Can Ahmedabad be home to an innovation park?

I normally do not start a dialogue on a negative note but permit me to say that I have failed to get powers to be excited about creating an innovation park in Ahmedabad. Should I give up this dream of fertilising the mind and heart of our children with new ideas, innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge? I am now inviting you all to get involved with this dream of ours.

No matter how against the odds are, we have to succeed. Creative children and young and old community members deserve this.

Every visitor to Gujarat and India deserves it. Our society, on a global platform, needs to be more innovative, inclusive and incorporative of the common man's creativity to create open source standards of excellence, empathy, education and engagement with social concerns.

So, what is the idea? We should have several places in old and new Ahmedabad where good ideas for technological, educational, institutional or cultural innovations find a nurturant sanctuary.

These ideas could come from a manual worker, a bank executive, a homemaker or even an old grandmother. There will be a team of young people which will volunteer everyday to listen, learn and leverage these ideas through formal or informal channels.

There will be a rich ecosystem for innovation having (a) a multimedia, multi-language exhibition of innovation, stationery as well as mobile spread over a 10-15,000 sq mt, (b) a network of laboratories/fabrication workshops in private and public sector to test, design, convert ideas that are novel and socially useful into useful products  and services, (c) challenges will be posted on public platforms inviting anybody on the street to come out with a solution and get recognised by citizen councils, SRISTI and Honey Bee Network, (d) there will be toolkits which children can use and fabricate solutions to problems with which us adults have learnt to live with indefinitely, (e) open kitchen where culinary creativity for nutrition-rich, traditional grain and vegetable-based dishes can be cooked, taught and offered to strangers to intrigue them and spread the Sattvik traditions (These new dishes will every year be celebrated at Sattvik traditional food festival at IIMA), (f) people will borrow a set of exhibits, posters and artifacts to be displayed at their social functions, like weddings and get-togethers so that guests don't just chat trivia but also absorb creativity for sustainable food for thought (Some friends have already organised such exhibition at their family functions), (g) scholars and writers, filmmakers and other artists meet and see how they can incorporate this  spirit in their creations (After all, art and culture will carry the message farthest in future, (h) some walls could be dedicated for showcasing folkloric art and culture with name and address of the community which might find entrepreneurial opportunities in the process.

Does such recognition matter? Will it motivate people to come forward to share their ideas or help in converting ideas into public goods? Can we provide incentives for expansion of public domain through such confluence of creativity, compassion, and concern for larger social good?

Let me not answer this question. Will you like to answer these questions? Will you like to be a part of this mission with no assurance of returns except blessings of our elders and love of our children and perhaps gratitude of future generations?

Let fireflies of creativity sparkle, let inertia give way, may spirit of acknowledged and anonymous-giving grow, let the lamp of humility and harmony glow.    

— The author is a professor at IIMA