No degrees please, they’re Indians. In the heartland, they write new chapters in R&D simply by thinking out of the box. Sonu Jain plays guide on a rural innovation roadtrip
Professor Anil Gupta is taking a break from classes at IIM Ahmedabad. For the last 10 days, he has been scouring villages in Himachal with a bunch of students, teachers and scientists. He calls it shodhyatra, journey of exploration.
Twice a year, in winter and summer, the team he leads covers nearly 200 km on foot. The aim is two-fold: Sharing their scientific knowledge with villagers and sniffing out that hidden innovation in a place that may not have a road, electricity or school, but has a thinking mind. A grassroots innovator, a person who overcomes a technical challenge on his own, without any assistance from the formal scientific system in the country.
Fifteen years ago, Gupta was among those who launched the movement to ‘‘scout, spawn and sustain’’ unaided creative urges anywhere in the country. The movement formalised into the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), which identifies grassroot innovators, documents their work, value-adds to it, protects intellectual property rights and incubates the technology till their commercial release.
Funded by a Rs 20-crore corpus from the Department of Science and Technology and chaired by R A Mashelkar (see interview), NIF at four is just about baby-stepping into the national consciousness.
Identifying and honouring these ‘‘scientists in disguise’’ is the first step. ‘‘The challenge is to connect it to the formal system of education. All the IITs and IIMs should be able to value-add to this work,’’ said Gupta while introducing the 2003 NIF awards last week. (See profiles of award-winners)
The connections have just begun to be established. NIF has tied up with the IITs at Mumbai, Delhi and Kanpur, where students will augment the basic innovations. The Council for Social and Industrial Research (CSIR) plans to fund 10 fellows who will work exclusively on these grassroots projects. An MoU has been signed between the National Botanical Research Institutes and NIF on herbal research.
Chapters of the Students’ Club for Augmenting (grassroots) Innovations are also being set up in business schools. Across the country, there are 19 such clubs, where students volunteer to make feasibility reports, calculate finances and streamline supply chains.
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