Empathetic children overcome inertia

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While holding a tray in hand, we have often wondered why nobody put a system of pedal operated door opening system.  Jayaprakash Ratwa, Grambharti, Amarapur and Tanmaya Takale from Pune have suggested a new arrangement for opening doors.  Have not you regretted that a lot of papers, which are printed of various meetings go waste instead of being reclaimed.  Arvind, Chennai has suggested a system for erasing print for reusing such papers.   While pets share their love with us, we often share our stress with them.  Diva Sharma, New Delhi has suggested a stress monitoring system for animals so that veterinary doctors can be alerted when parameters go beyond the tolerable range.  Who has not forgotten to take medicine on time but not any more?  Navjot and Vashnavi from Punjab and Odisha have suggested a smart watch with drug delivery system just like drug patches.  All of these and many other ideas will be on display on November 30 at the IGNITE exhibition organized at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.   The President Shri. Pranab Mukherjee will interact with the IIMA community and give away the APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE awards by National Innovation Foundation [NIF] to children from all over the country.  NIF will facilitate filing patents in all the relevant cases at its cost with all the rights belonging to the children.  It also gets prototypes fabricated in all the feasible cases.  The idea is to assure the children that their ideas matter and the country cares for them.  It is hoped that these children will prove worthy members of the Honey Bee Network and pursue Shodhyatra all through their life to learn from teacher within, around, in nature and among common people.  In the fast moving modern life, the art of slowing down to pause, reflect, observe, absorb and identify pointers for future needs to be developed.  Each of these child winner would need a mentor who will keep the flame of creativity burning in their heart.  Idea is to ensure that this flame illuminates the paths of less privileged children in a compassionate and collaborative way. bodysuit1 bodysuit 20150307_133620

 

Ayush Gupta and Arnav Sharma, DPS, Hardwar have designed a bionic suit for people whose strength in the arms is impaired because of some disability [Fig 1].

 

 

Dipankar, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has designed a solar pulse thrasher [Fig 2].

 

 

 

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When I wrote about Lipsa’s idea of a device to collect mahuva flowers from Odisha [Fig 3] and Bharat’s suggestion for a device to collect tendu patta, I got a mail soon after from Madhya Pradesh from a herbal dealer who would wish to support such ideas.   In this age of open innovation, it is not necessary that those who generate ideas will always be most passionate or competent to implement them.   We need to find entrepreneurs and companies that can take the ideas of children and other grassroots innovators forward.  For some reason, NIF has received much more aggressive support from multinational companies than from Indian companies.  Can we change this trend? Innovation of Lipsa Pradhan But that will require industry associations to become more impatient and feel inadequate if they cannot motivate their members to work with creative communities.  There is no idea which is very small.  Many times, we have found the holes punched in the paper unable to keep the paper intact in file.  The hole gets torn or widened.  We then put a small cello tape to repair the medical prescription or any other important document in the liver file.  But this problem will not persist any more if a company comes forward and joins hand with Tanmay Takale, Pune to devise a new kind of punching machine.  It will make a hole and affix a ring around the hole to reinforce its strength.  Paper will no more come out of the file.  Companies like 3M made fortune by paying attention to small detail.  As Charles Ream said, ‘details are not details, they are the design’.  We have no dearth of young designers as apparent from the IGNITE award list, what will convert them into startups and entrepreneurs is a hand shake with industry and mentors.

A startup nation needs to stand and recognize the talent of young children who don’t want to wait too long for concrete results.  NIF has triggered the process of unleashing the creativity of children.  Now, the Honey Bee Network invites other stakeholders to join hands to take this movement forward.

anilg

Visiting Faculty, IIM Ahmedabad & IIT Bombay and an independent thinker, activist for the cause of creative communities and individuals at grassroots, tech institutions and any other walk of life committed to make this world a more creative, compassionate and collaborative place