‘Take the Rs2,000, keep quiet, and thank god your girl is alive’--this can not be India in which we want to live. It is obvious that whoever thought that by merely making laws we will solve these problems was not close to reality. POlice needs to be trained differently and alos their responses to social problems need to be monitored differently. They must be taken off from VIP duties in majority of cases and put on the road for policing duties. Political interference in their appointment at various thanas must stop and a lot more ideas are there in police and ADm Reform reports. We also need to increase social vigilance and show zero tolerance to the cases of teasing and harassment of women. Youth will only be able to bring about this change. Children deserve better. Thankfully more oppressed women are coming out after social awakening created by the Delhi Case, but situation in thousand of villages, brick kilns, farms and other places is still very tragic. But no party is promising implementation of police and adm reforms in their manifesto yet. Hope things will change. but even if they do, social vigilance and change in attitudes can not be substituted by any other step. Any other concrete ideas?

How do we learn from innovations?

There are four levels at which we can learn from the innovations whether in formal or informal sector: [a] artefactual, [b] analogic, [c] heuristic and [d] gestalt or configurational. 

[a] Artefactual:  One learns from the material characteristics of the innovation, be it in terms of form, feature or function of a mechanical or electronic technology.  Or it could be method, material and applications in the case of biochemical or physico chemical or herbal innovation.  If at least any one of the three dimensions out of material, method or application/use is new, one can learn from the novelty and develop further modifications for incremental or substantial innovation.  In this case, the domain of the technology generally remains same ( though it can vary also, as shown in the case below)though functionality may significantly vary because of improvements. Yusuf from sikar had developed a ground nut picking and cleaning device attached to tractor. The tractor will move this device, a sieve with a stirrer on the dug out groundnut pods. The soil will be dropped and pods will be collected. Dr Raman from Vishakhapatnam tried to use the same mechanism for sea beach cleaning, pick up the sand with debris, and then drop the sand, and collect the debris. It was artefactual learning since the mechanism was same, just the context had changed.

[b] Analogic:  The innovation in this case is not drawn upon in  its functional property but we try to learn from its metaphorical property.  One can apply the technology even in a different domain using the original technology as an analogy.  For instance, a farmer looked at the hook in a balance used by vegetable vendor by which he could use one of the pans for delivering the vegetables to the customer.  Using this detachable pan hung on the hook, he developed a similar mechanism for a tilting bullock cart in which without removing the harness from the shoulders of the bullock, he could tilt the cart to unload its content.  Similarly, a large number of innovations have been developed  by applying a technology in a different domain by mimicking the properties of the original innovation. Let us take another example, a swiss engineer Georges de Mestral noticed the property of cocklebur to stick to socks and our clothes in 1941 and by 1948, he developed a hook and loop mechanism of nylon based on cocklebur and called it Velcro. Likewise, M. B. Avinash ,T. Govindaraju, Carsten Schmuck, Elisabeth Verheggen from JNCASR, Indian Institute of Science drew upon the self cleaning property of lotus leaf and developed first time, a self cleaning surface synthetically (

 http://www.techpedia.in/award/project-detail/Self-Cleaning-Functional-Molecular-Material?PHPSESSID=b8a4d6e50b51cbcd7ff1bb512556f237 ). They were awarded at second Gandhian Young technological innovation awards organised by SRISTI.org at iima on march 25, 2013 through Techpeida.in ( techpedia.in/award/).

[c] Heuristic:  Here one does not learn necessarily from the physical form or from its analogic implications.  Instead, the focus is on the principles or the thumb rules underlying the innovations.  When a farmer listened to a long discussion that I had with him during Shodhyatra on the advantages of herbal pesticides instead of chemical ones, he summarized it in a sentence.  He said, ‘whatever I had said implied that any plant which was not eaten by cattle or other animals, could be a source of potential pesticide’.  He had captured the heuristic underlying various examples I gave of herbal pesticide.  He could see a pattern in them. The reason why animals don’t eat a plant could be because of its toxicity.  Since one needed toxicity for killing pests, there was no need to buy it from outside.  Of course safety and other issues will have to be taken care of but the heuristic is very powerful and can be generalized almost universally. Let us take another very creative example.  Two brothers viz., Mehter Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmed in Assam designed a bamboo windmill in about USD 100 to irrigate a small paddy field with the help of a hand pump.   This was later on modified to be used for pumping brine water to make salt in Gujarat.  The cost went up to USD 1200 but the basic principle remained same.  The brothers asked two questions, which a trained mind would probably not have asked.  First, does it matter whether a paddy field is irrigated in four hours or forty hours?  Second, does it matter whether water goes to the field in spurts or smoothly?  The answer to both the questions was no.  In fact,  the slower irrigation is better because less nutrients are leached and plant absorbs more nutrients.  In fact crop often needs moisture and not water. Once an interesting heuristic of not maximizing output per unit of time and not preferring smoother flow over regular flow was developed, further innovation in terms of not fitting a gearbox became possible.  The gearbox is the most vulnerable part, difficult and costly to maintain.  This heuristic can be applied in so many different domains and across so many applications.

[d] Gestalt or configurational:  This is an institutional aspect of innovation.  One does not learn only from the about three dimensions of innovations but also looks at the context in which innovations emerged and were nurtured.  One cannot separate the institutional and cultural aspect from the technological dimension of innovation.  That is why I have argued that ‘if technology is like words, then institutions are like grammar and culture is like thesaurus’.  One cannot make a meaningful sentence without combining all the three.  Same way, an innovation cannot generally be understood without looking at its institutional and cultural context.  The constellation of the factors or what is often called as ecosystem of innovation has to be learnt from rather than looking at an innovation in isolation. 

When we want to diffuse an open source onion planter, nationally awarded innovation by Pandharinath Sarjerao More. District, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0WYreYP-B0 http://www.nif.org.in/oniontransplanter), w ecan not just share the design of this machine with small mechanics and entrepreneurs, we  have to also share the spirit, the values underlying the decision of Shri More to make it open source. The culture of inclusiveness embedded in it will also need to be diffused. Institutional platform linking such mechanics who will learn from each other and keep cost low, so that affordability, accessibility and flexibility are integrated in each solution. The configuration of technological, institutional and cultural context of innovation needs to be learned form for more sustainable applications.

As one can observe, higher the level of abstraction, greater is the degree of generalizability and more diverse are the domains in which lessons can be learnt.  I will appreciate hearing from the readers about any other approaches they have found useful in learning from innovations.  I am particularly keen to learn about new heuristics that they have discovered in their life. 

Excellence, relevance, frugality and empathy: Young Gandhian Innovators

While appreciating the contributions of young technology students invited to showcase their innovations at the second Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Awards recently at IIMA, Ms. Ela Bhatt, Founder of SEWA expected the youth to spread the Gandhian philosophy through their action. A large number of innovations recognised on the occasion were empathetic in nature.  The problem of a line man worried about electrocution, challenges of a blind person, an unsafe woman, drudgery from scaling of fish, the need for a reminder system for pregnant women, a patient tracking system, energy from poultry waste, or a head load carrier, are just some of the triggers for innovative solutions shared by the student teams. There are many examples were students make a trade-off between career oriented projects and a socially relevant project. A new interpretation of Gandhian values is necessary and Elaben felt that the young boys and girls are imbued with the spirit of keeping solutions simple, frugal, socially relevant and sustainable. There are also solutions that push the technological edge.  Dr. Mashelkar was unequivocal in his appreciation of the students practicing the spirit of MLM [More from Less for Many]. Instead of value for money, he stressed that the challenge is to produce value for many.  Dr. Gopi Katragadda, MD, GE India Technology Centre appreciated the range of innovations explored by the students and particularly underlined the importance of medical devices and diagnostics. Students have developed silk fibre based bio material to solve the problem of lower back pain, a device to fix clubfoot orthosis, a device that provides vision for the blind using ultrasonic senses, nano finishing of freeform surfaces of prosthesis knee joint implants, prognosis of diabetes based on non-invasive estimation using infra-red thermography, instant vitamin B 12 diagnosis, electronic support for deaf and dumb, etc.  Many other technologies impressed for having solved a problem in an effective manner such as rubber-nano composites, an old saree cutting machine for weaving mats on handlooms, a robotic dredger for cleaning lakes, a memory aid for old people, a niosome based drug delivery system for tuberculosis, a self-cleaning functional molecular material, a semi-automatic rubber tapping machine, a high performance cooking stove, a cell phone for blind people, a laser ignited internal combustion engine, a cow dung based microbial fuel cell, a jute bag making machine, bamboo epoxy, a digital pen which can write on any surface except glossy surfaces, a filter for sub/micron particles from fluids, a device to estimate mineral composition of water through a portable spectrophotometer, and many other projects. 

Ninety three young people comprising 21 awardee teams and 22 appreciated innovations from all over the country demonstrated how excellence could be combined with what Dr. Mashelkar underlined as relevance. 

There is urgent need for a fund to take these ideas of the students forward.  The so-called India Inclusive Fund ignores all the early stages of nascent ideas of youth, professionals and of course the informal sector. Only in India, such an indifference can take place without causing any prick on the conscience of the planners. But, things will change. A young country cannot ignore the innovations by the youth too long. Hiranmay and his team of volunteers managed a very complex process of scouting, documentation, screening and logistics of participation in a joyful and collegial manner.  Prof. Ganesh and his students at IIT Bombay helped in the review process involving a very large number of institutions and experts in the public and private sector in India and abroad. The support from unnamed volunteers from all the institutions of the Honey Bee Network has made it possible for SRISTI to assure continued recognition to the young innovators. Dr. Akshai Aggarwal, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Technical University, inducted 12 grassroots innovators from the state as visiting faculty of the university. Innovators felt highly empowered and charged that they can imbue the young generation with lessons of their lives about frugality and social connectedness. I hope other technical universities will take a cue and replicate this experience in respective states. We also hope that the young innovators will be mentored by the industry and academic leaders so that a conversion of innovation into enterprise takes place faster and more effectively. See more details at www.techpedia.in/award/

The Department of Science and Technology [DST] has demonstrated that with a small support, a significant transformation can be brought about.  My only hope is that the platform techpedia.in will blend the passion, purpose and performance of technological youth of the country to create a new benchmark of originality, social relevance and excellence.   

we will have a workshop on grassroots Innovation tomorrow at IIMA in which a senior colleague and doctoral student Ms Riya sinha chokkakula will share findings of her research with the providers of knowledge and various other stakeholders, scientist, users, derivative innovators and others involved in scouting or diffusion of those innovations. Every research study ideally should involve feedback of findings in local language with the key providers of the knowledge, data and information including common people for ethical and scientific reasons. ethical: we have to write to use the knowledge provided by some one without her informed consent and without letting her know what will we do with that knowledge, then inform her of actual use made. scientific --only when we feedback what we learned from them that many times providers of knowledge come to know why we were asking the questions in the first place. Once they know the context, they offer new knowledge which can not be accessed without sharing the findings of our study. one can say that there is no other methodology by which we can access this new knowledge. may the tribe of responsible researchers grow.....

Making horses drink water: Let corporations learn

There is an old saying that you can take the horse to water but you can't make it drink. In the context of linkages between formal and informal sector, corporations and communities and even the state and society, it is not always easy that the larger and the stronger can always learn from smaller and the weaker. Twenty five years ago, we were very naïve. We thought that if Honey bee Network  brings creative ideas to the corporations and other larger organisations, they will happily absorb, assimilate and augment them.  We also thought that they will gladly reciprocate partly out of gratitude, partly because of the need to keep the two way street working and busy with the traffic. Now we realise that it is not easy. Let me take some examples.

Several years ago, representatives from Mahindras contacted me to understand how should they go about developing a small tractor to be able to meet the needs of small farmers. They were realising that with the increasing labour migration from rural to urban areas and shortening of turnaround time in agriculture, the need for farm machinery for small farm was increasing. My suggestion to them was that they should follow 'Mahindra Inside’  Approach. That means that they should develop good quality gearbox, differential and a few other components and let the local fabricators and farmer-innovators design location-specific traction devices around these. They did not follow the advice partly because it was free. They went ahead with a contract manufacturing   of  small tractor.  They were  easily out-competed by the growth and versatility of Santi based evolution of Sanedo. Recent research by SRISTI has shown that more than 10000 devices were sold during  last six-seven years after the advent of Bt cotton with eight different models. Beginning with Mansukhbhai Jagani's Santi, the innovation has come a long way. Next month, March 15, 2013, Riya Sinha who has done her doctoral research and Chetan who has met more than 200 fabricators will share the findings of this model, where David has won over the Goliath. The question still remains. Will Mahindras learn from it and will they acknowledge, attribute and reciprocate if a collaborative open innovation model is made to work. Is it worth their while to  make this partnership between them and innovators and fabricators successful.

The concept of technology commons evolved in this research implies that the people to people copying is to be not only allowed but also encouraged. But people to firm is through licensing. Whole bundle of improvements can be licensed to companies like Mahindra so that they can improve their design capabilities. Hopefully,  they can also strengthen the design and fabrication competences of the local innovators. Time will tell if a collaborative design with open innovation framework will attract leadership of fast growing companies like Mahindras.

"Is race for generics shunning out innovation from Indian pharma sector?" 

well, It is true  that many big R and D based  Pharma companies have folded back their special purpose research vehicles, have reduced number of patents they maintain,  reduced number of PhDs they had for the internal R and D and have gone aggressively in pursuit of profits from generics. At the same time, it is also true that many smaller companies have started  filing patents on drug delivery system or improvement of formulation as in the case of diclofenac ( molecule of which is out of patent). interestingly patent wars have begin around such Indian innovations and two companies allegedly infringing the patent on the new formulation  were restrained from manufacturing and marketing the improved non-pain causing pain reduction injection.

having said this, what are the new pathways for innovations in pharma sector and how can India achieve distinctions   in this regard by bringing he cost fo developing new drugs drastically. By aping the western models and heuristics, breakthrough are unlikely to be achieved.

a)    we should aim at pursuing systems biology approach with multi molecule –multi target drugs rather than single molecule based drugs. The regulatory authorities must modify their protocols to not only permit it  but also encourage it. This approach is closer to what nature does anyway.

b)    They should try to se distributed model of R and d using platform like www.techpedia.in developed by SRISTI so that young tech students are closely involved in the modular approach. The open source platforms like OSDD also need to be replicated for other diseases. But patent and open source can co-exist depending iuon what is patented and what kind of knowledge is kept in open source tp encourage derivative innovations.

c)    There is a huge scope for herbal drugs and the policies as well as institutional support is rather muted or weak. It can be made much more vigorous and I will not be surprised if major breakthroughs come in this space.

National Innovation Foundation in collaboration with ICMR has identified very promising leads for typhoid and other dieses using such an approach. Similarly soil microbial diversity collection of about 3000 cultures dveleoped by SRISTI in its lab based on sil samples collected during thousand of kilometers of walk during shodhyatra have been leveraged by DST for identifying new generation antibiotics in collaboration with IMTECh, CDRI and Karnataka antibiotics. New models of collaborative research are  the  need of the hour. We should explore the opportunity for making a trade off between accuracy and affordability without compromising safety at all. 

Redefining the relationship between the government and the Institutions of excellence

It is not worthwhile to comment on IIM bill without first asking what is the way excellence is built in an institution of higher education and how can government learn from it. After all, it is more difficult to build such institutions than to destroy them. One does not need of course always the government to do so, personally ambitious educationist, mediocre leadership and boards vulnerable to lobbying by vested interests can do so much more easily.

But let us pause for a moment and see the emerging context of enormous opportunities for deserving youth in the young country. 

Various IIMs can in fact be divided into three groups: the top three A, B, C, may be in that order, next three or four slightly older IIMs and the recently started IIMs. Surely their needs for governance and support are at variance, some among them need mentoring by the oldest IIMs and others need much more invigorted support to learn to be autonomous and assertive. All of them need to be  accountable to the various stakeholders so as to serve the larger needs of the country.

First challenge thus is to make the HRD minister, secretary and other leaders in the government sit with the faculty of the three top Institutions( and not just with the directors and the chairmen), understand the way the excellence was achieved by them and then learn the ways of replicating it. Learning it only through directors’ council is second hand way of doing that, it would not really work. Excellence cant be delegated, and learned through a few position holders who themselves may or may not have achieved excellence personally. Just because of the positions they occupy, they don’t always become custodian of the values and destiny of the great institutions.

Once the Minister of HRD listens to the faculty, he may realize  the extraordinary scope that exists in drawing upon these and other institutions of excellence for meeting various challenges that society is facing today.

It should be remembered that when IIMs were attaining excellence in the formative years, they were supported by the government a great deal. To say that government support is not needed any more is not true. In fact, to evaluate the excellence by the financial surplus these institutions generate is not a worthy metrics. That’s why ridiculous norms evolve such as one teaching assistant for five courses. Is not it a suicidal attempt to kill excellence?

Even the TOP IIMs need government’s help to serve those constituencies which Deserve their services but can not Desire them due to unaffordable costs. How do such constituents, be the educational institutions in north east, Jammu and Kashmir or other conflict prone regions where youth needs attention and affectionate care, mentoring and support, get served by the best? How do those sectors which some institutes  used to call as undermanaged in eighties get new ways of improving excellence and innovations such as  public systems, MsME, health, education, drinking water and other persistent developmental challenges. The connect between society and institutions of excellence needs a new social contract.

Lest the bogey of government help being a kiss of death comes up again and again, let me ask a simple question. Take the top five or ten institutions in any field of education, are not these all the public institutions?  Yes, we need public private partnership but handing over top institutions to private czars will do more damage than good. IIMA already has had such partnership evolved over several decades.

Are not the top institutions like IISc, ISI, TIFR, JNU and many others not funded by government completely. Is it not true that despite considerable funding by government, autonomy can be achieved and maintained? To repeat, did not top IIMs achieve excellence during the period of considerable government support?.

But this support need not be tracked or monitored through administrative councils or bodies. IIMs are part of the state already. Confusion on that account should be removed.

 Let there be new indicators of service to the nation, pursuit of faculty governance, control of tendency  to restrict autonomy at Director or board level, development of new concepts and innovative pedagogy and curriculum etc. Harvard and MIT have joined hands recently to provide on line open access courses to the deserving students worldwide. Should not IIMs be seen as largest provider of open source multi media and multi language content similarly with Indian examples and ethos of collegial, collaborative and compassionate values? Would not that need resources, have alumni really contributed that kind of resources in India to warrant greater control as some forces have been trying?

Rather than hoping that importing leaders from abroad will make these institutions greater, timidity and colonial mindset of such role players needs to be liberated and greater confidence needs to reposed in indigenous proven talent. It is tragic that when major banks were ‘nationalised’ in USA during the recent crisis, the futility of what they taught at these ‘great’ institutions was not called into question.

Let us rethink how Boards of Governors of institutions of excellence should be chosen, putting mediocres there will breed mediocrity all around and is a sure recipe to kill the urge for excellence. Government nominees need not always be bureaucrats ( though having  a couple of outstanding public officials who have achieved remarkable social impact would not be bad at all),  but educationist, leaders and other social, industrial and academic achievers need to be nominated and suggestions from faculty could be invited for the purpose.

One of the hall mark of excellence in almost all institutions of excellence has been faculty governance, a concept which has come under terrible strain in the recent years.

This has happened  not because of government interference but because of myopic polices of the Board and of course autonomy being confused by autocracy by some role players.

We need to ensure viable and ethical ways of transparency in all the activities. If mediocre people are appointed to various positions disregarding faculty judgment, then pursuit of excellence will suffer. Whole society is craving for openness, greater social connect and more and more experimentation and innovations. At such a juncture, what we need is a bold dialogue (and a new social contract ) among  academia, industry and government on the norms of good governance, openness, transparency, promotion of social and economic innovation based entrepreneurship,  linkages with science and  technology in all walks of life, and new social, environmental  and industrial connect. What values we imbue among students will depend upon what values we practice. Our conduct will indicate what kind of creative, compassionate and collaborative India we want to build. President Pranab Mukherjee in a recent meeting of vice chancellors of central universities ( see press release, RB Feb 7, 2013) decide to meet Inspired Teachers during his visit to these universities. That will surely forge new connect between self inspired excellence and polity of the nation. Such teachers have never been the point of reference while designing agenda for institutional reforms and rejuvenation.

No doubt that other stakeholders need to be consulted too.  IIM bill is not worth talking about in this larger context.

Though government has clarified that the proposed IIM council is a discussion body and not a decision making body, but in the  past such consultations were used to claim consensus on several matters. So there is a need to require that any views expressed by respective directors in this meeting on behalf of the faculty should first be discussed in the respective faculty council meetings. They are entitled to present their personal view of course. One has to say this because many so called leaders have lost the legitimacy for their leadership by not being accountable and transparent in their own conduct.

Government has also to rethink its tendency to draw more and more upon multinational consulting companies for policy and institutional advice for which sufficient proven competence exists among many national institutions of excellence. Creativity and innovative potential of people at all levels including staff and faculty, students and alumni has to be harnessed for common good. It is unlikely to happen when new arrangements are being designed without listening to those who have actually helped in achieving excellence in the first place.

Time has come when all institutions, which demand greater transparency and accountability of all other social and public institutions, set new example of the same through their own conduct. The social, industrial, ecological, and cultural connects between institutions of higher education and the larger society have to be forged afresh. Public purpose of public institutions needs to be redefined  and a new social contract has to be forged between institutions of excellence and the rest of the society through government and other stakeholders.

Inspired teachers:  Need for changing the frame of reference

Hon’ble President of India, Shri. Pranab Mukherjee took some decisions recently which can have far-reaching consequences.  During the meeting of the Vice Chancellors of the Central Universities, he proposed several initiatives which could perhaps help in transforming the environment for higher education and connection between academia, innovators and rest of the society.  As per the press release, Feb 7, 2013, [http://presidentofindia.nic.in/pr070213.html] he would interact with inspired teachers separately during his visits to various universities.  For long, the agenda for policy and institutional reforms has not been influenced enough by the community of inspired teachers.  This is a significant gap at national as well as state level, because of which we have seen decline in the standards as well as contributions from many institutions.  The teachers who are inspired from within and thus are able to bring out the best in the students have also the better understanding of their respective discipline.  If such teachers lead the design and delivery of pedagogy and content, policy and institutions and influence the culture of society, then nothing can come in the way of national transformation.  The paradox is that while President has decided to bring about this change, the Minister of HRD and the secretary at national and state levels are yet to take the cue to pursue similar dialogue across the country.  No society can really come out of the morass of mediocrity unless it learns to respect merit and be guided by meritocracy. 

The President also decided to interact with the innovators who would be invited to the university to have an exhibition of their innovations.   When he starts interaction, the rest of the academia cannot remain indifferent and insensitive to the need for closer partnership with the creative people of the country.  I hope that the connection between the academic world and individual innovators and inventors will get strengthened beyond what Honey Bee Network has been able to achieve so far.  He also advised the Vice Chancellors to set up chapters of National Innovation Club to be coordinated by National Innovation Foundation [NIF], Ahmedabad.  These Clubs will have primarily four functions:  Search, spread, sense and celebrate.  They will search innovations in the hinterland in various sectors, document them and try to add value to them.  They will spread the innovations from other regions in the local areas as a voluntary activity.  They will sense or benchmark the current conditions of inertia in various sectors and regions and try to trigger change in them.  They will also celebrate the contributions of local achievers including social entrepreneurs from the region.  Once the experience of such social change agents in public and private system and local communities start being referred in the classroom and laboratories, the mood of the youth will start changing.  They might be inspired and spurred to bring about socially inclusive innovations in the region. 

Another idea proposed to the President was the celebration of local cultural excellence and uniqueness by providing space like a wall to showcase the traditions.  It was hoped that private sector will also be involved in creating opportunities for such folk artists.  Imagine if one wall in every building is dedicated to display of such local traditions with contact information, a market may be created for creative minds and incentives for conserving cultural creativity may thus be generated.  Creation of open source content for education was another idea that has been appreciated by the President.  While it may be difficult for the states to provide good quality teachers in primary and secondary schools or motivate the existing good quality teachers, by providing open source content, children may get opportunity to learn on their own.  Through 1.5 lacs post offices, reaching 6.5 lacs villages with high quality multimedia, multi language content is not an impossible task.  With the support of various well-wishers, overcoming the asymmetry on this account is not only possible but also imperative for an inclusive India. 

Many institutions of higher learning are trapped in trivia.  There is no large-scale engagement of elite institutions with the enormously complex challenges that society is facing.  A social, cultural and institutional connect is waiting to be forged.   A new social contract is on the anvil.  The question is whether it will come about peacefully or large-scale social protest by the impatient youth will have to force it on us.  The time will tell.