Presentation made to UNDP Delhi team to persuade them as to why it is important to recognise, respect and reward creative individuals and communities at the grassroots level. The innovations for and from grassroots are both important but former get more attention than the latter. Dev programs should aim at giving voice visibility and velocity to frugal and sustainable solutions. grassroots innovations are not jugaad, they are borne aout of numeorus iterations of experiments and trials. The Honey Bee Network started 30 years ago is keen to support such efforts globally. it also seeks volunteers to join hands with us see sristi.org, gian.org,. nifindia.org anilg.sristi.org

1. anil k gupta
Founder, Honey Bee Network
SRISTI, GIAN and NIF
Visiting faculty, IIMA & IITB
CSIR Bhatnagar Fellow
Anilg.sristi.org
Mapping and
Tapping hotspots
of creativity:
Learning from what poor
people are rich in

2. grassroots frugal innovations:
HBN Giving voice, visibility and
velocity

3. Shodhyatra: learning walks across the country to fertilize our imagination by
recognising frugal grassroots innovations & knowledge systems

4. Drivers of innovations in India
Frugality
Resilience
Diversity
Networking
Inclusion
Open, reciprocal and responsible innovations;
spawning start-up culture

5. Frugal
Inclusivesustainable

6. Accessibility
Adaptability &
Modularity,
recombinability
Availability
Redesignability
Acceptability
Affordability
Reliability,
Environmental
suitability

7. A change not monitored is a
change not desired:
towards inclusive innovations
how often have we scouted and spawned creative
innovative voices from outside the
projects/institutions.
Are we listening, learning and leveraging the
innovations from/for Grassroots to reach the unreached
bypassed/neglected spaces, sectors,
risky seasons, skills, social groups and
structures of governance

8. Five key conceptual
transformations
Innovations are imperative, when
constraints are over bearing(a)
Innovations are not visible often because we
look for them in wrong places (b)
Innovation may not always be recognized as
one, by people used to it (c)
Inclusive innovations are also empathetic
solutions, empathy (samvedana) emanates
from deep personal immersion (d)
Frugality for consumer is not nature, it
should also be for nature and future
generations (e)

9. Five key Logistical
transformations:
a) Supply chains of
Products/services not as they just
are,
but as they could be
b)One in hand is often better than
two in bush
c)Learning from unexpected
quarters, children and others: open
innovations
d) Big data, engaging with youth,
mapping creativity, performance,
excellence, oddity, techpedia.in
e)Spawning sustainable circular and
frugal economy thinking

10. Samvedana: driver of inclusion
Ethical fulcrum of empathy?
Where are the fertile grounds for
sprouting seeds of empathetic
innovations?

11. Unleashing creativity
at mass level :
Mapping, monitoring and
mentoring
The hotspots of creativity

12. Key lessons for learners:
a)Creativity is not uniformly
distributed, even if it has
potential to be so
b)Not all creative ideas become
innovations
c)Not all innovations are
desirable
d)Unless we promote learning
from external innovations,
we don’t value internal
innovations either
e)Recognizing, respecting and
rewarding innovations

13. Simplicity and visuality :
4000-40,000 years, Bhimbetka cave
paintings
Frugality is not just for poor

14. A change not Monitored is a change not desired:
say upload to download ratio

15. The day I am not surprised,
I have not learned
Many grassroots innovators are persistent experimenters
and improvisers: that’s why sometimes they don’t
succeed in market place

16. Triggers of curiosity
Appetite for surprise
Celebration of Oddity
Intrigued by Unknown
Playful explorer
How to be an innovator

17. Seeking affirmation
too often, from too
many creates
inertia
Innovators are
often headstrong,
they don’t listen to
everybody, or every
time

18. • Taming/chasing Tornadoes
– Finding super talent through super challenge
– Nesting creativity in spider’s web that
braves storms

19. Need for imperfect
beginnings: public policy is at
times, a muddling through
process
Let not the best become the
enemy of better: incremental
innovations matter
Good Public policies
implemented weakly or vice
versa

20. Falling is not failure
Learning across domains
How to learn from an in innovation

21. Saga of a handpump:
inclusive, sust design
We lived with this
waste for
centuries

22. The solution
• New hand pump had a
provision of 25% water
donation for the animal
trough, which is collected
from the runoff- Swayambhu
Sharma, Rajasthan
• A provision of about 1 liter
water storage inside the head
of the pump which can be
utilized through a tap for use
as a drinking source just by
pumping once

23. If some water still outflows, it goes to animal drinking trough: inclusion of non
human sentient beings too

24. Gestalt of Sustainability

25. Technology is like
words,
institutions are like
grammar and
culture is like
thesaurus
Three pillars of
sustainability

26. Will we have the humility to
learn from Ms Ram Timari
Devi
Champaran, jan 2009,
How else could have i
done it?
The only choice,

27. Learning platforms
from concrete to abstract
1) Artefactual - similar form is replicated
2) Analogic - metaphor/analogy to inspire
3) Heuristic - as a model or principle
4) Gestalt - configurational level
Gupta, 2012, Own compilation

28. Learning is easy,
inertia requires
effort,
institutional sanctions
collusion or team work,
policy induced blinkers

29. Will these feet
Remain tired
Celebrating induced
vulnerability as a
part of culture
Is a ploy most
societies have used
to institutionalise
gender biases
Overcoming
learned
helplessness

30. Our knowledge is for survival: the world cares for
material accumulators, not knowledge
acumulators
Unmet expectations
Will their voice get
velocity and
visibility?
Why do we have so few projects
building upon viable knowledge
of women?

31. Andhra Pradesh
Meghalaya
Mizoram
Energy: Do we
harvest efficiently?
Tripura
Energy: Do we
harvest it
efficiently
Who can teach
us well?

32. g2G
Grassroots to Global
Millions of
entrepreneurial
minds
A consumer from around
the world places an order
for traditional food/pickle
Logistics firm collects
appropriate package from a
packaging firm; Picks up the
products fro a micro-
entrepreneur, delivers to
the consumer globally
Autonomy
versus agency

33. Unconstrained
imagination
Products,
Process
Service
Systems and
structures

34. Springboard of sustainability
Purpose is not to replicate
models:
Idea is to create an upward spiral
of insights, innovations and
institutions

35. Applying AI and
Blockchain for poor:
Blockchain of niche
products,
organic, hand
crafted, traditional
food and art
Traceability, transparency, transportability

36. Can slow flow sustain?
Conventional rule of the game
“the big eats the small”
changes to “the fast eats the slow”
And future is
When
Slow lightens the load,
takes the more load farther
Or existing load at lesser cost
And “time eats the cost”
Can slower highways be sustainable
Do we need fast lane for information
all the time?

37. Learning from unexpected quarters

38. Frugal Innovation: Shalini Kumari, Class 8, Patna, Bihar, Licensed to a
company, Avira Tech
NIF engaged a design firm
to develop a prototype
Empathetic innovations: learning from children

39. Step lock system in bus
R Santhosh 11, K Rathna, A Nivashini, J Rajasekar, 10, Tiruvarur, TN
The idea to stop bus from moving if people are standing at the steps.

40. If a person is sitting in a wrong posture, an alarm will start ringing and not stop
until the person corrects the posture. Or the screen of the computer go blank
with a message, “sit properly, else I will not let you do work”
Posture correcting chair
Kulsoom Rizvi, 5, Lucknow, UP & Tarun Anand, 10, Hardoi, UP

41. Low cost Braille printer
Santosh Singh & Khushwant Rai, 12, Jalandhar, Punjab
Braille printer exists in the market but at a price range that an ordinary
man cannot afford. For this they have extended the functionalities of
dot matrix printer with some modification to make economical printer
which cost around Rs 10000/- against the market price of about a lakh.

42. Arnab, west bengal

43. A public
innovation
for public use Jharkhand

44. Innovation is
simple
yet so obscure
roots of inertia

45. Big Data: a grossly neglected
resource in India
Where are the hot spots of
nutritional sufficiency, lack of water
borne diseases, higher average
productivity of cattle, zero crime
rate, educational excellence,
highest number of graduates

46. Internet of Things ( IOT) to Internet of things, thoughts (IOTT), feelings and being: pets, plants
and people
Alert system for
injured animals
Diva Sharma, class 12

47. Engaging youth with unmet social, ecological,
small industrial needs: www.techpedia.in
• initiative to link academia, society and industry
techpedia.in (a portal by SRISTI ( sristi.org) pooling
200,000+ engineering projects by 550k students
from over 500 institutions) - engaging with youth in
the one of the youngest country
• Gyti.techpedia.in awards at Festival of Innovations
and Entrepreneurship, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New
Delhi, 2018
•

48. Techpedia.sristi.org

49. Letting children be key actor: a
challenge not yet fully met
Linking people, Pedagogy, process, passion,
platform and purpose

50. Triggering Start-up, creativite solution culture
in and around organizations

51. 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

52. Grassroots Innovations are NOT Jugaad:
short-cuts or jugaad erode the will to make durable sustainable innovations

53. Shall we take notice of
innovation only when it falls
out of place?

54. Key questions for discussions:
a) How do we overcome our inertia, get surprised every day at least once before
questioning societal inertia? What was our download to upload ratio last week??
How much public knowledge goods did we contribute last month?
b) How do we spot innovations, spawn them in their favourable niches, sustain them
through derivative innovations, through incentives individually, collectively, materially
and non materially?
c) How to link technological innovations with institutional, cultural and policy
innovations? Any case where we failed, or succeeded, why?
d) How do we institutionalize the culture of imperfect beginnings, not letting idea and
embedded energy die before we have thought through full plan for action?
e) Do we need special skills for cross-sectoral applications of innovations, artefactually,
analogically, heuristics or gestalt? What are these new skills?
f) Do we process data we already have enough? Are there patterns that we have failed
to see and later these became apparent, then we realized we had seen them?
g) How does Honey Bee Network help in building volunteer based culture, supported by
action-research on learning to unlearn?

55. Creativity counts
Knowledge matters
Innovations transform
Incentives inspire
(not just individual, but also collective, not just material, but also
non-material)
Join the Honey Bee Network!
For rewarding creativity and innovation
www.techpedia.in, www.sristi.org, WWW.GIAN.org, www.nif.org.in
anilg@sristi.org