corporate social responsibility: how to connect corporations, academia and communities

1. Inclusive innovation and
academic connect:
Honey bee network Model
Anil k Gupta
Founder, Honey Bee Network, SRISTI, GIAN,
NIF, visiting faculty, IIMA, IITB , CSIR Bhatnagar
Fellow and FWAAS, FNAAS and FINSA

2. How can CSR strategies leverage mutual
strengths of corporations in fostering
inclusive Innovations :

3. Five Drivers of future CSR
Networking, pooling and sharing things that
work-models, how they work-DIY, self-critical
reflections (things did not work as well),
Innovations in delivery services/products.&
learning from both, hotspots of excellent
performance and creative inclusion
(things did not work as well),
Five Drivers of future CSR
Networking, convergence, enhancing impact
pooling and sharing things that work-models, how they work-DIY,
self-critical reflections (things that did not work as well),
Innovations in delivery of services/products
learning from both, hotspots of excellent performance and creative
inclusion besides failures

4. Technological and institutional Inertia:
women will suffer NO more
CSR for New Design Challenges
Source:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?pq=paddy+transplanting+image&hl=fr&sugexp=gsis,i18n%3Dtrue&cp=31&gs_id=n&xhr=t&q=paddy+transplanting+image
+india&nord=1&gs_sm&gs_upl&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1360&bih=624&ion=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wq#5225312498863276162

5. Gandhi announced a Global
innovation challenge
for addressing an Indian unmet need
Mahatma Gandhi's Announcement of a Design Competition,
24th July 1929 One Lakh Rupees or 7700 Pounds Prize!
Akhila Bharatiya Charkhaa Sangh Worker's Samiti has decided to
organize this contest for inventors and engineers all over the
world that if they could come up with a Charkha or a Samyukta
Yantra which - for making the thread and cloth that satisfies the
following criterion - shall be awarded prize money of 1 Lakh
Rupees or 7700 pounds.
Can we have such prizes for different location specific challnges
in collaboration with NGOs and Distt Adm

6. CSR may prioritize funding to overcome six
kinds of exclusion
–Spaces
–Sectors
–Seasons: stable to fluctuating
–Social segments
–Skills and knowledge
–Structure of governance
Inclusive Innovation

7. CSR may help build
eco-system
For inclusive
Innovations which
reduces ex ante and ex
poste transaction costs of
innovators, investors, and
entrepreneurs in each
district and state
Golden Triangle, 1997

8. Illustration of an ecosystem gap
How to connect
technology/engineering students
with unmet social, industrial and
environmental needs
Techpedia.in
Gyti.techpedia.in

9. www.techpedia.in
• engaging with youth with unmet needs of
society and small and medium industry
techpedia.in, (a portal by SRISTI (sristi.org)
pooling >200,000 engineering projects by
600k students from over 500 institutions)
• GYTI 2018 awards given by the President of
India to promising young tech talent
•

10. Honourable President of India awarding tech
students GYTI awards for outstanding solutions -
2018 at the President’s House, FINE

11. Missing links: (1)
Early stage corporate
engagement with promising
students as mentor, investors,
co-creators, licensees, acquiring
the technological rights (IPRs )
and making these open
source/DIY solutions or low cost
licensing for distributed
manufacturing

12. Missing Link -2
Making Connections
Green revolution happened because of large scale on farm trial and demonstration of
new tech solutions, free or low cost kits and subsidized inputs, easy credit and public
procurement
Grassroots industrial and entrepreneurial revolution will require similar interventions
with a slight difference:
Unmeet needs and distributed solutions have to be brought together through trials and
if proven through large scale demonstrations, Innovators can not do it, state can scale
these up once large scale evidence can be collected. Innovators can not collect such
evidence on their own. No scheme at present clearly covers it.
Policy should induce and encourage such support for the innovation ecosystem for all
sectoral applications at grassroots

13. Missing Link 3:
Acquiring IPRs for making a patent pool for social good in different fields of
social applications ( e.g. pipra did for US agri universities
NIF through HBN did it through GTIAF ( grassroots technological acquisition
fund to make these solutions available at low or no cost to the needy
communities, small entrepreneurs

14. Missing Link 4
CSR fund may be used to set up Innovation incubators within business
firms/industries to help rural/urban innovators to benefit from incubation
mentoring by shop-floor people and also access testing, design,
manufacturing facilities etc., for small batch production
For herbal knowledge holders, products development with proper
benefit sharing models will happen faster if such facilities mediated by
community leaders/NGO/academic are created and allowed under
CSR;
Food/agro/forest etc., in situ processing has a huge potential for
generating jobs, avoiding wastage, overcoming poverty and revitalizing
rural and tribal economy. Mobile and stationery facilities of this kind may
be allowed under CSR funding to move towards more technology
intensive model sof poverty alleviation rather than conventional
approaches which may outlived their utility.

15. Missing link - 5
Creation of DIY( do-it-yourself), LIY(learn-it-yourself), SIW (share-it-
widely), models of content creation and sharing must be strongly
encouraged to rise societal self-reliance and decentralized,
distributed development in the 150 years of Mahatma
Expanding the public domain of knowledge, innovations, practices
which help disadvantaged communities to lift themselves above the
poverty line and improve their quality of life must be encouraged and
incentivised

16. Missing Link -6
Strong network of Academic institutions to pursue rigorous research to
encourage meaningful support for innovations under CSR will go along way
in creating the infernal logic for supporting external and internal social and
industrial innovations
If more innovative firm have more meaningful CSR, then may be inverse is
also true!
A recent study showed: “Using a sample of 3,315 U.S. publicly-listed firms
from 2001 through 2011, we find that more innovative firms also engage
more in CSR activities. This effect is stronger for firms of higher risk and/or
operating in a less munificent environment. Additionally, firms with higher
innovation reap greater financial benefits from their CSR activities”, Rui
Shen, Yi Tang, and Ying Zhang, 2016, Does Firm Innovation Affect
Corporate Social Responsibility?, Working paper no 16-096, Boston: HBS

17. Missing Link -7
Corporations should be encouraged to take up longer term innovation inducing or
impacting investments. With in one or two years, it is not always easy to show results.
As was observed by the earlier review committee, CSR funds are not a substitute or
supplement for public investment in any sector. Instead they should be aimed at
providing such support which may make all other investments in that sector more
effective.
Thus innovators lack early stage support for moving from idea to prototype and
prototype to product, and product to proof of working in the field. Except in Biotech
area, thanks to BIRAC ( for which I was mainly responsible for the the proposal and
cabinet note along with a few more colleagues) we lack such agencies. Joint sector
initiatives with sectoral state agencies may be supported in various strategic sectors of
social development.
For instance, water quality in specific problem areas, location specific design of toilets
and other sanitation systems (a major area of concern presently), may need joint
action research by private, public and civil sector; why should not CSR encourage
such partnerships?

18. Missing link -8
Innovations in education particularly for government schools need
significant support. Recently , when our students of Shodhyatra course
from IIMA gave 200 gb open source data including 75 gb of WIKI to chief
secty Meghalaya for class 1-12 on disk with otg cable, it was shown that
one can provide good quality content to children all over the country. But
such an availability in local languages has not been possible yet.
Network of all corporations working in education area to take up such goals
collectively supported by network of academics engaged in educational
innovations, ( see inshodh.org by prof V S chand), will need a mission
oriented approach to CSR.
Should not Corporations be encouraged to set up such consortia for
meeting different societal gaps?

19. Fertilizing Imagination
Creating a new empathetic paradigm
for refcoussing CSR conrrubvutiosn
for better impact not just on societry
but also on corporate culture of
creativity and inclusive and frugal
innovations

20. SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable
Technologies and Institutions, 1993) is a developmental voluntary
organization, set up to strengthen the Honey Bee Network of
grassroots innovators engaged in conserving biodiversity and
developing sustainable solutions to local problems.
http://www.sristi.org Note on SRISTI
biodiversity
Modern R
and D
Give me a place to stand, I
will move the word

21. Informal Network of like minded
people and organizations. It has
no physical address
First formal steps,
an NGO to
support the HBN
Regional Technology
Business Incubators
to augment grassroots
innovation through
value addition &
business development
National level body
supported by DST.
Govt of India to
scale up green
grassroots
innovations
Honey Bee Network- an Incubator of
Institutions

22. Rethinking logistics for
sustainable future
learning from grassroots
innovators
anil k gupta
anilg@sristi.org

23. How did it happen:
The journey…..
SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH AND INITIATIVES FOR
SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES AND INSTITUTIONS
(www.SRISTI.org ) info@sristi.org
GRASSROOTS INNOVATION AUGMENTATION
NETWORK (wwwGIAN.org)
NATIONAL INNOVATION FOUNDATION
(www.NIFindia.org) info@nifindia.org
Anilg@sristi.org
Honey bee network , informal global social movement,
started in 1987-88,

24. Scout, support, sustain
solutions for meeting
social unmet needs
Join the Honey Bee Network!
For rewarding indigenous creativity and innovation
www.techpedia.in, www.sristi.org,www.gian.org
www.nif.org.in anilg@sristi.org