This document discusses inclusive innovations for democratizing social imagination. It provides several examples of innovations created by children in India to meet social needs, such as a posture-correcting chair, a system for mobile-to-mobile charging, and a modified walker with adjustable legs. It discusses the importance of nurturing children's creativity and empowering youth. It also outlines four pillars of sustainability for the Honey Bee Network: technology, institutions, education, and culture. The network aims to blend frugal, inclusive grassroots innovations with the formal sector through open sharing.

1. INCLUSIVE
INNOVATIONS
FOR DEMOCRATIZING
SOCIAL
IMAGINATION
ANIL K GUPTA
Honey Bee Network
anilg@sristi.org

2. • Why tending
children’s creativity
is necessary to
nourish roots of
future democracy
• Why youth has to
recognise
connections
between
autonomy, agency
and accountability

3. If a person is sitting on the chair in a wrong posture, an
alarm will start ringing and not stop until the person
corrects the posture. Or sensor will check the posture,
computer screen will go blank,” sit properly, else will not let
you do work”
Posture correcting chair
Kulsoom Rizvi, 5, lucknow, UP & Tarun Anand, 10, Hardoi,
UP

4. Ravi Duhan, Sanjay Raghav and Manoj Kumar
Class 9, SD SSS
Rewari, Haryana
Mobile to mobile charging
The idea to have a system wherein charge from a mobile may be transferredto
another mobile

6. Modified walker with adjustable legs
Shalini Kumari, then in class 8
Bihar
Shalini’s grandfather uses a walker to assist him while he
walks. But she noticed that he could only use the walker
comfortably while walking on a level surface. Shalini came up
with the idea of the modified walker with adjustable legs. NIF
licensed this technology to a company recently

7. Four pillars of sustainability: Honey
Bee Network
• Technology –blending frugal, inclusive grassroots
innovations in formal and informal sector
• Institutions: commons as the fulcrum of
civilizational rejuvenation
• Education- schools, colleges and life long journey,
shodhyatras: walk through the country
• Culture-culture of deviance, dissent, diversity,
democracy and autopoesis development

8. Emergence of social Innovation (Fig. 1)
Market Failure State Failure Civil Society Failure
Affordability
Accessibility
Acceptability
Adaptability
Availability
Persistent
Institutionalisation of Social
Innovation
Adjustment/ Adaptation with
problem
Crowd Funding/
Private Grant
Corporate
(CSR)
Open Innovation
Low self esteem
Downward spiral
Exit
Unsensed/Unmet Social
Needs
Social Protest/change
Ex-ante
Transaction cost
Ex-post
Endogenously
Funded (Community)
Violent/
Disruptive
Learned Helplessness
Non-Violent/
Constructive
Gandhian
Approach
InertiaOpen
sharing

9. Fertilizing Imagination
Can tail wag the dog:
Can large corporations learn
from grassroots innovators, or children?
Anil K Gupta

10. Information/Knowledge/Wisdom
Innovation Playground
Inside out
High Low
High
Low
DBDB
Sponge
Pollinator ostrich
Outside in
Large heart,
big mind,
Dil bada
dimaag bada

11. Key lessons
• Children are not just sink of sermons but are source of
ideas, they are naturally empathetic and can be
empowered by acting on their ideas to sustain this spirit of
solidarity
• Ss.sristi.org-summer and winter schools to make students
address unmet social needs
• Techpedia.in to forge community, ecological, industrial and
social connect in education
• Empathetic innovations are imperative, not just an icing on
the cake
Sristi.org, gian.org and nifindia.org provide an ecosystem for
inclusive innovations willing to join hands with similar groups
worldwide

12. Creativity counts
Knowledge matters
Innovations transform
Incentives inspire
Join the Honey Bee Network!
For rewarding indigenous creativity and innovation
www.techpedia.in, www.sristi.org, www.nif.org.in
anilgb@gmail.com