Agenda for mobilizing tech youth for transforming India: six challanges

There are six challenges which tech youth is facing in reorienting not only its own motivations but also that of the larger society to use the talent and potential of youth far better than India does it today. There is a serious underutilization of this potential by youth and teachers themselves. The collaborative advantage among the disciplines, institutions, sectors and social segments thus is missing.

Challenge one:

Formal-Informal partnership: There is a dire need to bridge the widening distance between the opportunities available for creative communities and individuals in formal and informal sector. While individual innovators in every sector are disadvantaged, their handicaps become several times multiplied when language, remoteness and illiteracy so characteristic of much of the informal sector, further impede the communication between two sectors. Common fabrication facilities must be created in the form of innovation Lab or creativity space where students manage the facility and do the fabrication round the lock whenever they feel like without any need to take permission from higher ups or facing other administrative constraints.

Engagement with innovators and communities in disadvantage regions: When social tensions and in some cases instances of social violence are tearing the margins of the country apart, it is a very desirable gesture on the part of the students at Svarious technology education campuses to engage with innovators in formal and informal sector. Benchmarking: measuring current level of the inertia or inefficiency and hazards( safety issues) in various activities of manual or shop floor workers in different livelihoods/farm and non farm industries is essential. This can not be just a one time engagement. Solving persistent social problems: The design of the projects on the problems of excluded communities, professions/occupations( say leather workers, stone breakers, coolies, paddy transplanters etc.,) will contribute a great deal in overcoming civilizational inertia of our country, it will also make students feel good about themselves.

Challenge Two:

Collaborative learning: Mobilizing the power of collaborative learning within and between the campuses has not been harnessed enough yet. We still are organized departmentally and think through the problem sectorally rather than more historically or from final user’s perspective. Cross-disciplinarity: Thus creating opportunities for students of different branches to work together formally or informally to solve a problem is one of the major agenda ahead. User-orientation: Which disciplines should be brought together should depend upon the problems to be solved and not constraints of the department or a branch, or guides. Cross-institutional cooperation: Project pursued at one institute does not have much chance of being taken forward at another institute. Relay or kho-kho model is another process through which collaboration can be fostered across institutions. Database of state of art of student projects: Reinforce the spirit of sharing and upload the final year and assignments projects and other content on techpedia.in or other such platforms to make these open source after filing patents if the need be. How else, will originality of students projects be ensured.

Challenge Three:

Linkage with MSME and public systems: Identifying the problems in managing environmental effects, material use, waste, energy efficiency, workers safety and productivity, and quality of goods and services in MSME.

Challenge Four:

Investing in student’s ideas and innovations: mobilise small risk capital from alumni and high net-worth individuals to create social venture fund at each campus to invest in the socially useful ideas of students and also of the informal sector innovators. Similarly funds should be available for supporting student led patents with a small equity that can be shared between the Institution and sristi’s Techpedia.in ( say five to seven per cent each, or fees in lieu of that) if its support is needed for getting patent at concessional terms through Honey Bee Network’s list of pro bono IP attorneys all over the country.

Challenge five:

Extending testing and calibration facilities to innovators without cost if need be or at extremely low cost so that advantage of state of art laboratories and workshops becomes available to informal sector and MSME and also student innovators from ITI and Polytechnics

Challenge six:

Open source content for school children: each student should develop at least one open source multi media and/or multi language lesson in any subject of any class for school children

Anil K Gupta