02.08.10
Meena Kadri | Interviews

Finding Innovation in Every Corner


Anil Gupta backed by the signature brick of the Louis Kahn–designed Indian Institute of Management campus in Ahmedabad. Photos: Meena Kadri

A senior faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Anil Gupta champions those who are knowledge-rich yet economically poor. His belief that poverty can be alleviated through decentralized, innovation-led enterprises has given rise to several related programs. He formed the Honey Bee Network in the late 1980s to nurture and cross-pollinate grassroots knowledge, creativity and innovation. In 1993, he founded the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) to provide organizational support to the Honey Bee Network. And in 1997, he created the Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) to catalyze knowledge into feasible products and sustainable enterprises. Gupta’s semi-annual Shodh Yatra (Journey of Discovery) involves a trek of rural Indian villages to uncover innovative thinking. And the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) he co-established in 2000 provides an assessment procedure and database of grassroots technological innovations. NIF recently gained wide attention by supplying from its archives several inventions featured in the Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots, including a scooter-powered flour mill and cycle-driven washing machine.

Anil Gupta spoke with Meena Kadri in Ahmedabad, India, on January 20, 2010.

Meena Kadri
How would you describe your mission across your many initiatives?

Anil Gupta
To enhance the inherent creativity of grassroots innovators, inventors and eco-preneurs while exploring a new paradigm for poverty alleviation that celebrates inclusive development. We focus on devising a knowledge network from village to government level while overcoming the constraints posed by language, literacy and locality. We also facilitate the documentation and cross-pollination of traditional knowledge across India.

Kadri
How do you see these endeavors playing a role in reducing poverty?

Gupta
Most models of development are centered on what the poor don’t have rather than what they have. Some position the poor at the bottom of the economic pyramid, but this does not equate to a lack of knowledge, values and social networks. I prefer to see the poor as a provider than a market — with their limited material resources driving knowledge-intensive, informal innovation. Through providing incubation and development support, patent and intellectual-property-rights assistance, marketing advice and microventure funding, we seek to support the creativity that already exists at the grassroots.

One example of upward mobility is Dharamveer Kamboj, who went from being a rickshaw puller in Delhi’s Old City to an acclaimed organic farmer and innovator in food-processing technology for which he now receives international orders.

Kadri
How are innovations sourced?

Gupta
We have a number of channels, including scouts who tour rural villages, our multilingual Honey Bee newsletter and Shodh Yatra, which focuses intensively on a specific rural region twice a year. Additionally, we support local networks of farmers who discuss experimentation based on local challenges. We also attend an array of fairs, exhibitions and weekly markets, where we both seek and celebrate innovators.

Entrepreneurs such as Mansukhbhai Prajapati, with his range of clay pans, pressure cookers and non-electric refrigerator, do well at such events. His Mitti Cool brand attracts other would-be innovators as a shining example of a successful enterprise that combines technology with traditional knowledge to deliver sustainable solutions.

Once we have sourced innovations and traditional knowledge, we document and decide if they are suitable for cross-pollination and open-source development or whether they require testing, validation, incubation, production and marketing.




Mitti Cool cookware and refrigerator by Mansukhbhai Prajapati, from Gujarat

Kadri
Can you give some examples of the cross-pollination of ideas you foster?

Gupta
Last year we visited farmers in Maharastra who were facing failed cotton crops which were driving increasing numbers to suicide. Much of their discussion revolved around failed pesticides. We had previously gathered knowledge via the Honey Bee Network from cotton farmers elsewhere in India who had found planting bindhi [okra] attracted pests away from the cotton. Elsewhere, jaggery [unrefined sugar] is sprayed on cotton to attract ants, which eat the larvae of pests. These solutions are sustainable as well as productivity-enhancing and were duly passed on to the Maharastran farmers. We also publish our widely distributed newsletter in seven languages to heighten the spread of knowledge, plus we transmit specifically relevant ideas via our local networks and during the Shodh Yatra.

We are currently exploring an internet telephony solution via which we could pair callers’ locations and area of work with knowledge that exists in our database. For example, a farmer from Bihar could receive information on combating pests and weather conditions in his area that have achieved success elsewhere.

Kadri
Many of the innovations I’ve seen have been put forward by men — but I’m sure there must be many by women also.

Gupta
Indeed! The pedal-powered washing machine featured in the film 3 Idiots was inspired by the invention of 20-year-old Remya Jose from Kerala, which has been showcased on the Discovery Channel.

We sourced a drink made from the Opuntia [prickly pear] cactus fruit from women in Saurasthra that sold exceptionally well at our annual Stavik Food Festival. The festival attempts to enhance demand for local crops to stimulate market-based incentives for their conservation and cultivation. We provided festival goers with nutritional information for the drink based on testing at our SRISTI lab. We’re now in discussions with the Indian railways to see if we can sell the drink on board their trains, which serve 18 million passengers daily.

There are countless women innovating but a memorable success story was Valsamma Thomas. We helped to develop her herbal hair-oil using local ingredients. She did so well off the venture that we later received a photograph from her proudly displaying the new car she had purchased with her profits.

Kadri
Could you expand on the sustainable nature of many of the grassroots initiatives?

Gupta
When you combine a scarcity of resources with an abundance of knowledge, sustainable solutions are a common result. Those at the grassroots inherently look for ways to co-opt nature and conserve energy. Our Shodh Yatra explorations demonstrate that rural innovations tend toward sustainable solutions with frugality, durability and multi-functionality being part of the mix. Re-purposed technology, such as bicycles, feature often in transformed roles to meet a variety of needs. From agricultural innovations to the gas-powered iron or pressure-cooker-driven coffee maker, we find that solutions developed by producers who are also users reflect the concerns of both the production and consumption environments.


Gas-powered iron by K Linga Brahman, from Andra Pradesh


Pressure-cooker coffee maker by Mohammed Rozadeen, from Bihar


Kadri
What are some of the biggest challenges you currently face in your work?

Gupta
We source many genuine innovations that address local problems, but some do not become products due to lack of fine-tuned design. We’d like to explore a model whereby professional designers give their time as a form of investment in the eventual product. Grassroots innovators can devise needs-based solutions in an anticipatory manner but need assistance to test, scale, market and distribute — we can manage some of this but would like to utilize professional institutes, perhaps on a deferred-payment basis.

And of course one of the biggest challenges that’s driven me for some time now is — when things turn out well — ensuring that the honey gets spread around!

Kadri
While we’ve been sitting here you’ve had a number of students visit your office for various requests, plus taken many phone calls, and at one stage you were juggling two handsets and their respective callers to co-ordinate an event. Does it ever seem like just too much for one person?

Gupta
Well, of course it’s not just me — we have a great team across our various organizations and local networks, plus many volunteers and students who bring their energy and commitment. I feel that through this kind of collaboration and facilitation we can turn vicious circles into virtuous ones. Really, there is so much to do because there is such a wealth of innovation to be tapped and channeled. And of course the real work — and indeed the success — happens not in an academic office but at the grassroots itself.


Posted in: India, Social Good, Technology



Comments [10]

Brilliant!

This is what most South East Asian countries faces every time innovation isn't well placed in its indigenous locals. Rarely its understood as a premise that innovation at a primitive level is important for the locals especially the lower income groups.

I must watch 3 idiots.
Muhamad Razif Nasruddin
02.16.10
03:28

Wow. Thank you design observer for shedding a light on agents of change like Anil Gupta. In an setup, such as the Indian modern society, especially in the metropolitan cities, there is a massive pull towards "graduating" to the next level of life, which sadly translates for most into the blind love of everything western. Nothing wrong, with the western idea, but the eastern values are beautiful in themselves, and to avoid sameness it should be preserved, understood, and practiced as long as it can be. The pressure cooker, cow dung as replacement for cooking gas and coal, and the wonderful ideas mentioned here are truly unique and in my mind better than some of the modern innovations. The pressure cooker heats up the contents faster as it is a covered vessel and steams the contents which is also healthier for the body. Cow dung is used as fuel for starting fires and using it as a source for cooking. It is a 100% efficient use of bio-degradable waste and the remaining ashes can biodegrade or sometimes used as manure! It is also used and mixed with clay to build housing in the villages.
It takes a true creative to realize something wonderful with the bare minimum resources at hand, and change perceptions. And Anil Gupta is one such person.

Another artist (architect) worth remembering is Mr Doshi. http://doshi.100hands.net/
nitin budhiraja
02.17.10
10:30

Thank you, Guptaji.
Niti Bhan
02.21.10
08:39

Extremely inspiring article. The USA is exceeding 10% unemployment now. Could we take some lessons from this article to help us create a more sustainable environment for the unemployed. There is so much which can be done using simple techniques. With so much land available could we create small Indian style villages where the unemployed would be assured of health care, shelter, food and clothing as they learnt, produced, researched and consumed from the earth till they have a chance to get back into the main stream of the employed.
Daniel Christadoss
02.21.10
08:57

Very Good Discussion. Innovation happens when one is sufficiently challenged with resource constraints and still wishes to achieve what one has to.

There are plenty of Innovations happening all around. Vendors selling novel items in the Mumbai Suburban Trains which is another best place to spot such grass root innovations. These items are available at rock bottom prices and provide a greater value in terms of function in terms of getting the job done.

Prashant
http://innovationnukkad.blogspot.com
Prashant Y. Joglekar
02.24.10
02:37

Beautiful Meena. I know of Professor Gupta's work and this article captures the spirit of the Network. There's much to be learned from his insights and observations married to his spirit of activism.
ken botnick
03.02.10
02:48

Sometimes the lack of resources lends way to not just an immense scope of creativity but the fact that it just has to work from whatever you have, however limited it may be.

Very inspiring.
Afifa Chida
04.01.10
05:42

Wonderful article Meena - it makes you a bit scared too....and its the simple question - whats gonna happen when all the poor get rich ??? - well we all know the challenge. After having lived in India and missing it immensely I see ONLY one way out and that is MICRO LIVING - we all need to live better lives with less so that the "BOP"s can get their part of the cake. And the way I saw / see development in India there was / is not much sharing. Its wonderful that people can do what they want - BUT we really need to understand that pragmatics or consequences too - long term. Id really like to invite all of y to discuss MICRO LIVING....IM starting slowly here in France and you can read more on my site www.npflint.com - MICRO LIVING...and btw you of course all know the solar cooker from the Ghandi Asram BUT DO YOU USE ONE - its amazing and ALL indians or people in the tropics should have one....Im using it today here in France - OCTOBER 10TH 2010 FOR COOKING MY BROWN RICE...and it works..
Niels Peter Flint
10.10.10
04:55

I learnt of Honey Bee and inninovationsbusiness,com when I watched BBC in June 2011. I was fascinated by the inventions discussed. I am wondering if I could market such invention/devices. Are the home security device and the car immobiliser fully tested to be marketed. I am very interested. Please advise. I will be looking for mor of such episodes from the BBC. Thanks. Valayatham Ramanair.
valayatham ramanair
06.13.11
08:23

Dear Valayatham,

I am actually writing my dissertation on commercialization of grassroots innovations. I was wondering if you could spare a few minutes of your time to answer a few questions of mine?
e.g. which technologies are you interested in exactly (is the bbc programme new? I've tried looking for it)?

in what sort of business are you engaged?

where would you like to market these products? only India or internationally?

If you could reply to my email, I would be forever grateful.
m.m.wojcik[at] sms.ed.ac.uk

thanks in advance

Gosia Wojcik

Gosia Wojcik
06.26.11
07:46


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