoverished and socially disenfranchised communities.

Prof. George’s work investigates organisational design for effective prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This is a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria-sponsored and UNAIDS-convened project that aims to identify areas for improvement in service delivery of treatment programmes.  In the energy sector, one project focuses on rural electrification in Kenya and Tanzania. This five-year Energy for Development collaborative project Southampton University will install equipment, monitor, and evaluate business models for long term viability of rural electrification and the supporting micro-enterprise development required to make it sustainable. 

He also examines public-private partnerships, especially in large infrastructure projects such as roads, mass transit, airports, and power.  His particular interest is in governance, partnership structure, and risk sharing and its implications for innovation and performance effectiveness of these projects.

Professor George was an Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) Innovation Fellow (2007 — 2009), a joint initiative of the ESRC and EPSRC. His book (with Adam Bock) titled Inventing Entrepreneurs: Technology Innovators and their Entrepreneurial Journey (Prentice Hall, 2008) addresses the human side of innovation and technology transfer. 

An award-winning researcher and teacher, Professor George has published several articles in leading scholarly journals. He is an Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal. He also serves on the Strategy Board of the Energy Futures Lab. 

Before joining Imperial College, Professor George held tenured positions at the London Business School, where he served as Faculty Director of the Institute of Technology and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directed the Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship Program.