One Plus One Makes A Community

By Tanvi Misra and Shubham Gupta

Do you think Mohan from ‘Swades,’ or Bhuwan from ‘Lagaan’ would have been able to sell a dream if there were not enough people to believe them? Do you think ‘Swades’ and ‘Lagaan’ would have made the same impact on its viewers if it was just one protagonist and not a community striving to attain a dream? This not just fiction, in a land of 140.76 crores, for any initiative to be launched, implemented and be successful, it is important to understand the need of the community, communicate with them and foster a sense of ownership for them to be a part of the bigger cause.

We know very well the story of AMUL, the community based dairy cooperative society in India; the success lies in making it a community based food chain. The basic units of AMUL are the rural communities who have formed a joint association to not only promote mass production but also market it and increase its competitiveness. Through its nationwide marketing channels today which returns profit to small scale producers, AMUL not only aimed at solving a problem but involved the entire community to solve it and benefit from the fruits of its success. The model was such that the Anand pattern dairy cooperatives where replicated in 1970 by National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in India through the Operation Flood programme.

More recently, Grameen Shakti (GS), an initiative by our neighboring nation – Bangladesh is a perfect example of how to make an intervention a success by working for the community, with the community and by the community. Grameen Shakti – a subsidiary of the famous Grameen Bank, helped to provide renewable based energy to rural households in Bangladesh. GS installed more than 5800 PV (photovoltaics) home systems with installed capacity of 290 kWP in 2001 by initially soft-financing them and also helping with their maintenance. However, to keep the model up and running, GS started to train skilled technician-cum-retailers in the rural areas and also its customers to take care of minor problems. By involving the community, GS made an attempt to make its model sustainable and since then 1.8 million Solar Home Systems (SHS) have been installed by them as of 2020. This accounts for 33% of global installation benefitting 12 million people in Bangladesh alone.

All of the above examples hold a testimony of ‘Good Governance’ and ‘Sustainability’ of large scale projects through structured community participation. Right from planning, execution, implementation and sustainability, it’s important that each stakeholder must understand their roles and responsibilities to deliver the objectives of the project in longer run.

Do these patterns apply to building an innovation ecosystem? They sure do!

Atmanirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India is the vision of a new India envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. The key element here is the “need to create an eco-system” that will allow Indian companies to be highly competitive globally. India’s jump to the 40^th rank in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2022 is a testament to the Prime Minister’s commitment in making India an innovation hub. Government of India’s constant push on three aspects has been fuelling the growth of the innovation sector in India. These aspects are, liberating entrepreneurship and innovation from the web of complex processes and bureaucratic silos; creating institutional mechanisms to promote innovation and, nurturing young minds and hand holding them to become future entrepreneurs.

There have been multiple initiatives by the Government of India on pretext of making India a nation where entrepreneurship and innovation together bring about a change but what is really important is to bring about a mindset shift. Through the Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) established under Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) – NITI Aayog, the Government aspires to catch these young minds at a tender age and instill in them the curiosity, creativity and adaptive learning to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

ATLs are a series of innovation labs or ‘maker spaces’ established in schools which give young children a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). ATLs contain educational and learning ‘Do it yourself’ kits and equipment on science, electronics, robotics, 3D printers, etc. to foster inventiveness among them. These maker spaces allow the creative potential of youngsters to bloom and innovate products and solutions that overcome the critical socio-economic problems sometimes unique to one’s geography. With the aim to cultivate one million children as neoteric innovators, thus far 10,000 ATLs have been established covering 35 States and Union Territories.

These ATLs of which 60% are in Government schools have over a span of 6+ years engaged 75 lakh+ students. With India having 200000+ schools over the country, the challenge with AIM is to not only scale up this initiative but also build a framework to further tinkering and continuance of the ATLs in a sustainable manner.

Everyone loves scale, but how does one ensure that such a novel and large infrastructure for innovation can also be functional, efficient, and ever-evolving?

ATL Sarthi– A community led initiative

No two kids in a classroom are similar but that doesn’t mean one has a lower potential than the other. Similarly, of the 10,000 ATLs most of them are performing well but a few need a helping hand to unleash their potential. In order to make the infrastructure of ATLs self-sustainable and take tinkering to all the schools, AIM has launched ‘ATL Sarthi’. Sarthi as the name suggests, means a charioteer and the idea is to create clusters of existing ATLs with ‘Working Group’ and ’Guidance Committee’ to oversee the working of the cluster. This cluster involves the ATL Community- students, teachers, principals and mentors of change as the part of the ‘Guidance Committee’ and they take up the responsibility of making the ATLs in their region better and facilitating that tinkering is not limited schools with ATLs but is taken to all.

In the past, through its network of Regional Teachers of Change (a hub and spoke model) and Regional Mentors of Change, AIM has reached out to students of non-ATL schools to not only participate in hackathons but also attend sessions to develop an understanding of the ATLs, innovation and entrepreneurship. Through Sarthi, AIM also provides an opportunity for each cluster of school to collaborate with local institutions – private companies, innovation councils, state and district officials to develop the state innovation ecosystem.

Till date, ATL Sarthi has been implemented in the state of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat which have provided the entire ATL community to co-learn, co-create and co-adapt best practices from their peers. The community of ATL teachers and mentors has played a vital role in furthering the best practices and handling challenges which were earlier more centralized operations from New Delhi. This has not only helped in making the operations more efficient, but also made the infrastructure self-sustainable because now the community is a part of it and is well connected to solving problems and promote tinkering on the ground.

This is an example of how Government projects can function in the longer run with the desired results. It is evident that Governments can only plan projects, develop frameworks, operationalize it but for a longer term sustainability, it’s the onus of the community to take it forward, to make it realize at the very last-mile.

What next?

In the past it has been seen that for any intervention to succeed the ownership and participation of the community is important. By launching ATL Sarthi, AIM does not claim that all the challenges which the ATLs might face will be solved or addressed but the fact that earlier it was just one school solving the problem versus a cluster of schools solving the same problem makes it quicker and easier to land a solution. The establishment of ATLs, for Government, was a risk capital in 2016, since it was a greenfield, never tested scheme, and with the change it has brought in since, it is important that this ecosystem stays, and stays for long, for it can produce the unbelievable results one might not have even envisaged at that point of time.

Implementing ‘ATL Sarthi’ for AIM is not without its challenges. It requires a shift in mindset, increased collaboration, and capacity-building efforts. It requires sharing power, engaging in meaningful dialogue, and providing the necessary resources and supporting for community-led initiatives. It is important to create platforms for engagement, establish mechanisms for information sharing and feedback, promote community-led organizations, and invest in capacity-building programs. It is crucial to create an enabling environment that encourages active participation and ensures the voices of all community members, especially the marginalized, are heard.

The ‘ATL-Sarthi’ has once again taught us the age old lesson of the development sector: while the Government with its multiple initiatives – be it the Swacch Bharat Mission or establishment of Atal Tinkering Labs – can make an attempt to bring about a change, for the scheme to achieve its full potential it is important that the community owns it.

About Authors* Tanvi Misra is a Young Professional at Atal Innovation Mission – NITI Aayog and Shubham Gupta is an Innovation Lead at Atal Innovation Mission – NITI Aayog