The Honey Bee Network has been documenting grassroots innovations for sustainable natural resource management for the last eleven years and has built a database of thousands of such innovations. These innovations include a wide range of herbal, artisanal and other innovations for non-chemical pest control, veterinary medicine, animal health and productivity, soil and water conservation, growth promoters, farm implements, low-energy-requiring three-wheel tractors, a tilting bullock/camel cart, etc.

SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions), a developmental voluntary organization was set up in 1993 to backstop the Honey Bee Network. IIMA provides the policy and conceptual support, which has enabled impacts at national and international levels. Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has recently helped in setting up National Innovation Foundation (NIF) with headquarters at Ahmedabad. NIF has a corpus of Rs.20 crores (5 million dollars) and is chaired by Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Prof. Gupta, Coordinator of KnowNet-Grin is the Executive Vice Chairperson of NIF. One of the goals of this project synergises with the goal of NIF, i.e., to create a registry of innovations. While NIF will focus on National Register of Innovations and Inventions at Grassroots, the Honey Bee Network and SRISTI would experiment with the idea of a global registry of innovations. Such an idea has also been proposed by Indian Government at July 2000 meeting of WTO as a means of safeguarding the interests of grassroots innovators.

1. Peer group for innovators

One of the major impediments to the growth of grassroots innovations developed by farmers, artisans etc., has been found to be the lack of an appreciative but critical peer group. This happens through several socio-cultural processes, valid not just in developing countries: (a) Familiarity breeds contempt. People in the same village in which an innovator has developed a unique solution do not recognize and encourage the person till outsiders recognize the person. Sometimes the indifference may convert into much more aggressive contempt. (b) The innovations remain sub-optimal because feedback is not available in time or in sufficient detail. (c) Since there are only a few, or sometimes only one or two, innovators in a particular locality or village, the critical mass does not evolve, i.e. a peer group does not emerge locally. (d) Some of the extraordinary initiatives do not appear to be so to the person concerned till he/she is exposed to some other similarly unique ideas, etc. There may be many other factors that are responsible for lack of networking among grassroots innovators but it is obvious that lack of communication and awareness about each other is a major one.

Knowledge Network for augmenting grassroots innovations (KnowNet-Grin) will be created as a wide area network of some mobile and some stationary nodes in Gujarat and two or three other states. Innovators around these nodes will discuss specific innovations online and submit their feedback to the concerned innovator whose idea is being discussed. It is hoped that collaborative learning among innovators will be accompanied by competitive spirit to produce newer innovations. To ensure that women are not left behind in the process, special kiosks as well as printed wall newspaper or magazine will be developed to share the discussions with them till the familiarise themselves with the use of computers.

Touch screen interface with multi language capabilities would enable access to innovations, entry of new innovations and communication of feedback on the existing innovations.

2. Safeguarding the intellectual property rights of the innovators

The conventional patent system in India provides for process patents only and not product patent. However, even in such a case the cost and skill required for filing patents are not within easy reach of very many small innovators. A registry of innovations will safeguard at least the priority of innovations. A web based market / clearing house of innovations might also help in linking innovation, investment and enterprise. The challenge is to put synoptic information of the innovation in public domain so that interested parties may contact the clearing house (GIAN in Gujarat and NIF in India, and SRISTI globally) for negotiating the licensing of technologies. Simultaneously an effort will be made to pursue with WIPO and WTO, the issue of according such a registry a legal protection form unauthorised copying or working of innovations.

3. Linkage between 'little' and 'big' science, business and students

A node will be provided at Management Development Centre where practicing executives from business ventures attend various training programmes at IIMA. Idea is that some of them may have interest in participating in the ongoing discussions on specific innovations and contribute their ideas about marketing, business policy, technological design or any other aspect of scaling up of innovations. Likewise, nodes will be provided at research and development centres in private and public sectors to link local 'little' science with the formal 'big' science. The students at IIMA and some other institutions will also be involved in participating in the Knowledge Network.

4. Database development:

          It is proposed to develop web based database with multi language capabilities

          so that anybody can submit an innovation through a private or a public kiosks by

          going to the site of the Honey Bee Network and NIF. It should be possible to

          send entries through Honey Bee interface to this database. The innovators or

          other interested people should also be able to send a request for retrieving

          public domain information by sending a mail or submitting a request through

          web to this database.

There are many other ideas that will evolve as the project moves forward. The IT applications for connecting innovators with other stakeholders are likely to (a) speed up the rate of maturation of innovations, (b) generate market for green innovative products, (c) overcome transaction costs of innovators, investors and entrepreneurs in connecting with each other, (d) help in safeguarding the intellectual property rights of the innovators and (e) spur new innovations through wider awareness of the innovative potential at grassroots.

Multimedia multi language database will help overcome three barriers to learning, i.e., language, literacy and localism. People should be able to learn in their own language, even if they are illiterate and not just from innovations in their own village but also from elsewhere.

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