New Delhi, NFAPost: The People’s Festival of Innovations was inaugurated at the India International Centre (IIC) Gallery in New Delhi in the august presence of dignitaries, innovators, investors and social innovators. The effort, a first-of-its-kind in India, is co-organized by Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP).
Speaking at the inauguration event, C-CAMP Chief Executive Officer Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed said that the convergence of deep tech innovations and grassroots innovations is what makes this festival unique.
“While the former gives a more global perspective, grassroots innovations evoke “people”, more immediate in time and space. This festival is facilitating dialogue between the two,” said C-CAMP Chief Executive Officer Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed.
Honey Bee Network, SRISTI, GIAN & NIF Founder Prof. Gupta said that some people can’t live long with unsolved problems and are not bogged by inertia in addressing challenges they see around them.
“The festival gives us a chance to meet such individuals who believe that inertia can be overcome with initiative and that with initiative we have innovation. The Honey Bee Network in its journey of 35 years has realised that a combination of formal and informal innovations is the crux of inclusive development,” said Honey Bee Network, SRISTI, GIAN & NIF Founder Prof. Gupta.
Prof. Gupta also pointed out that the festival also brings together the leaders of administration and some of the best minds in the country through IIC.
“They can open numerous doors to opportunities which the innovators may not otherwise be able to access. This will also help in bringing together the social capital, ethical capital and intellectual capital that our society has,” said Honey Bee Network, SRISTI, GIAN & NIF Founder Prof. Gupta.
Expressing his views at the event, Former Scientific Secretary, Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, Dr. Swati Basu said that the most important thing will be to chalk out a plan on how to leverage upon the public engagement sparked off by this Festival which will be taken up at the end of the ten-day exhibition.
Department of Biotechnology Former Secretary Dr. Renu Swarup said that in her tenure of 33 years in the government, having helped more than 5000 innovators, this is the first time that this convergence between deep tech and grassroots innovations has happened.
“This festival in the Seventy-fifth year of IIC-Delhi hopes to attract a diverse audience for these innovations and even if a fraction of them show interest in these innovators, opportunities may spring for both. With the interest and support of the different stakeholders, this festival may become a regular feature,” said Department of Biotechnology Former Secretary Dr. Renu Swarup.
She highlighted the fact that this exhibition is called the people’s festival of innovation as unless people are involved it does not become a festival and what more interesting than the people who work with their hands, the innovators.
“Be it the grassroots or the deep tech, they are all innovations that impact the society. Generally, these are put into separate silos and their amalgamation or confluence does not happen but there many which can actually supplement or complement each other,” said Department of Biotechnology Former Secretary Dr. Renu Swarup.
India International Centre (IIC) President Shyam Saran welcomed the innovators and said that this festival not only opens a window for the innovators but also for those who visit them. \
“It may so happen that the innovators already have a solution to the problem that somebody has to solve in their domain or area. The work of our innovators is an important aspect of the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” mission of our government. An important role of IIC is to give platform for exchange of ideas, thoughts and initiatives,” said India International Centre (IIC) President Shyam Saran.
He assured his support to the innovators to forge partnerships between different stakeholders. He recalled that during his tenure in the government, working for climate change, he traveled through the length and breadth of the country and the world and met many innovators.
“Innovators who solved the local challenges. However, the real challenge is to bring the million innovators together in a platform and engage with them to be able to scale them. One of the key strengths of India is that ability to give scale of market and if it happens even for a small fraction, it is a commendable achievement. I congratulate the team and the innovators on the initiation of such an important initiative,” said India International Centre (IIC) President Shyam Saran.
Background:
To showcase the strength of this strong Innovation ecosystem, a People’s Festival of Innovation. — for the People, by the People and of the People is being organised by India International Centre (IIC) New Delhi in its Diamond Jubilee Year.
This festival showcases the significant strides India’s Science-based innovators have made besides the contribution of grassroots innovators in the past few years. It will seed connections between society and science that can usher in a new era for India’s inclusive socio-economic development.
IIC along with organizing partners CCAMP, Bangaluru and GIAN, Ahmedabad, an integral part of Honey Bee Network, brought together a high number of these socially relevant, bottom up grassroots and high-impact innovations for public viewing through the ‘People’s Festival of innovation’ during November 19 to 29, 2022 at IIC.
This event aims to celebrate these exciting and promising innovations along with their Innovators and promote societal engagement across all age groups with the foot soldiers of India’s growing biotechnology and inclusive -innovation ecosystem. The event is planned as a multi-pronged engagement initiative, celebrating Diamond Jubilee year of India International Centre, Delhi.
Objectives:
a) To create wider awareness in the 75th year of independence, about emerging inclusive innovation ecosystem including high tech bio-enterprises and grassroots green innovations
b) To help connect innovators across this spectrum that mutual learning and collaboration takes place. Connect frugality and groundedness of grassroots innovations with high tech applications for social applications.
c) To expose young college and school students to a wide range of innovations and facilitate their interactions with innovators so that they also aspire to be creative, innovative and empathetic in addressing unmet social needs
d) To connect investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers and others important stakeholders with innovators to accelerate value chain development for wider social impact
e) To identify the scope for strengthening the inclusive innovation ecosystem further to make India creative, collaborative and compassionate
There will be 50 high-tech bio entrepreneurs and 50 grassroots innovators who will display their innovations in a slot of 3-4 days each. The posters of all the 100 innovators is being displayed in the exhibition hall for all ten days.
Thirty-one Innovators displayed their prototypes/devices in the Gandhi King Memorial ground today and will be there till November. 22. The next set of innovators will display their products and prototype during November 23 to 25 and the last set will be here during November 26 to November 29, 2022.
There will also be two-panel discussions on November 21 and 22, besides storytelling sessions every day. High tech innovations will be discussed on Nov 21and grassroots innovations will be explored on November 22.
The purpose is to help uncover the lessons that can help policy makers to support the emerging start-up ecosystem and also bottom-up grassroots innovations scale up. While Deep-tech and Grassroots can be seen as two dichotomous types of innovation, this Festival will ignite conversations on their commonalities and how they can complement each other in catalyzing societal growth.
Thus, two broad themes of the festival include – Deep-tech Innovations & Grassroots Innovations addressing needs in Healthcare, COVID & Non-communicable diseases, Agriculture & Animal Health, farm machinery, natural resource management, Environment & Clean Energy sectors.
The People’s Innovation Festival envisages a two-fold outcome – a spotlight for the rapidly evolving, new technologies that can potentially define the future of society in India and abroad, and increased public dialogues with the innovation community for inspiring the next generation of innovators and problem solvers.
A delegation from the Philippines comprising nine members under GRIND (Grassroots Innovations for Inclusive Development) will be attending PFI 26-29, 2022