It’s easy to overlook the knowledge capital that exists at the grassroots. I’ve been reading a paper on this subject by Professor Anil Gupta, who teaches at the Indian Institute of Management (incidentally, the world’s most selective MBA school!) in Ahmedabad. In it, he challenges the implicit assumption in most development efforts, that the poor have little to no useful knowledge.

His philosophy is embodied by the Honey Bee Network - an organisation which collects and disseminates traditional knowledge in order to:

(a) spread grassroots innovation &
(b) protect the intellectual rights of the innovators

I’ve been aware of Professor Gupta’s work since last year when he visited The Hub, on a Shodhyatra (Sankrit for ‘walk for knowledge’), but am now feeling pretty overwhelmed by the intricate knowledge systems he describes that enable economically poor people to survive in high risk environments.

While I’ve discussed the value of user-led innovation before, it strikes me that the Honey Bee approach to development goes far beyond that… it really takes to heart the wisdom and expertise of the poor, and reminds us of the respect we ought to have for it when we seek to help them.

We write in the English language which connects us globally but alienates us locally. We cannot reach the people from whom we have learnt. Thus while we grow in our careers and achieve wider recognition and professional rewards, the people often suffer silently. The ethics of knowledge extraction, its documentation, dissemination and abstraction into theories, institutions or technologies is thus our central concern.”