Ahmedabad, October 28 He may be a high school dropout but Prem Chand Saini’s time at his brother’s electronic shop in Ambala, Haryana, may have been well spent. For his mobile-phone operated switch, showcased at a workshop organised by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-Ahmedabad, has led him to share stage with top innovators from across the Asia-Pacific region. He is the only grassroots innovator selected as finalist for the ninth Asian Innovation Award this year with 14 others, including four from India, three from Singapore and China and one each from Australia and New Zealand.

‘‘I used to frequent the shop from the time I was in Class V but could not give time to it due to studies. So when I was in Class X, I decided to drop out of school so that I could develop new things for my friends and myself,’’ says Saini.

Saini had developed the system which uses a mobile phone as a remote control operator way back in 2002 when there was just a murmur of the use of mobile phones as remote control. ‘‘It is not very difficult to develop anything. What you require is a desire to do things differently and also an eye to detect the difference,’’ he says. His operation requires two separate mobile phones, one of which is connected to the switch while the other has a configured phone number stored in it.

‘‘When you call up the mobile phone attached to the switch, it will switch on and the electronic device attached to it will start functioning. Similarly, when you call up next, the switch will be put off stopping the device,’’ he explains.

The mobile phone in the hand of the operator also informs the status of the electronic device in operation: whether it is switched on, off, or whether electric supply is available to it. The switch can operate 1,000 kilowatts of device and 1.5 volts to 11,000 volts of AC/DC device. The total cost of the device, says Saini, comes to Rs 4,650 with the call costs being nil as only a missed call is required for the functioning of the device.

Saini, who will leave for Singapore soon, is never tired of criticising the education system which he feels retards innovative minds. ‘‘Conventional education has deteriorated the human brain. This is one important reason why I left studies and plunged into innovating things. How can education actually help when syllabus takes so much time to change while technology changes in days?’’ he asks.

Saini has to his credit a number of other innovations and awards. He had earlier devised a robot that can sense movements, a way to prevent train accidents and device to stop hijacked planes from crashing into buildings, an idea he derived after 9/11. ‘‘California University appreciated my effort,’’ says a proud Saini.

Saini’s entry was sent to the The Wall Street Journal Asia, one of the award hosting teams, by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) this year. The NIF, participating for the second year, has elicited 224 entries from which the finalists were selected.