how can collaborative and open innovation-driven entrepreneurial culture overtake shylockian future

New Eco-preneurial approaches for transforming social imagination

Indian society is becoming aspirational, entrepreneurial, and also more accommodative of new social and economic experiments for changing everyday life experience of the masses. When socio-economic transition takes place, lot of values come in conflict, some for good but some for bad. The social inclusion is one such issue which is receiving heightened attention of many entrepreneurs. The disadvantaged people are not willing to remain neglected any further. Their restiveness is a challenge to all those who want to design inclusive business models. The social conflicts among those who wish to maintain old semi-feudal order and others from oppressed classes who want to aspire, compete and be treated at par with the rest is a signal that can be ignored at our own peril.

Widening entrepreneurial space can transform the arena of conflicts from socio-cultural space to competition in economic and market space. Dalit chambers of commerce led by Milind Kamble has tried to achieve that.  Telangana Municipal Administration and Urban Development ministry provided 70 jetti machines costing rupees 20crores to safai karmacharis, with State Bank of India providing 20 lakh loan and dalit manual scavengers putting six lacs from their side. The state government intends to put numerous deaths in the last few years behind with often no compensation to family of victims or arrests of contractors. Ten thousand scavengers are being converted into entrepreneurs. I hope Gujarat and other state governments are listening.

While talking to the passing out batch of EDI students at their 19th convocation, I reminded them of what some of their  seniors had demonstrated well that when one hires disadvantaged, especially abled people in one’s enterprise, one can improve productivity and customer satisfaction. Reaching the unreached through finance, education, employment, new skills etc., is the need of the hour. But can innovations by common people, grassroots communities, students and others be used to create new India? When SRISTI had set up GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) in collaboration with Gujarat government in 1997, such was the hope. It was realised that transaction costs of bringing innovators, investors and entrepreneurs together has to be minimised by an intermediary organisation. That’s how the GIAN became country’s first incubator for the purpose and in fact shared the best incubator award with IIT-Madras at the hands of the former President, Bharat Ratna, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, 2002.

How do we build upon this model to achieve what my esteemed friend, prof Mohd Yunus calls as three ZEROS: zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero pollution. Let me share  a six point strategy for transcending  the   frontiers of frugal innovation through inclusive development.

First step is to spread the belief:  that change is possible, it cannot wait, it has to begin now, and with me. Unless we give way to cynical cribbing culture (so rampant on social media) with attempts to engage with wicked problems of our society through action-research mode, we will not be able to get out fo self-defeating discourse.  We need to generate new models of social, cultural. economic and ecological enterprises with an impatient attitude and agile support system.

step two: young people have to exercise a choice between two roads of inertia and innovations, first is safe, will take u somewhere you know; second, is risky, difficult but will take u where no body might have gone.

Step three: innovations don’t have legs and  hands; they need to be coupled with investment and enterprise by an empathetic and inclusive support system. Ganga ben had shown a new way back in 1898 when she published a book, Hunnar Mahasagar-2080 recipes for self-employment. She was few years ahead of Gandhiji in this regard. SRISTI Innovations has reprinted this book in Hindi and Gujarati.

Step Four: we need to ensure that four vectors of a healthy ecosystem of social entrepreneurship are brought together: these are improving access of entrepreneurs/start-ups  to resources, institutions, technology and culturally inclusive platforms. Assurances must be provided that supportive policy and institutional system will prevail. Good ethical practices will be rewarded to foster collective action in support of a compliant and cooperative industrial clusters. Historical advantage to those who cut corners will not happen anymore. The ability or skills will be upgraded so that new technologies are used and state/industry associations provide common facilities, acquires IP protected solutions and make then open source.   The training and educational institutions equip the workers and leaders of new enterprises with skills to use them.

Step five: Five virtues of Creativity, compassion, collaboration/co-creation, circularity and convergence must become operating mantra of new socio-ecological and economic industrial order.

Six step: overcome six sources of exclusion over space, season/time, sector, skills, social and structural or in governance. Will explain next week how we can operationalise the six step strategy for inclusive entrepreneurial/start-up  revolution to overcome rising social inequity and imbalance among the aspirations of haves and have nots.

Part 2

Tracking social trajectory: indicators of civilizational maturity

 Indian society is passing through a critical phase. The rise of entrepreneurial aspirations, as I said last week, have given rise to a justifiable rise in material and consumptive ambitions. But when these ambitions overtake other values in society, something precious is likely to be sacrificed. Therefore, financial capital should be balanced along with ethical, natural, cultural and social capitals.

There are the five indicators which help us track where are we heading as an individual/institution and society to seek balance of these capitals: These five indicators are a) upload to download ratio, b) ratio of private, common and public goods; c) Reciprocal to non-reciprocal relationships, d) Seeking to sharing ratio of innovations and e) Share of perfect strangers in one’s contributions.

Upload to download ratio: I have argued for some time that India is becoming very fast a consumptive society of externally produced, ideas, concepts, thought-systems and structures besides of course metaphors and slangs. A society which aspires to be a global knowledge producers is lagging behind in both scholarly productions but also ideas of common people beings hared in open source. Each individual and institution should track its upload to download ratio every week and share it openly so that a sense of shame or embarrassment may arise. Unless we develop this habit among younger people, start-ups and all new ventures, we will remain a follower and never become a leader in any domain or schools of thought. It is through sharing ideas that we get feedback and gain humility and learn faster.

The ratio of private, common and public good production and consumption indicates the degree to which society is leveraging ethical, social and natural capital. If utilitarian logic supersedes in everything then contribution for common and public goods will not rise and such a society lacks a generous and caring spirit. The kind of self-righteous and exclusivist language, devoid of social amity, is gaining ground, concern for common and public goods is becoming obviously weaker. That directly affects social happiness index. Any society which produces less common and public goods, invariably becomes conflict prone and tense society.

Finally, the share of perfect strangers in one’s personal institutional and societal allocations of resources determines the sustainability of our actions. Prefect stranger is the one who is unknown and is not knowable. We don’t know the preferences of future generation which is not born yet. We have to use our value system and adopt a life style which leaves enough for them to exercise freedoms that we take for granted. I cannot figure out what the ant on the wall looking at me writing this is thinking? The share of an ant, squirrel, birds or other wild grasses and wildlife and the unborn determines how sustainable a society is.

I hope we can reflect on these ratios and start re-strategising our value system, educational philosophy, institutional design and evaluation criteria so that as a society we know better where are we heading.

Reciprocal to non –reciprocal relations: In social life, our culture promotes a feeling of ‘Neki kar kuayen mein dal’ that is, if left hand gives, even the right hand should not know. The anonymous giving is stressed in our society so that reciprocity cannot arise. The transactional society tears basic social fabric apart and all relationship start losing the layers of love and grace that accord them serenity and subtlety. The Samevadana becomes silent.

Seeking to sharing ratio of innovations is critical in an open innovation society. Every enterprise has some knowledge practices and innovations which they can share with others without affecting their own competitiveness. Yet so little is shared by large and small companies and institutions. Even the academic institutions don’t put their courseware in open unlike eminent institutions like MIT which did it a long time ago. We seek more than we share.

Language shapes the habit of thought, as the linguists say. Should we only think of economic enterprises, and ignore social, ecological and cultural enterprises. Who amongst us has not used some product or service for which he/she never paid? For that matter, now that rains are here, and it is tru that road side trees have come down compared to the situations decades ago But have we not stood under a tree for which we of course did not pay? But somebody has to pay. The users don’t have to pay always and that too, not all the costs, else social inclusion is not possible. How do we make us, the privileged class to pay for the services and products which those who need them most cannot pay for.