ACSIR COURSE outline oct 16-nov 30 2021.pptx

Course outline

1. M eeting the unmet needs: inclusive development through innovations for and from grassroots Course Outline Faculty: Prof Anil k Gupta, Prof Anamika Dey Duration: 120 minutes 13 sessions

2. Purpose The scholars often prioritise their research under the influence of more articulate, more proximal, and more demanding clients, users and supervisors. Many persistent problems, also called as wicked problems, get passed over. Many of these don’t get enough attention though skills to solve them exist. Affected communities continue to suffer.  Deep inertia co-exists with widespread innovations in different walks of life. The experience has shown that the technologies that women use seem to undergo much slower rate of change than the rest.  There seems to be a gender bias even at grassroots level. The grassroots innovations emerge in a materially constrained environment, by extremely optimistic, compassionate and impatient individuals and sometimes communities. Innovations from grassroots should be distinguished from innovations for and with grassroots communities.

3. This course will have main focus on inclusive innovations and include illustrations from GYTI awards for students, ignite and ignited mind awards for children, grassroots innovation awards for common people like farmers, artisans, and mechanics, summer school on inclusive innovations, HBNCRIIA global awards for all adults besides other notable examples of creative problem-solving. The grassroots innovation movement triggered by the Honeybee Network over the last 33 years will be a major anchor of conceptual and empirical insights. In addition, we will also look at knowledge public goods for promoting open innovation vis a vis IP protected innovation, open databases like techpedia.in, gyti.techpedia.in, gian.org/ patent.php or techpedia.in/patent (including 0.9 million abandoned US patents free to access and use), grid.undp.org.in, sristi.org/ wsa , etc.

4. The objectives A)    To recognise that creative ideas can emerge from anywhere, anyone and any time B)    To understand various dimensions of inclusive polices, processes and products to factor these while developing new solutions C)     To explore the potential of grassroots innovations, outstanding traditional knowledge and user led/driven derivative innovations for developing extremely affordable and accessible solutions for larger social good D)    To analyse the policy implications of various tech innovations so that one can influence the suitable policy changes for disseminating socially useful innovations.

5.   Pedagogy It will be our effort to engage the participants as co-learners and co-creators of the learning environment so that we all learn from each other, challenge ourselves and debate on some of the unusual processes for immersion followed worldwide. This will help the participants to identify the unmet needs of one’s family (say of elders), community, domain, and small-scale industry/entrepreneurs. Then the participants will try to convert an unmet need into a research protocol after reviewing prior art including literature, patents (both active and expired/abandoned), market products and databases of community knowledge if applicable. They will then try to leverage the scope for innovation public goods as DIY (do -it-yourself) solutions vis a vis IP protected solution and pursue action learning on various diffusion models for solutions so that they move from shelf-to-site of application.

6. We will plan a few assignments with sufficient time interval to deepen our collective understanding of each subject. It is hoped that the participants will try to bridge some of the need gaps to deepen the understanding of inclusive innovations. Evaluation: Class Assignment – 30 Final project - 70

7. Session 1: Oct 16, 2021 Fireflies of creativity- innovative ideas can emerge anywhere: learning from uncommon quarters How do we keep our mind open to learn from unexpected quarters, common people and even children? Does it help to explore unrelated innovations as artefact, analogy/metaphor, heuristics and/or gestalt to broaden our repertoire of learning? How do we listen to potential users, lab attendants, supply chain members, shop floor workers, etc., as a possible source of learning? Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13aUq6F-Rt__Tilx6RxfWNB9RsWmmTpik?usp=sharing

8. Session 2 : Oct 23, 2021 Inertia and innovations: why do we live with problems unsolved for so long? What are the sources of inertia in various technological domains? Do problems affecting women take longer to notice and address? Have we not killed some of our own ideas in the past before even presenting these to others? Pathways to overcome inertia, trigger initiative, the transition of initiative into innovations, overcoming barriers, experimentation, feedback from potential users, derivative innovation, what are the individual and institutional barriers which come in the way of converting our autonomy into agency ? Can we indoctrinate/enculturate our society to have impatience with inertia? Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NNucZOxiNNJPNHas93spLQAz5iChj1XA?usp=sharing

9. Session 3: oct 30, 2021 How to identify unmet needs at the individual, community, institutional and even civilizational level? Can unmet needs trigger minor or major experiments to solve problems and overcome our inertia? The participants will map unmet needs in respective regions, domains and communities. It is not necessary that we should be able to solve all the unmet needs we identify. But it is possible that somebody among us may address the need identified by someone else in a quite different region and context. Do we stop, modify or start new experiments triggered by potential users of our solutions? Assignment: there could be design defects in instruments we use, devices our parents or grandparents use, or there are problems we face almost in daily life but have not sat down to solve them in a systematic manner. Each participant will share at least one unmet need in the society or one’s own community or family and share with the class. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gTjtfoJQxgZGNFY75CvcOWSSJGQ_9Eu3?usp=sharing

10. Session 4: Nov 8, 2021, Creating an ecosystem for inclusive innovations: Evolution of Honey Bee Network: global grassroots innovation movement Why Jugaad mindset will not unleash true innovative potential of India or any other society; why durable solutions matter. Why blending excellence in formal and informal sector is vital for putting top quality science at the service of common people ( https://news.mit.edu/2021/filters-sapwood-purify-water-0325 , downloaded on April 10, 2021). How do we create distributed knowledge networks for managing cross-disciplinary bridges for solving wicked problems. How can CSIR lab network offer an unique opportunity for cross-lab collaborating research for transcending institutional limits of solution science. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/141yWb0be_ZuWF6Pt4IRiIEGjR7dHN0Fu?usp=sharing

11. Session 5: N ov 13, 2021 Can we harness traditional knowledge for developing affordable and sustainable solutions? The contested domains of the private, public and common domain of knowledge trigger several ethical dilemmas. How do follow prior informed consent while accessing the knowledge of local communities and individuals? The functional TK can trigger the development of not only good technologies but also outstanding scientific insights in some cases.  The codified classical knowledge captured in TKDL has to be distinguished from folkloric knowledge which people still use or recall having used for meeting local needs (and which may or may not have been documented yet). Assignment: select any one TK from your own grandparents or community members of service providers like gardeners/household help and write a simple review of the possible scientific basis of the same and scope for value addition in the same, if it can be linked to some of the issues emerging in pandemic, even better. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ev0FvxYI5mLo1QiiF47w6q7iZHFLrbmM?usp=sharing

12. Session 6: Nov 15, 2021 Blending formal and informal science: illustrations of contemporary creativity validated by the institutional scientists. There are many cases of plant varieties, herbal pesticides, human ointments, livestock treatments, and other food formulations developed by rural and urban men and women experimenters recognised over the last three decades. What can be learned by these examples to sustain this effort for producing more blended solutions. Why did research on Artemisia took place in India but global recognition went to china? Why is that farmers practice to use milk for viral control in animals and tobacco crop existed in India but advisory was issued only by state Dept of Agri in Manitoba, Canada. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pSYsVQkBaWNDHHsrCcjP_cQNbo6lAClB?usp=sharing

13. Session 7: Nov 20, 2021 What role does open innovation play in reinforcing experimental and innovative ethic and trigger a collaborative culture of problem-solving? How do we look at the open innovation movement in different domains ranging from opening all patents by commercial companies like Tesla, free and open software movement, DIY platforms like Instructables , and other open knowledge and innovation networks? How to expand knowledge of public goods alongside the production of licensable intellectual property? can high tech science support tech commons and will societal progress be faster through such pursuits? Will have a debate on the subject and expect both sides to muster examples in support of their position. The third group can argue for a hybrid position. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12szIOTpH2wecPVxS4rIxPWVp7lzqakNI?usp=sharing

14. Session 8: Nov 22, 2021 Learning from nature and common people: Shodhyatra Biomimicry is just one way of learning from nature, but there are many more ways in which we can learn from parsimonious nature. How do nature dependent communities survive against all odds? we can learn from their strategies of ‘survival under stress’? We learn from four teachers during shodhyatra , a teacher with in, among peers, in nature and among common people. How does the process and purpose of learning get linked? Why is shodhaytra as a pedagogy, based on voluntary suffering, a possible step towards authenticity in professional life? Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12Vj4DmXCjbHOPGhw93JQqz6SwA4cTr9P?usp=sharing

15. Session 9: Nov 29, 2021 Diffusion of innovations: incentives for scaling innovations and experimental ethic It is well known not all innovations are meant to diffuse. Many are supposed to address niche based needs.  The long tail of innovations explains why ecosystem needs a diversity of ideas and innovations. Incentives for development and diffusion of innovations can be material or non -material in nature aimed at individuals and communities/groups. A portfolio of incentives might help create a healthy ecosystem for the diffusion of innovations. User trials are an important part of validating and value addition in the solution. Finishing requires a close co-creation process with supply chain members. We should not focus on only scaling solutions, which is an important institutional goal, but also try to scale the experimental ethic so that small scale entrepreneurs and grassroots innovators and communities produce local decentralised solutions. Gandhian utopia is not dead as yet.   Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1meKQmy0uHys6_wZqQKQMzGHo0a9cF5Rg?usp=sharing

16. Session 10: Nov 30, 2021 Policy and institutional implications for research prioritization, pursuit and utilization by the industry, or communities. Science, Technology, Innovation Policy (STIP) draft does stress many aspects of the missing links that need to be forged in future. But there are many that still need to be strengthened for making indigenous innovations to thrive and shine. Funds for large scale user trial, data collection during trials be made available to not just original innovator but also other researchers (akin to clinical trial registry), funding for test scale production, public procurement through public investment etc. Voluntarism has no substitute and service before self always finds support from unexpected quarters. The genuine effort often is its own reward. A change not monitored is a change not desired. let us explore the potential of co-creation blending our expertise with the creativity of communities and other users. Pilot to policy requires generating evidence for convincing policy makers. Nature of evidence at research station may not suffice, and creating pilots at the site of potential users requires a framework which agricultural research system has well developed but industrial research system is yet to develop. Readings Folder Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xc77s2UmTmlYYVupfzIxJXv0D_W3vwzi?usp=sharing

17. Session 11-13: Class Presentation synopsis Dec 1-3, 2021