|
|
Honey bee publish details |
| More
Information |
|
|
|
|
| Category |
4th Award Function |
|
|
| Title |
Recognizing, Respecting, and Rewarding Grassroots Innovators: NIF Awards |
|
|
| Details |
Creativity at grassroots was celebrated for the third time at the hands of the honourable President of India, Mr A P J Abdul Kalam. The Fourth Biennial Award function of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), held at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, February 11-12, 2007 once again demonstrated the diversity of innovations and Traditional Knowledge from all over the country. Special guests attended the function from different parts of the world ranging from Ethiopia to WIPO in Switzerland. The families of the awardees were witness to a new family in the making, that of the Honey Bee network members. The fourth round of competition, extending from January 2003 to December 2004 attracted more than 14,000 practices from all over the country, from young and the old alike. Sixty six of these innovations and practices in eight categories: mechanical/electronics, farm machineries, energy, transport, plant variety, agricultural practices, innovative ideas, and herbal technologies were awarded and appreciated. This time also, there was no first award in several categories. In all, 17 National Awards (including a life-time achievement award and four student awards), five State Awards, 26 Consolation awards, and 18 Certificates of appreciation were given. Several scouts were appreciated and two regional collaborators, Dr Balaram Sahu from Orissa and Ms Anita Mahajan from Maharashtra were also honored for their contribution in mobilizing entries for the competition. Two technology student groups were awarded for coming up with innovative solutions to persistent problems (a water jacket to reduce the drudgery of women carrying water load on their head, and a hill trolley for people in the mountainous regions carrying firewood and fodder on their head) faced by the society.
Innovations from informal laboratories of life
Dr R A Mashelkar, Chairperson, NIF inaugurated the exhibition where the posters and prototypes of many of the award winning technologies were displayed. He appreciated the contribution of the Honey Bee Network in scouting innovations from all parts of the country. He stressed the importance of innovations coming from such ‘informal laboratories of life’ in instilling a feeling of self-reliance and the spirit of ‘we can do it’ by promoting interaction and exchange of ideas among achievers. He also conferred the consolation awards and gave appreciation certificates to the Traditional Knowledge holders and a few others. Dr T Ramasamy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) also appreciated the efforts of NIF and the Honey Bee Network members in being able to “recognize the innovations at the grassroots level, bring them together, network them and celebrate their contribution as well.” Twelve journalists were also honoured by Dr R A Mashelkar, Prof I Khanna and Dr T Ramasamy under media awards instituted at GIAN north. Dr S A Patil, Director, IARI not only extended hospitality for the event, but also assured future collaboration.
Honoring the grassroots innovators
Dr T Ramaswamy, Prof Bakul Dholakia, Director, IIM Ahmedabad and member of the Governing Council and Prof Anil K Gupta welcomed President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. The Honorable President visited the exhibition, and met the innovators. He also conferred the National and State awards to the winners. He greeted the innovators, their family members, collaborators, organizers and distinguished guests, and said “Innovation may come from many directions in the country. But identifying the innovation from grassroots level indeed is a very important mission”.
Giving examples from all over the country, he also stressed that adding value to innovations is an important task which will facilitate their transformation from prototype to product, thereby generating knowledge based employment. He recalled his personal interactions with some of the innovators he had met from various remote areas of the country, and said “every village in the country will have a number of good practices in agriculture, fishing, forestry, horticulture, traditional knowledge in medicine and handicrafts, textiles, rearing of silk worm and many other areas. Deploying the youth of the region in mapping the knowledge and experience will provide us a rich resource of existing knowledge which can be used by many people needing such products. These rural personnel will definitely become knowledge multipliers and make a difference to the villages they live in”.
He lauded the efforts of NIF in gathering more than 65,000 inno-vations and traditional knowledge examples from over 400 districts of India. He also appreciated the linkages between NIF, CSIR and ICMR and added, “This connectivity has to be strengthened for realizing the maximum benefit from the innovation capability available with our rural innovators”. He was keen that people should be provided knowledge based opportunities rather than engaging them only in menial work. Mapping of knowledge, he suggested through the DST, could become one of the important employment activities. He suggested that the local innovators should be given support of market research and business planning so as to facilitate their journey. On this occasion, Dr Ramasamy also informed the audience about the decision to give NIF the status of an autonomous institution under the DST, with an annual budget of up to Rs 8-10 crore per annum, an announcement that was greeted by all the stakeholders who knew how stressful had been the existence of NIF with its meager resources.
Creating a knowledge network
Honey Bee network meeting was organized where collaborators and innovators discussed ideas and put forward their views on sustaining and scaling up the innovation movement and creating a knowledge network. A workshop on “Intellectual Property Rights Issues in Protecting Traditional Knowledge” was also held where Mr Shakeel Bhatti from World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was the special guest. It was emphasized that “Grassroots to Global” will be the mantra of Honey Bee in future; to demonstrate that the innovators of our country can not only solve problems of India, but that of the whole world. It was agreed to celebrate Feb 28, NIF’s Foundation Day as the “Grassroots Creativity Day” all over the country wherever there is a presence of a regional collaborator. It was also decided that 15th October, the birth date of the Hon’ble President would be celebrated every year as “Children’s Innovation Day”.
The awardees and the guests were taken for a special visit to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Cultural programs by the innovators followed the visit, where many displayed their unique talents. The audience was specially enthralled by the Bharatnatyam performance of Ms Aparajita, who had specially come from Assam for the occasion. With participation from people from all corners of the country, the gathering looked like a grand display of the cultural and linguistic diversity of the country, without which perhaps so much knowledge and innovation diversity wouldn’t have come about.
The innovators and their family members were very happy to visit the city, meet the President and visit the President’s House. Many of them had moved out to such a long distance from their homes for the first time, and there was a continuous buzz of excitement amongst them. The guests freely intermingled with each other, discussed ideas and talked about possible cooperation with each other in future. This after all was the key purpose. Free exchange of ideas can increase one to one interaction and encourage lateral learning. Knowledge Network will emerge only then. Ideas from one place will trigger innovation in another place. Eventually, insti-tutionalization will take place of the culture of creativity, commitment to community well being and nature conservation. The quality of life of millions who have remained excluded from the developmental
saga of the society so far will improve. |
|
|
| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 17(4) & 18(1): 5-7 & 19, 2006 & 2007 |
|
 
|
|
