ek unsuni aawaaj: curious, creative, collaborative and compassionate India
(Lok Gyan Manthan Kendra: people’s knowledge churning centre )
When the creative common people of a society have to struggle to get recognition, then a sustainable and inclusive future is unlikely. It is not for just recognising such people that Honey Bee Network emerged more than two decades ago. It was also to make our lives more frugal, sustainable and in sync with nature that learning from the spirit of common people became imperative.
Arguments for protecting knowledge rights of creative communities and individuals more than 25years ago was a minority voice in the din of globalization that was to follow. Neither the Convention on Biological Diversity (the Earth Summit, CBD) was in place nor WTO induced TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights ]) was there. Here was a newsletter advocating just that. The resources for the Network have remained meagre and so also for the institution which backed it up mainly, that is SRISTI. There are several other volunteers who have made a major contribution to the growth of this idea but all of them have worked with very minimalist resource backup. Off shoots of Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions [SRISTI] have grown in the form of Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network [GIAN] and National Innovation Foundation (NIF). NIF has become an institute of Department of Science and Technology, GOI and thus is assured of reasonable support in future. SRISTI does not take any financial support from the Institutions it spawned as a matter of principle.
SRISTI since its formal inception in 1993 has been trying to trigger an informal revolution with in the country but also in many other countries to respect, recognize and reward knowledge rich-economically poor people. Creating new role models in society is a slow but very sustainable process if it begins at the doorstep of centenarians, traditional knowledge holders and grassroots innovators. Shodhyatras, organised every summer and winter during last thirteen years, involving walk over 4500 kms have taught us a great deal more about how creative and compassionate India deals with the idea of making India a knowledge society[1]. In due course, India might make affordable, accessible and accountable solutions available to common problems not just for disadvantaged people in the country but rather worldwide.
Challenges ahead:
1.0) Creating a Green campus to make the idea of creative India come alive for children, adults, policy makers and leaders of developing world
A distributed campus with simplicity writ large on every aspect of it will hopefully trigger a system of distributed knowledge management. While there will have to be a central campus, there should also be Community Platform for Innovation and Knowledge (CPIK) in inner city of Ahmadabad hopefully in collaboration with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and in other parts of the country. Eventually, such centres may be set up in different parts of the world as well. Idea would be to engage with creative communities and provide them access to fabrication, research and creative skill development opportunities. An innovative society cannot endure without a very wide network of experimental and innovation sites where children, adults from formal and informal sectors can work together regardless of class or other cultural identities.
The SRISTI Campus may house laboratory, learning centre, library, fabrication workshop, creativity workshop, archives of traditional knowledge, multi-media multi language innovative content production centre, visiting scholar residency, or gyan-vigyan ashram, community radio station, international centre of excellence for building capacity in setting up national grassroots innovation systems in third world,
1.1 Innovators in residence programme: Presence of the creative person can inspire, instigate and illuminate the lives of many around. During the co-learning camps, even corporate executives can register, at much higher fees about the art of frugal design or engineering or heuristics for solving problems, creating visions and achieving results. The innovators will be invited from different fields such as technological, educational, common property institutions, cultural and business for social inclusion. Videotapes of the encounters will be maintained which in due course will create a kind of youtube/TED of learning from creative minds at the grassroots.
1.2 An online university for inclusive innovations for sustainable development akin to the current project of GRIID [Grassroots Innovations for Inclusive Development] [http://www.sristi.org/cms/?q=en/node/1771] is planned. The distributed membership of the faculty will have teachers from the top universities around the world willing to engage with grassroots communities. In due course, doctoral programme may be started in collaboration with various mainstream universities.
1.3 g2G [Grassroots to Global]
As mentioned in the GRIID project, the existing model of globalisation needs to be reversed, at least, partly. While the scope will always exist for consumption of externally produced or sourced goods or services at local community level, the research proposed here may lead to an alternative conceptualisation of future of globalisation. This may happen through following initiatives:
1.3.1The grassroots producers, innovators and some of whom will become entrepreneurs, may be,by themselves or through supporting mediating organisations create space in the global market for their products and services ( it is happening to some extent in the area of crafts, handicrafts, handlooms, but not happening enough in food, artefacts, herbal products, architecture, wall murals, etc., ).
1.3.2 Creating space for grassroots entrepreneurial knowledge based products in global markets can modify the dominant adverse effects of globalisation. The e-commerce platform, the courier and packaging industry may have to be integrated in the supply chain so that a global consumer can source locally produced knowledge based goods (nutraceuticals, traditional foods, innovative craft, cloth or any other locally manufacturable goods, etc.). The research will have to be done to create such supply chains that can accommodate high degree of variability in the product, channel of transportation, nature and process of consumption and finally the disposal. At the same time, the transaction costs for the knowledge producers and grassroots entrepreneurs as well as buyers will have to be kept extremely low.Idea is that a locally famous/expert pickle/processed food making lady will be contacted when some body places an order for her speciality displayed on website, with right container and supply it to the buyer, hygienically. The lady has beocme an entreprenur. Local food has been put on global plate and reverse globalization has set in place.
Anil K Gupta
