JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – 31 March 2026 — Innovation is often treated as something abstract, reserved for geniuses or high-tech industries. In Quick Innovation MBA, author and innovation educator Tiisetso Maloma argues that innovation is neither mysterious nor exclusive — it is a learnable process that can be understood and applied in real-world contexts.
Released by Bula Buka Publishers, the book provides a set of practical frameworks for understanding how new ideas emerge, evolve, and succeed — particularly in complex and resource-constrained environments like emerging markets.
“Innovation is not genius,” says Maloma. “It’s a process. Once you understand it, you can apply it to almost any problem or system.”
Rather than offering prescriptions for specific policy outcomes, Quick Innovation MBA equips readers with a way of thinking — a lens that can be used to analyse economic, business, and technological challenges.
This lens is increasingly relevant in South Africa, where issues such as unemployment, enterprise development, and the growth of the informal economy remain central to public debate.
Using the frameworks outlined in the book, Maloma explores how these challenges may be better understood from a systems perspective. For example, he points to how innovation often occurs through improving and scaling existing systems — rather than starting entirely new ones — a perspective that has implications for how small businesses and informal enterprises are supported.
A key theme of the book is that innovation happens under constraint.
“Innovation happens under constraint,” says Maloma. “When resources are limited, people don’t theorise — they build what works.”
The book introduces practical frameworks such as:
- The Adjacent Possible — how innovation evolves step-by-step from what already exists
- The Human Greed Pyramid — how human behaviour influences adoption
- Stacking for Agility — combining existing elements to create more efficient solutions
These frameworks are designed to be generative rather than interpretive, helping readers actively create and improve systems rather than only analyse them.
The book also provides tools for understanding broader technological and economic shifts, including the impact of artificial intelligence and evolving digital platforms.
Maloma is also the creator of “If I Was President”, a platform where he explores how innovation and systems thinking can be applied to public policy and governance in emerging markets.
At a time when access to knowledge is expanding, technology is lowering the cost of building businesses, and young people are increasingly entrepreneurial, Maloma argues that the key challenge is not a lack of ideas — but the ability to understand and apply them effectively.
“The goal is not to give people answers,” he says. “It’s to give them a way of thinking that helps them find better ones.”
Quick Innovation MBA is available at Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, Takealot, and Amazon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tiisetso Maloma is an author of 12 books, innovation educator, and intellectual property entrepreneur. His work focuses on innovation systems, emerging markets, and township economies.
He is currently building iZwily, an operating system for book publishing and retail, and is the founder of Startup Picnic Venture Studio.