Honey Bee: Piling the Stones that Fell Afar !!

"There's a moral we may gather
From the busy bee for all,
Gather food stuff in the summer,
And protect it in the fall. "

---Nettie Sutton



Shodhyatra of ideas, novelty and creativity has been the mantra of the people who struggle to overcome the problems in their daily lives by very small incremental improvements in their approach towards life. A very small shift in the perspective may yield enormous returns in terms of efficiency, profit and satisfaction due to enhanced quality. Where does this motivation for proactive enhancement comes from? Some people call this motivation as 'intrinsic', some call this as induced due to circumstances. Even if this motivation is intrinsic why do not all people have this motivation? This is one of the questions being thought over under the research being lead by Hemant, a Ph.D. scholar in Centre for Studies in Science Policy in JNU. He was recently in Dhemaji district of Assam as a part of Shodhyatra organised by National Innovation Foundation and 'Srishti'. Understanding Motivation, Collaboration and Linkages for Grassroot Innovation Systems in India has been his passion of research.


Rashtrapati Bhavan is hosting the exhibition (10-14 March) of grassroot innovations which were identified, augmented and protected by the help of National Innovation Foundation. Honey Bee believes that "the prevalent mode of knowledge extraction from people, and dissemination among them, were non-sustainable. Knowledge has been extracted, documented without any acknowledgment to the source of knowledge for feedback. These practices have impoverished the knowledge holders by pushing them further down in the oblivion, but also have hampered the growth of an informal knowledge system, that is robust in nurturing creativity."



How to understand innovation from the perspective of a person working in the field, working in factory, in remote areas, in rural areas or in any region crippled with resources, finances, technical inputs and expert guidance. HoneyBee is confident that it is a metaphor indicating ethical as well as professional values, which most of us seldom practice. A honey bee does two things that we intellectuals, often don’t do. It collects pollen from the flowers and flowers don’t complain and it connects flower to flower through pollination. Similarly Honey Bee feels that their innovative and ethical approach to knowledge extraction, their sincere attempt to build up people to people communication and their commitment to let reasonable benefit be shared with the knowledge holders, qualifies them to identify themselves with the great metaphor of Honey Bee.



Everett M. Rogers in his book 'DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS' (The Free Press, 1983) explain to us about basics of innovation, it`s diffusion and it`s mechanism. He says, "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. It is a special type of communication, in that the messages are concerned with new ideas. Communication is a process in which participants create and share information with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding. This definition implies that communication is a process of convergence (or divergence) as two or more individuals
exchange information in order to move toward each other (or apart) in the meanings that they ascribe to certain events."

Rogers narrates characteristics of the innovation from the individual perspective. These are:

1. Relative advantage: It is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes. The degree of relative advantage may be measured in economic terms, but social-prestige factors, convenience, and satisfaction are also often important components.

2. Compatibility: It is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.

3. Complexity: It is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use. Some innovations are readily understood by most members of a social system; others are more complicated and will be adopted more slowly.

4. Trialability: It is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis. New ideas that can be tried on the installment plan will generally be adopted more quickly than innovations that are not divisible.

5. Observability: It is the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others. The easier it is for individuals to see the results of an innovation, the more likely they are to adopt.



Rogers unpacked other aspect of the process of diffusion of innovation. About communication channels he says that, "The essence of the diffusion process is the information exchange by which one individual communicates a new idea to one or several others. This process involves: (1)an innovation, (2) an individual or other unit of adoption that has knowledge of, or experience with using, the innovation, (3) another individual or other unit that does not yet have knowledge of the innovation, and (4) a communication channel connecting the two units. While classifying this he envisages broad category of innovators or adopters which are: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards.


It will be a daring statement to say that innovators I visited at the exhibition at Mughal Gardens were just like us. But they were more disempowered than us in terms of access of information, channel of finances and reach to the institutions recognizing novelty in their ideas. If we see the list of award winners some of whom presented their inventions, we would be able to reflect on the challenges they are tackling. Consider an invention by Susant from Bhubaneswar whose super Brain Modulator is a device by which a completely blind, deaf and disabled person can do all types of work as a normal human being can do and that via breathing. The project helps blind, deaf and dumb disabled person to do day to day work via breathing. 'Super Brain Modulator' received first prize by NIF for year 2009. Through this technology disabled persons can operate the electrical and electronic appliances. They can also communicate with others about their basic requirements in daily life.

In another invention, an automatic asu machine developed by Mallesham to alleviate the pain of his mother. To increase the speed of weaving spin a traditional Pochampalli silk sari, he greatly enhanced the yarn weaving efficiency of hand winding devise to help his mother to make asu for eight sarees per day compared to previous number of two.

A. Muruganantham has developed a mini sanitary napkin making machine by which it is possible to prepare low cost sanitary napkins. The novelty of this invention lies in integration of well known equipments like mixi (defibration), core forming process and naturally operated electric sealing unit to cut down the cost of production.


Yusuf Khan developed 'Groundnut Digger cum Separator Machine'. This is low cost, drudgery reducing, tractor driven device which digs out the groundnuts (99%) and separates them from earth. Normally in post harvest season, about 25 % of groundnuts stay beneath the soil which needs to be recovered by manual labour.


Annasaheb Udgavi has developed 'Rain Gun' named Chandraprabha which is low cost sprinkler usable for sprinkling of slurries of 110 feet in agricultural field with alternative nozzles size to suit the requirement. The discharge stream is so thick that it can even wash away pests without physicallt damaging the plants.

The list goes on. Many of the inventions like these have been patented by NIF with the inventor`s accent to help inventor to commercialization those. Like on inventor told before patenting he could sell only 50 odd pieces to customers. But after NIF came to his help to patent his invention upto now he has able to sell 1000 pieces of his invention.


Finally let me attract your attention towards what Anil Gupta, a brain behind NIF says in editorial of Honey Bee vol 20(3) of July-Sept. 09. He says, " The game stone piler is a metaphor for building knowledge networks. Every volunteer, scientist, entrepreneur contribute to the network provide the stones to be piled. There are always forces, which disintegrate and delay the building of network, or piling of stones. But without such forces , those who gather courage to rebuild the broken links or forge new piles perhaps will not enjoy their contribution." In short, Prof. Gupta asserts that nectar of innovations will not emerge if these forces did not act. The challenge is to use these forces creatively and constructively.


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