WATERVILLE -- Among the thousands of product ideas
advertised for free on the Web site of the National Innovation
Foundation of India, there is a picture of a tree-climbing
device made out of metal loops, wire ropes and a rubber belt.
A Florida man, Kevin Davis, recently wrote to the
foundation to get the tree-climber.
Within days of using it, he wrote back to the foundation,
asking for at least 25 more, and asking to be the product's
U.S. distributor.
To Anil Gupta, the Indian professor behind the foundation
and a slew of other globally-recognized innovation
initiatives, the Kevin Davis episode represented a perfect
marriage of Indian innovation, American investment and Davis'
enterprise.
"You can do great things," he said with a grin, referring
to the U.S. " You can send a man to the moon. But you couldn't
design a tree-climber."
It was a gentle joke at America's expense, but behind the
quip is a sense of pride in the thousands of ideas Gupta has
helped to harvest in what he dubs the Honey Bee Network.
It's a simple idea: The honey bee takes from flowers, but
doesn't exploit the flowers.
Equally, the 17-year-old Honey Bee Network joins personal
and professional ethics, and gives credit to the millions of
farmers and small-business entrepreneurs -- Gupta calls them
"grassroots innovators" -- who give birth to innovative ideas.
Gupta is visiting Colby College this week to lead students
in a workshop on his philosophies.
Threaded through his work are themes of sustainability,
accountability, equality and a deep respect for those who face
great uncertainty and risk in their livelihoods, like farmers.
"I wouldn't say we changed the way the world thinks about
it," he said. "But one day, nobody will be able to take ideas
without crediting people. It will end one kind of exploitation
in the economy."
The Honey Bee Network binds Gupta's National Innovation
Foundation, at www.nifindia.org, and another of his outfits
called the Society for Research and Initiatives for
Sustainable Technologies and Institution, at www.sristi.org.
Gupta was among the pioneers of micro-venture finance,
which takes "grassroots" ideas like the tree-climber and
finances their development.
He did this because he found farmers unable to get small
loans from banks to fund their ideas.
The project took off exponentially -- 10,000 product ideas
became 50,000 from 455 of India's 594 districts.
"Not all the ideas are unique, and some are similar to each
other," he said. "But if even 10 percent are new, you have
5,000 unique ideas."
Encouraging the churn of grassroots innovation pushes the
value chain upward, he said.
As an example, he points to Andrew Smith, a farmer in
Newport's Mineral Spring Mushroom Farm.
When he asked Smith what he would do if others began to
compete in Smith's roaring organic mushroom business, Smith
said he would welcome the competition, move on to provide
spores, or develop medicines through mushrooms.
This is the way to combat the stranglehold of the large
corporation, and even to fortify democracy, Gupta said.
"A large number of small corporations is the best insurance
for democracy," he said. "It gives a greater scrutiny of
ideas."
In China, Maine, Gupta saw another facet of his kind of
capitalism. Spencer Aitel, co-founder of China's organic Two
Loons Farm, has a 30-year-old horse that he keeps on his dairy
farm.
"I asked him, why doesn't he cull the horse?" Gupta said.
"He told me the horse taught him how to farm. Imagine that.
Keeping a horse because of ... an empathy for animals. These
are the values of the marketplace that reinforces my faith in
believing that small entrepreneurs are going to come back."
Grassroots innovators like Aitel are going to lead the way,
Gupta said, because they see what others don't: That what
human beings value most is getting lost in the era of large
corporations. In that process, great ideas will emerge, Gupta
said.
In the case of Two Loons Farm, Aitel apparently faces a
problem in milk processing -- he has to send his milk to
Connecticut for processing.
Therein lies the demand for small-scale pasteurization --
and you can almost see the light bulb blazing in Gupta's head.
Gupta hopes his ideas will catch on at Colby and in
Waterville.
"If Colby had students linking with the community, finding
innovators and learning from them, taking on problems, doing
research so at least if you don't provide the solution, you at
least explain the problem. ... I see Colby becoming a
laboratory of small green enterprise," he said.
Chuin-Wei Yap -- 861-9253
cyap@centralmaine.com
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