 the context in which the content of our learning takes place. We spend a lot of time on what we do, but the context in which it is done and the context in which people might use what we do is sometimes more important than what we are doing. So you have a line here and you have to shorten it without rubbing it. So you know the answer, you draw a bigger line. Now here begins the context of my story today. So what has got changed here? The context. What did it change? The content. The same line became smaller. So what are we trying to do? We are trying to change the context in which designers choose the problem and try to solve them, address them, scientists pick up a problem and do research on it. But very often or many times the context in which this solution is going to be used if it succeeds is not as apparent to us as it should be. So how do we do that? So one of the ways in which we try to address this problem for my own learning and learning of our colleagues in the Honeybee network was to walk in different parts of the country. So the concept of voluntary suffering is very fundamental to what the Honeybee network does. When I try to find a solution which is addressing my own problem I am not doing any favor to anybody. I am not doing any obligation on anybody else. That becomes Samvedan Shield, a certain shield or empathetic innovations. And empathy which is not equivalent to Samvedan because Samvedan is within, empathy is for others helps us to identify those problems, those pain points which otherwise we might ignore because they may not affect our life. So we have been giving voice, visibility and velocity to the ideas of common people. If they could do so much through their own efforts they could do much more with our sharing, joining hand with them. If people who do not have much material resource have to survive, what would they do? What would they maximize? They do not have much material resources. So they will maximize their mental resources, imagination, experimentation, innovation. So innovation is imperative for them. They do not have choice. So we will discuss today first about 10 teachers from whom we have learnt over the years through various processes and so on. And these 10 teachers are accessible to each one of us. You do not have to come to me to find these 10 teachers. The reason why we call it Honey Bee Network is Honey Bee does what we do not do, what intellectuals like us do not do. Honey Bee is cross-pollinate. Ideas to connect, ideas of one with another. When they take nectar away, flowers do not complain and they do not keep all the Honey Bee themselves. They share some with us. So when we take knowledge of people, do we acknowledge them? Do they become co-authors with us in our reports and publications? All the 1050 patents filed by National Innovation Foundation are in the name of the innovators. Not one of them has co-inventorship of the staff or scientists who have worked on them. We said, okay, when you write papers, you can become co-author, put the innovator and your name together. We do not mind that. But intellectual property, right? That will remain of the person. So the asymmetry that exists between knowledge producer and provider in the informal sector and knowledge producer and provider in the formal sector, we have tried to bridge that gap. One of the questions that has bothered me is that many great civilizations sometimes decline. And they decline because they don't communicate much. They don't share much. They become self-contained. A professor doesn't talk to the professor next door. The student doesn't talk to the student in the dorm. He becomes secretive. The more secretive you become, the less feedback you get. It is only the criticism from the peers and from the colleagues that know about our subject or at least can ask some strange questions which help our ideas to grow. So how do we create that culture of sharing and building upon each other's idea? That was one of the concerns that we have because we didn't want our society to decline. And how did we do that? So we realized that we are looking for creative people. Creative people are everywhere. Just outside of IT Bombay. There is a person who often binds your thesis. Black cover thesis. And you know there is an embossing done on that. The title of the thesis in golden colour. He designed a printer for embossing your thesis covers which will print whichever film you use. He will print with that colour. And we thought he deserved to be recognized. May not have been studied much. May not have been educated much. But had creativity he could design something outside of the boundary of IT. There are creative people all over. No matter which place we have been we have found creative people. In Burger District of Orissa when we had a show the after there in summer very hot place said to be a poor place of poor people. But people may be poor economically. They are not poor in their mind. That was the subtitle of my book in 2016. Mind on the margin are not marginal minds. So this person had designed a loom where he wove the kurta in a cylindrical manner. All of it. Imagine the complexity of this task. As an engineer, as a designer just think of the complexity. Why would he do that? Not everybody stitches that. I have to do something different. I have to do something better. This desire to be different motivates this couple to design something that was unthinkable. Now our horizon has expanded. Now we can think of that. In sweater it was easier because with this knitting you could do that. But in weaving that was the first time. So what are we trying to do? We are mapping creativity. We are tapping the innovations of the people who are solving problems innovatively and we want to cap the inertia. Some inertia is inevitable of course. We cannot change everything all the time. But some of the inertia in our society has been far too long. You have seen hand pump? So if you have to drink water what do you do with the hand pump? Single you are alone. Then what happens? Then you go back and some water spills over in the time that you went there. You have so much water to waste. So what should be the design? He is saying you bring the pipe closer to the handle. What else can you do? Quickly just tell me. Look at that first issue that I told you is less material. We want minimum material and maximum efficiency. So this is the handle. How will you take it? This side. Correct? Pump it, drink it. When you pull the pipe down if you push it down as a pump you need much more pressure. Why are we using this long bar? To use as a lever you know what lever does. Then make the pipe longer. You will ultimately save material of the handle. Now we have not added any extra material in this design solution. That way you will be removing the material. No, we have just put this handle this side. I said if you make the pipe longer. No but the question is if I don't use anything extra first attempt is minimize use of extra material. If possible reduce some. Because material creates it creates entropy. Correct? The question is for such a long time for millions of hand pumps we continue to bear and live with inefficient design. Why is our society so tolerant of inertia and inefficiency? So what happens then? Somehow we reduce the expectation from ourselves. We think our life is less precious. We think we matter less. We don't deserve an efficient service or design. It's okay as an Indian I can live with inefficiency. Because we have somehow been taught to accept we are conformist society. We are congruent society. We are compliant society. We don't question enough. Is a response to a question. Now I will show you some teachers from whom I have learned and I am sure you can also learn. Teacher of 25,000 years you know which where from this cave painting is there is a place in Central India Bimbitika. 25,000 years ago a design teacher is teaching us and at that time there was no language there was no community there was no civilization is all about 10,000 year old and teacher is telling us okay take two lines make a cross one line make a double cross and double line put ahead there circle two draw lines and that's how you can make a human figure move them different directions and you can make different actions so we can see now these human figures on horse on the simple design at its simplest beauty isn't it. It is possible to communicate so well that there is no loss of information even for 25,000 years let's go to the next teacher so 2000 years ago a teacher asked a student to bring a glass of water student brought the glass of water teacher took the water gave the empty glass to the student the student went and kept the glass in the kitchen teacher called him back so what did he do sir you asked me for a glass of water I brought the glass of water you took the water I went back and kept the empty glass in the kitchen no no no tell me what did you do and he will ask this question and the student will repeat this 5 times 7 times 10 times and obviously teacher was not satisfied the student said sir I know now what I did tell me what did you do sir I went to the kitchen when you asked me for a glass of water I brought the glass of water you took the water you gave me the empty glass while going back I threw just a few drops on the ground when he said just a few drops he got his zen he should have dropped those few drops in a garden in a drinking water plate for the birds no 2000 years ago there was no shortage of water for next 1950 years there was not going to be any shortage of water correct there were so many lakes rivers why is this teacher building a value of saving water he anticipated the problem of our society so much early are we going to solve problems only of tomorrow today who will solve the problem that will arise after 500 years 1000 years 2000 years who will solve that problem this teacher is solving that problem isn't it he made us conscious we may not keep that conscious intact that's a different matter but there are people who will not keep the tap open when you go in the morning and wash your hands 3 times with the soap the tap can remain open or you can close it every time put the soap on your hand then open it again then wash then close then wash then close we can do that isn't it some of you might be doing it actually those who realize that this water should not go waste some of you may not be doing it but the thought arises in the mind am I doing right that thought the seed of that thought this teacher has planted now let me take you to a teacher I met 20 years ago we were walking in desert in Kutch so I saw a shepherd who had about 200 sheep I asked him I waved him thought let's have fun so we waved hand please stop he stopped so I thought I am a professor I am a management professor very reported professor very wise so I may be a very intelligent question so I said if one of your sheep gets mixed with the herd of another what will you do I was having a program of the shodayate in my hand shepherd heard me he said please give me this piece of paper so I gave him the piece of paper he put the whole program in front of his he said to me all the letters look alike you know it was a slap on my face to me all the sheep looked alike that's why I asked that question one of the most foolish question I have ever asked in my life and he gave me a slap almost said look I am illiterate in your language you are illiterate in my language what is the difference between us you can't make out different between two sheep I can I know each sheep is unique which is true this teacher is accessible to all of us that's what I am trying to say let me take you another teacher so there was a film being made Jainthi Bhai from Indian Space Research Organization so we went to Karim Bhai not Bujrat near a forest, Balaram Jasore Sanctuary on the fringe of that sanctuary this village Birumpur was there so there was a stone he asked him to sit down there I was sitting on another stone and he was setting his camera and then he said sir it will be nice if he had a twig of a plant or a shrub in his hand that will look nice we are going to talk about herbal healing he was a potter but he used to heal the people so I plugged a small twig from the roadside plant a weed gave it to Karim Bhai and Karim Bhai got upset so I said what happened why are you upset he said did we need this twig I said it will look nice that's what photographer thought then you should have told me I would have gone and sat near the plant like a fool I said many of these if we took one twig what blade has happened why are you so upset he said what did he say so many in nature there is never too many can you imagine I used to pluck a blade of glass put it in my mouth if I was standing near a bush I will pick up a leaf crush it that was my instinctive reaction now if ever I try to pluck anything immediately Karim Bhai comes in front do you need it there is nothing in nature which is written so there are teachers of all kinds this is another teacher I met in Champaran we had a show there out of 150 kilometers of walk there was one grain bin which was so beautiful like this you can see that beautiful only one so we asked the lady of the house why did you make such a beautiful bin she said but that's the only way I know oh my god excellence is imperative you are helpless you are doing things no I don't know but everybody else has made those maybe I know only this when you are helpless you can't do a mediocre job which cause you are helpless oh my god that culture can produce so much inertia it is strange isn't it same culture which produces which generates context for people like Ramthamari Devi also produces people like us you can't with mediocrity with something that even we don't approve of sometimes you do things which you from your own standard is not so good correct but you manage life move on she didn't now look at another teacher a teacher in paradoxes you know the whole world is becoming paradoxical future belongs to paradoxes in every discipline now we encourage the distribution look at the two tails of the distribution all the time a dialogue and inquiry is not complete if it looks at only one tail of the distribution by habit we should be paradoxical so let us look at this this community in Jharkhand is attracting birds correct by hanging these parts so that they can collect their manure in the gunny bags and use it in the field the birds are producing fertilizer the first fertilizer in the world which was stated was called Goano it was collected from Amazon brought to England now look at what happens in my institute we are designers we don't design production services we also design relationships we design and as he says in his class the last point is connections we connect different word views, different parts of our life we are we are connecting or disconnecting sir they make noise because they come and sometime they make love sometime they do something else outside my window what is the problem love is the most beautiful thing in this world isn't it paradox I teach I want you to become sensitive to nature and I do this you wouldn't believe me you will say that you are hypocrite of course this is hypocrisy of the highest order how do we learn from collective intelligence this is one subject becoming extremely topical now all over the world Gandhiji on 24th July 1929 gave a call a global call for ideas the award was 7700 pound at that time 1 lakh rupees in today's currency it will be about 10 crore rupees award was for redesigning the spinning wheel and if you look at this announcement that Gandhiji designed it gives you the boundary conditions of the final solution he didn't know what will be the final solution but he said the count of the yarn should be so much the weight of the machine should not be as much that it becomes difficult to move it the working of the machine should not make a woman tired in 8 hours of work the maintenance cost should not be more than 20% of the machine's cost in a year all this he is specifying in the design can you imagine he had looked at and then he says you can have a patent but if you want to award money you have to assign the patent to the first crowd sourcing of the design was done in 1929 you don't think it is a recent phenomena this is another example of the same process at the community level the same that we want to learn from strangers, from people around so this festival in Sikkim requires you to collect 9 grains on that date around Raksha Bandhan different grains from 9 neighbour so let us say the next door neighbour gave you a particular bean sprouted bean the next neighbour also gave you the same sprouted bean you have to go further till you find 9 different grains you may have to go to 40 people or 50 people what are you doing you are renewing your social network people whom you normally don't meet that day because the culture has created a ritual you have to meet all of them and say hello and how are you and okay what are you going to give me and everybody keeps these pots of sprouted grains what a wonderful way of reviving the contacts making the community come to know each other renew the connections so I was we were walking in Kangala, we saw this tree and we went to the tree what happened I asked the tree, the tree said look I am not supposed to branch but by mistake I did so I did the next best thing I married a parallel strand it is amazing that's great so I said that's a very interesting point because I am talking to you some cells in my body are going through mutation thank God that they are not cancerous so I can continue to talk to you what is my body doing it is either repairing them or replacing them or bypassing them or regenerating them is doing something which keeps my machinery working without creating any problem this capacity of a system to redesign itself during the process of use auto poises so when we design some product and services and during the process of its utilization it can learn and adapt and improve according to the needs and variable needs and changing needs of the users that will be an auto poision so if a knife after cutting things become sharper there are knives like that because they are given a lot of temper that is auto poiting it is repairing itself it is healing itself challenge, very difficult concept but nature teaches us this this theoretically or that I mean not theoretically, empirically this possibility exists in nature all of us are evident proof of that in our own body it is happening large number of compensatory pathways emerge in our life in our neural networks sometimes some cells are in a problem then other cells synaptic connections emerge in our network and they compensate for the connection that were weak or otherwise our body can heal itself doesn't it heal itself of course it can how do we learn from nature therefore so all of this teachers that I mentioned about are teachers who help us to learn from the grass root level they don't charge us fees none of the teachers charge any fees to me I will be honest that doesn't mean that there is no fees due to them I am under debt of them they taught me such useful lessons which I am sharing with you and how do I pay that fees by being more empathetic in whatever I do by being more inclusive in whatever I do and by ensuring that I don't lead to exclusion of the community of the nature of the people of the needy people in my research in my design in my activities so we try to search spread celebrate innovations and sense the unmet need these are the four functions every shodhyatra invariably entails you could have an innovation club and the club would do the same thing search spread in local language in Marathi, in Telugu, in Tamil in Gujarati not just in English local companies don't understand English most of them so that means you are not sharing with them you may claim that you are sharing with them but you are not in 1988 Prof. Anil Gupta got thinking about how creative knowledge holders across rural India were not being acknowledged by the system in search of a fair solution he came upon the metaphor of the honey bee the honey bee does what intellectuals don't do it does cross-pollination the flowers don't feel short change when you take when they attract the bees and third whatever the honey they collect they don't keep it themselves so the honey bee network was born it brings together like-minded individuals, innovators and farmers, policy makers entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations it promotes people-to-people learning cross-pollination of ideas in local languages and an acceptance of individual and community creativity it protects people's knowledge rights and shares the benefits