Fostering Local Innovation

While the case for stepping on the gas in the matter of rural education has drawn much popular support and journalistic attention, much less has been said about creating channels for local, paticularly rural, innovation to emerge. One result of not fostering such innovation has been that ideas and solutions from other contexts have to be transplanted, and, many a time, these have proved inappropriate and suboptimal.

Speaking of rural innovation, considering that Indian rural living has had the benefit of centuries long continuity, it's highly likely that there are centuries of wisdom and experience in rural India, epecially that which is suited to that context. Important technological breakthroughs like drip irrigation have emerged from other settings somewhat similar to this.

I had read about the Honey Bee network in this context. You can visit them here. This is an effort by a bunch of dedicated folks at IIM Ahmedabad. Their main focus is to create a network for the collection and dissemination of practical ideas in the context in which most of the Indian public is situated.

Another organization I recently heard of is the Rural Information Network. Check them out. Their web page describes their mission as follows:

RIN avidly identifies and incubates innovations that sprout in rural areas and lie untapped, in spite of their potential to transform lives.

Some innovations RIN has incubated include a water-efficient rain gun, an insect trap and a herbal pesticide.

Author! Author!

I came to the United States as a graduate student, from India, in 1987. I completed a Ph. D. in 1992, and took up an academic position. I had always wanted to return to India, like so many others back then. I made an attempt to return to India: I spent a sabbatical 6-month visit at an Indian academic campus in 1996. I enjoyed the visit, but I figured a return to Indian industry would be, materially speaking, a more comfortable option. That is how I made a transition to an industry position in the U.S.. A return to India has gotten complicated by foreseen and unforeseen factors.

But, as R. K. Narayan once wrote, you can take an Indian away from India, but you can't take India away from the Indian. So, thoughts of India remain unextinguished in my mind. I wanted to write this, both as a way of recording those thoughts, and of engaging in a dialogue with people with a similar obsession.