qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfgh jklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvb nmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwer Grassroots Innovation: Participatory Research for Local development tyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopas -Case study of The

Honey Bee network, India dfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzx cvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuio pasdfghjklzxcvbnmqweresearchtyuiop asdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjkl zxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvpart icipatorybnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwe rtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopa sdfghjklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfgrassroot sinnovationcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjk
5/9/2012 Pallavi Chauhan

Grassroots innovation:Participatory Research for Local Development

Case study: The Honey Bee Network

Strengths and Challenges for Grassroots innovationSuggestions for Future

What is Grassroots Innovation: Participatory Research (PR) for Local development? Putting in a simplest manner Grassroots innovation is exercising Participatory research for Participatory Development which means "ways of designing, developing, implementing and managing technologies oriented towards the solution of social inequalities and environmental problems with the help of not only science and technology but also Local and traditional knowledge systems " While acc to scidev.net Grassroots-level, alternative innovation activities recognize the ingenious solutions continually developed locally to improve livelihoods and promote sustainability. Rooting innovation in local problems, resources, capabilities and soci oeconomic conditions makes it meaningful to communities, which maintain control over the processes and outcomes. Grassroots innovation requires adaptable, locally inclusive policies quite different to the mainstream.

Some of the approaches that can be in cluded under the broad term of Participatory research & Grassroots Innovations are Technologies for Social Inclusion ,appropriate technologies, intermediate technologies, alternative technologies, clean technologies, social innovation, bottom of the pyramid, grassroots innovations, social technology, and social technological systems. Thus, the sheer diversity of grassroots innovation makes it difficult to define. But there is one defining characteristic: grassroots innovation must emerge from, or be directed towards, local development. Conventional innovation Vs Grassroots Innovation Although Conventional Innovation has delivered a whole lot of stuff to our community like telecommunications, auto mobiles, space and technology and many more; in that context it has served the community to solve a lot of its problems but still it is argued that R&D cannot solve each and every problem by using the formal science alone and for some problems there is necessarily a need to blend formal and inf ormal sciences together; for which we need to include local knowledge systems-grassroots innovations-local people. The conventional Innovation uses a method of research, which consists of four basic steps: a) observation; b) h ypothesis generation: c) prediction; and d) hypothesis testing through experimentation . This is a repetitive process until hypothesis are tested enough to be formed into a general law about any phenomena, called a theory. The purpose of research is the collection and generation of k nowledge about a given subject -instead of finding solutions to the local and prevalent problems-, which is then added to the existing knowledge of that subject and is ready to be taught to the next generation of students. Furthermore, to develop these gen eral laws that establish socially accepted truths, methods of research must be completely objective. The research situation should be controlled in such a manner that no unaccounted for or spurious influences can invalidate the conclusions. As such, researchers must attempt to be neutral, objective and value free in their data collection and analysis. Thus it is often critiqued as constituting excessive reliance on thinking and conceptualizing rather than feeling and acting!

Grassroots Innovation uses a me thod of participatory research which attempts to present average people as researchers themselves, in pursuit of answers of the questions of their daily struggle and survival. So participatory research should Be a total educational experience that increase the awareness of local ordinary people(have-nots) about their issues and problems , then , It targets those social problems making it a research project and innovation for local problem solving and not for policy or science paper. It includes the people as beneficiaries in total process from planning, implementing, and monitoring rather than as objects of research. Finally the aim of participatory research is liberation of creative human potential (Human development) and mobilizing human resources for solving social problems. Why Grassroots Innovation is Important in India? Since more than 72% of our population still lives in villages, solving their problems becomes a very critical part of our development strategy. The traditional top-down approach of the urban population (including the government) trying to solve such every -day micro issues of the rural areas become inadequate. This is because of the following reasons: The problems in villages are very different from the ones faced in cities. The city dwellers and conventional scientists might find it difficult to understand these problems and come up with solutions. It is in many cases financially unviable for a corporation to provide solutions/products for them.

It is in this context that lo cal, rural solutions must be allowed to bubble up to the top, from where they can be redistributed to other parts of the country.

So whats stopping us ?-Roadblocks for grassroots innovation Protection of Local Knowledge system Its the lack of a proper system, which connects a problem, its solution, and an entrepreneur to each other. Such a system must enable a country to create incentives for people to find solutions to the problems they face. Most of the times, the incentive comes from commercializatio n. And it is made sustainable by providing a security against theft of the idea. In other words by creating effective intellectual property rights management. The same dilemma occurred to Prof. Anil. K. Gupta when around 10 years ago he was propelled by a thought "that within our scientific society a great deal of knowledge is originally taken from Grassroots knowledge systems- Local wisdom , yet the profession still legitimizes publication of knowledge of people without attributing them by making them anonymous. The research guidelines of U.S. National Academy of Sciences or Research Councils of the U.K. or of Indian Councils of Science Research do not require that whatever you learn from people, you must share back with them; with such a prevalent bias and ignorance , he argues, how can our government and scie ntific society boast to have a accountable society?" The Honey Bee Network: Valuing Local knowledge syst ems and Innovations So the silence of scientists, of technologists, of public policy maker s, of the change agent, drew Prof. Anil K Guptas attention that this is not on, this is not the way society will work. This is not what our parliament would do. In response, Prof. Gupta-who teaches at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad and is also one of the leading voices on Social Innovation and Social Capital - started the Honey Bee Network and began searching the country with colleagues, often on foot, f inding a myriad of inventions developed out of necessity. These discoveries are documented and often shared with the global community, just as pollen is gathered by the honeybee to the benefit of both.

What is The Honey bee network?Honey Bee Network is a crucible of like-minded individuals, innovators, farmers, scholars, academicians, policy makers, entrepreneurs and non governmental organizations (NGOs). A Network having presence in more than seventy five countries, what has made Honey Bee Network tight knit and efficiently functional is its philosophy. Honey Bee signifies a philosophy of discourse, which is authentic, accountable and fair. Its idealsThe Network has been woven around three basic ideals. Firstly, The Network believes that a knowledge s ystem in order to become sustainable has to be both just and fair. Hence, while collecting knowledge from the knowledge holder, the Network has made it a norm to acknowledge the knowledge provider with name and reference, if otherwise not desired by the kn owledge provider. This particular practice has come handy in protecting the IPR of the knowledge provider. In the second place, the source of knowledge i.e. in the case of Honey Bee Network, the traditional knowledge holders and grassroots innovators must be acknowledged, if otherwise desired so by the knowledge holders themselves. Finally, any proceed that accrues from the value addition of local traditional knowledge and innovation; a fair and reasonable share must go back to the knowledge holders. These have been the guiding principles of the Network, which are fundamental to the functioning of the network and constitute the major non -negotiable for the Network. Its achievementsSince 1988-over the last twenty years-the network has documented more than 100000 ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices. The network's database of original inventions has grown to over 12,000, and its newsletter is now published in eight languages and distributed to 75 countries. Prof. Gupta also worked with the government of India to establish the National Innovation Foundation, which holds national competitions to encourage new inventors and helps sustain them through the National Micro Venture Innovation Fund.

Following are the institutional collaborators of t he Honey Bee Network Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) , SEVA, Madurai, Pritvi, PEDES, Kerala, Innovation Club, Orissa, Network of Gram Vidyapeethas. Through his efforts, Prof. Gupta has uncovered ground breaking useful devices such as a pedal-operated washing machine, a micro -windmill battery charger, a hoe powered by a bicycle, and many more. Currently Honeybee network consists of a number of organizations. They carry out Shodh Yatra to reach o ut to the remotest part of the country with a firm belief that hards hip and challenges of natural surroundings are the prime motivators of cr eativity and innovations. In the process, they find many new innovat ions. Some of these were also featured on Discovery Channel. Their fin dings are listed on their website, along with the name of the inventor. Strengths and Challenges of G rassroots innovations: Strengths1) Innovations that are multi functional - As more than 3/4 th of our population lives on less than 20 Rs a day, it is very often impossible for them to adapt solutions or commercial products to solve some of their pressing problems. For example 70% of our population is engaged in farming and agriculture and a large section belongs to BPL and small land farmers who cant afford those costly diesel tractors to plough their small area of land so in this case a grassroots innovation developed by Mansukhb hai of Bareli, India must be noticed where he is using his motorcycle after providing little changes in its design, to plough his land and when he is not using it as a Farm ploughing machine he can ride it like a usual motor cycle. This is the example of a n invention that is not on ly efficient in cost but also in technology. 2) Linking innovation, investment and enterprise - Micro venture promotion fund as a follow up of the first International Conference on Creativity and Innovations at Grassroots held in Janu ary 1997 at IIMA, a regional fund was created in collaboration with Gujarat state government to convert innovations from the Honey Bee database into enterprises. GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovation

Augmentation Network, www.gian.org) was set up in 1997 to link innovations, investment and enterprise. The idea is that innovators sometime may not like to become entrepreneurs themselves. And even if they want to become entrepreneurs they may not have access to risk capital, technical know -how or design input fo r making their innovations into a product, which can be commercialized or diffused through noncommercial channels. GIAN has filed patents on behalf of grassroots innovators (in United States as well as India), incubated several innovations into products, and licensed some of the innovations to entrepreneurs on district wide basis with the license fee going to the innovator (even when patents for the licensed innovation have only been filed and not granted). 3) Local knowledge CAN extend the frontiers of formal science- Using Local knowledge systems can help solve those problems which formal science is incapable of doing . For example-In a chili crop there is a fatal disease called leave curl, where leaves curl and crop goes down. In formal science there is no so lution for this disease except using toxic chemical pesticides which may be harmful in other ways, now Milk has the enormous capacity to not only contain the virus but also to rejuvenate the plant to become healthy and there are papers published, since 193 5 till 2011-12, from universities of US and Canada which on their websites recommend that for certain kind of problems in Rose, Chili and Tomato the best way is to wash your hands with milk when you transfer seedlings- the local knowledge that has been use d by farmers in Andhra Pradesh from generations. 4) Wide database for intellectual property -What this does is potentially revolutionary. It has already begun to create a vast database of local intellectual property. And in todays world, intellectual property is a key ingredient in any nations growth. Even if a tiny percentage of these innovations turn profitable, it can potentially impact a big portion of the 800+ million people living in villages, drastically improving their lives. There is one more, very e xciting attribute of this endeavor. Many such solutions are applicable in other parts of the world. This not only provides an avenue to our local innovators to access

international markets, but it also allows other countries to benefit from our innovation. A win-win situation! 5) Meaningful Employment for poor - Paying for what they good at, not what they are bad at -You know, we have a program for employment: One hundred, 250 million people have to be given jobs for 100 days by this grea t country. Doing what? Breaking stones, digging earth. So we asked a question to the parliament: Do poor have heads? Do poor have legs, mouth and hands, but no head? Every six months Honey bee network walk in different parts of the country for a Shodh yatra- Prof. Anil Gupta."I've walked about 4,000 kilometers in the last 12 years. So , on the wayside we found these dung cakes, which are used as a fuel. Now, this lady, on the wall of the dung cake heap, has made a painting. That's the only space she could express her creativity. And she's so marvelous. The whole wall is her canvas. She's sitting there with a broom. Is she an artisan or an artist? Obviously she's an artist; she's a creative person. If we can create markets for these artists, we will not have to employ them for digging earth and breaking stones. They will be paid for what they are good at, not what they're bad at. 6) Region / need specific and affordable solutionsSheikh Jahangir in Jalgaon, M aharashtra-where a lot of poor people do not have enough grains to get ground-this fellow is bringing a flour-grinding machine on a two -wheeler. If you have 500 grams, 1000, one kilogram, he will grind it for you; the flourmill will not grind such a small quantity. There is a desperate need to understand the problem of poor p eople. They have needs which have to be met efficiently in terms of energy, in terms of cost, in terms of quality. They don't want second -standard, second-quality outputs. But to be able to give them high -quality output you need to adapt technology to their need. And that is what Sheikh Jahangir did. But that's not enough, here's a model where Sheikh Jahangir has developed a two-wheeler washing machine, washing your clothes and drying them at your doorstep. If you have clothes, and you don't have enough time to wash them, he brought a washing machine to your doorstep, mounted on a two -wheeler. You bring your water, you bring your soap, I wash the clothes for you. Ch arge

50 paisa, one rupee for per lot, and a new business model can emerge Says Prof. Gupta. 7) Contributing to the sustainability whilst connecting the grassroots-The grassroots approach is only one of many ways to promote more inclusive innovation, and just one of many approaches to sustainable development and from community food and energy initiatives to local (re-)manufacturing, community sanitation and water projects, there is a ferment of innovative grassroots activity for sustainable development. Local innovative capabilities generate 'user-led' ideas for sustainable development that stop communities becoming locked into development unsuitable to changing circumstances. Challenges faced by Grassroots Innovations 1) Intellectual property is a thorny issue. Whilst some believe that grassroots innovation should be open and freely disseminated, others believe that innovators should benefit from their invention. Even open source enthusiasts recogn ize a need to 'protect' innovations from the patenting activities of more predatory firms. The Honey Bee Network is trying to do just that, through a partnership with the National Innovation Foundation, though there are many challenges. 2) The lack of micro venture capital prevents the transition of small innovations into enterprises. The incentives for innovators therefore, remain limited. While micro finance facilities are now available around the world, micro venture finance for small innovations has been almost totally absent. This institutional gap shows the lack of appreciation by the global as well as national public policy institutions of the potential t hat grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge have for generating employment and overcoming poverty. 3) Lack of access to formal scientific institutions accompanied by lack of general responsiveness on the part of scientists has also prevented grassroots innovators in optimizing their solutions and in some cases even pursuing their innovations to a logical conclusion. 4) The formal scientific institutions at national and international level have failed to build upon grassroots innovations thereby weakening the momentum for even articulating the innovations.

5) There is contempt in society for someone who breaks out of the mold. Despite an upsurge of entrepreneurial spirit in different parts of the country in recent times, by and large a social deviant who is trying to do something new is often a butt of ridicule. Only those innovators who can withstand sometimes the indifference and occasionally the hostility of their peers can succeed in developing lasting solutions. 6) The lack of social networking among the innovators has prevented them from faster collaborative learning or from provision of moral support in the times of crisis or failure. References1>www.scidev.net- Article> http://www.scidev.net/en/science -andinnovation-policy/supporting-grassroots-innovation/features/supportinggrassroots-innovation-facts-and-figures1.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_features >>http://www.scidev.net/en/science -and-innovation-policy/supportinggrassroots-innovation/opinions/how-to-protect-the-inventions-of-thepoor.html 2> http://trak.in/tags/business/2011/09/22/honeybee -networkinnovation-rural-india/ 3>Interview of Prof. Anil K Gupta http://www.sristi.org/anilg/news more.php?articleid=149 4>Ted talk by Prof. Anil K Gupta http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/anil_gupta_india_s_hidden_hotbeds_ of_invention.html 5>Research paper on Mobilizing grassroots technological innovations and traditional knowledge, values and institutions: articulating social and ethical capital http://www.sristi.org/papers/new/Gupta_Co_Futures.pdf 6> official website of The Honey Bee Network http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/