“Ray Wijewardene was a man well ahead of his time, which might explain why he was not better understood and appreciated. He was also a systemic thinker who went to the root of problems and looked for elegant and efficient ways of solving them. He was not mesmerised by technology alone.”
With these words, an eminent Indian scholar paid tribute to the late Ray Wijewardene (1924 – 2010), whose website I helped design and launch a few weeks ago.
Dr Anil Kumar Gupta, a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad, India, and Founder of the Honey Bee Network, spoke on “Grassroots Innovation for Inclusive Development: From Rhetoric to Reality” at the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) on 13 December 2011.
The IESL auditorium was packed to capacity, with more people standing and spilling over to the corridor. Anil Gupta gave an engaging talk that makes him the subcontinent’s foremost innovation-spotter. With inspiring examples and illustrations, he emphasized that grassroots innovations can provide a new ray of hope — provided we let them grow.
The lecture was organised by IESL and the Ray Wijewardene Charitable Trust (RWCT), set up to promote Ray’s legacy, and committed to nurturing innovation in Sri Lanka.
The Trust made an auspicious start by inviting Anil Gupta to deliver the first lecture in Ray’s memory. Gupta and Wijewardene were kindred spirits who stayed in touch over the years across the Palk Strait.
“It is a privilege for me and the Honey Bee Network to be invited for a lecture in honour of such an illustrious innovator, social change activist and thought leader of our sub-continent, and indeed the entire developing world,” Professor Gupta said when I first reached out to him a few months ago to invite for the lecture.
More coverage of the talk itself will follow, both on this blog and on Ray website.
17 Dec 2011: 3 Idiots and Honey Bee Network launch India’s Grassroots Innovators into New Orbit
The Nation, 18 Dec 2011: Anil Gupta’s Advice: Unleash Sri Lanka’s Grassroots Innovators!
Anil K Gupta is an unusual professor who walks the talk — and walks through the villages and slums of India in search of innovation. His mission is to ensure that grassroots innovators receive due recognition, respect and reward for their bright ideas. He also seeks to embed an innovative ethic in educational policy and institutions.
He founded the Honey Bee Network in 1986-87 “to promote a fair and responsible knowledge ecosystem”, where innovators can benefit by sharing their ideas. In the 1990s, he set up the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI) and Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) both of which support the Honey Bee Network to scale up and convert grassroots innovations into viable products.
All three entities are partners of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF India), an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology in India. Since 2000, NIF has mobilized more than 160,000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices from all over India, and now holds the largest database of its kind in the world. Professor Gupta is Executive Vice Chair of the NIF, and is also a member of the National Innovation Council of India.
More images at http://www.facebook.com/RayWijewardene
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 
Good, prompt and accurate
T K G Ranasinghe
Dr Anil Gupta showed a gallery of pictures of innovations in his country (India) They were simple & thoughtful implements. What touched me was his mention of including animals as beneficiary of these innovations. He showed us a photo of a man drinking water off a road side tap and cow drinking from the spill over of this resource.
Nadee