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Book Review |
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Democratizing Innovation by Eric von Hippel
The MIT Press
London, 2005
The adaptation of technical knowledge produced by formal system or other farmers or artisans in an informal system, for local use and conditions has been known to the rural communities for a very long time. There is no way any public or private sector lab or agricultural university could have ever developed the package and practices for growing different crops, rearing animals or post harvest operations for different agro ecological niches. Democratisation of technology in farm and non-farm sector in rural areas was inevitable before corporatisation of agriculture started. Von Hippel demonstrates that a similar democratisation of technical development process has taken place in the urban areas and among the users of industrial products. The distribution of innovations by users laterally among people endowed with similar resources or facing similar constraints takes place at much lesser cost than any centralised distribution of information or technology. What is even more encouraging is the evidence that author presents about the similar communitarian spirit as has been shown by the farmers, artisans and pastoralists. Unlike the production of collective good, author argues that user driven innovations meet much higher extent of need of the lead user or the developer of the local solution. Whereas the needs of the other users are met to lesser degrees, it is like a readymade cloth which fits exactly only on few but fits reasonably on many people within a size category. If such is the advantage of innovations by people, even in products, which are patented or protected by large manufacturers, then public policy should favour these improvements rather than hinder them. Restrictions on the improvisation may induce the users to use open source substitutes, as is happening in open source software based IT industry. However, the ability to adapt is not uniformly distributed. There will always be asymmetry in this regard.
Author demonstrates that historically most of the machineries in which the tasks were subdivided among the labourers, were developed by the user firms or mechanics. In an earlier study, author had found that almost 80 per cent of the scientific based instruments were developed by the users. The heterogeneity of the user needs further spurs the differentiation in the innovation system. One of the important findings is that some of the needs are sticky, i.e., are specific to time, space and sector and may not easily diffuse because of tacitness of the knowledge, cost of transfer or other kinds of transaction costs dealing with tangible or intangible component of the technologies. Specialisation of technological innovation is an inevitable aspect of sticky technology. At the same time, a point that has been not adequately discussed by the author is about the diffusion of concept as against technique or technology. Some of the user driven technologies we have found in Honey Bee Network are platform technologies. These can be diffused across sectors and spaces as conceptual tools or techniques rather than as usable technologies. For instance, development of a bicycle by Kanakdas, which transfers the vertical energy normally, dissipated by the shock absorbing springs into horizontal energy for propulsion through gears, is a platform technology. All vehicles using shock-absorbing springs can use this technology (patent pending) and benefit. The cost of many of these innovations is low but the final form is also not as sophisticated as the commercial versions may have.
The free sharing of innovations, author argues helps other users to improve it. In fact, the choice he suggests is not between revealing or not revealing. Instead the choice is between voluntarily revealing and involuntary spillover. The innovator, author suggests, benefits if the freely revealed innovation is manufactured at lower cost than would have been the case, if innovator had made it herself. By getting the low cost product based on her innovation, the innovator benefits. This may be true for those who have other alternatives for survival. However, many of the innovators at grassroots are extremely economically disadvantaged. And therefore, gain very little through the above process. Their ability to innovate more suffers because of lack of surplus from their existing activities. Unless there is a public or user funding of individual innovations, the process may suffer unless innovation is inevitable in the normal production process as is true of many agricultural and non-farm activities in the villages or slums. The communities of innovators have worked very well in the case of open source softwares. But, even their general-purpose licence as a concept provides mechanisms for commercial exploiters to compensate the innovators of open source technologies.
The idea that individual innovators must be provided similar policy incentives as given to the corporations or formal firms is extremely important. In 2000, more than 15 billion
dollar worth of custom integrated circuits were sold made by the users of the tool kits in the silicon foundries.The idea is that manufacturers design the tool kits, which enable customers and other users to modify the products. What is not clear is as to whether manufacturers of the products modified by the users compensate them for the contribution of their innovations and acknowledge these contributions while disseminating their modified products.
There is no doubt that this book provides a very convincing case of involving and empowering users in the technological innovation chain as a partner. The literature on farmer participatory research echoes some of these concerns. But, what has been demonstrated here is the enormous impact that this interface between manufacturers and the users has had economically and socio-culturally. The communities of user innovators can in fact in due course develop their own capabilities to manufacture and distribute solutions at low cost. This is a book that every person concerned with creativity and innovation in a democratic manner must read. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 17(3):20, 2006 |
