The need for reducing poverty and to develop the standard of living in rural areas around the world is enormous. Ideas for new approaches have to be created, developed and implemented. Design thinking and methods combined with innovation in practice and management - as Design Inspired Innovation - could be such a concept to provide for rural people to empower themselves and improve their living conditions. On the other hand it is important to learn from the sustainable lifestyle practices being followed in rural villages and extrapolate them to the urban setting. The purpose of this paper is to discuss an initiative between Swedish and Indian researchers, MBA students and their networks. It is based on appropriate design research methodology, ethnographic design research and innovation science. Experiences from initial empirical studies show that master students gathering data in the field (focusing in the areas such as ICT, banking & finance, health care, entrepreneurship, energy and agribusiness), analyzing and interpreting the data together with researchers can get new insights of opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship at the 'bottom of the pyramid'.