summ( )n

This is strikingly non-Indian picture – and indeed, it’s made in the Netherlands. It’s an old castle in a tiny town of Breukelen, near Utrecht, that hosts Nyenrode University, one of the most prestigious business school in the country.

And yet it’s now very ‘Indian’ for me – not only because I went there next day after my arrival from India, but also because the reason to go there was related to the same Kanthari/TGCI folks who invited me to India. Sabriye and Paul had been invited to visit the university, and discuss possible co-operation between IISE in Trivandrum and the school in the Netherlands.

Once agin, I was lucky enough to listen to the story about Braille Without Borders‘ projects, both back in Tibet and now in Kerala, and to witness the impact they make on people (in this case, on the Chairman of Nyenrode Foundation and the two deans of the leading departments of the school. Despite the apparently large gap between the dream factory of Sabriye and Paul and ‘business education factory’ in Nyenrode, I felt that there is a strong match between the two organizations. Nyenrode is not exactly a lookalike of  the HBSs or IMDs of this world, the school was always aimed to nurture entrepreneurship and ‘social stewardship’ among its students (in fact, it’s already involved in a number of social projects, in the very same India, in Ethiopia and in China).

I hope the future is there, and they will forge it right.

I came back from Trivandrum, Kerala, almost a week ago already, but I am still sorting our my impressions, trying to make sense of what I’ve seen and experienced there.  Some of my thoughts went to a few postings – here in this blog and elsewhere (including to my blog in Russian, where I post more personal observations).  But to a large extent it’s still scratching a surface, even if to count the number of pictures I managed to post so far: I took way more than a thousand pictures in India, and posted may be a couple of dozens so far.

And these are not the usual touristic pictures; there are few of that sort too, of course, but I was also making lots of pictures from a more professional position (whatever that means).  I was trying to record material cultures, a tangible fabric of the place – colors, textures, structures and movements – and also a more subtle ‘social fabric’: the way people walk, drive, talk, eat, greet, and otherwise interact with each other.

I can’t say I was completely unprepared - besides life-long reading about the country, I also directly participated in a few research and design projects back in Philips Design years. Yet direct, personal encounters are still irreplaceable and vitally important if you want to understand this complex culture. Can’t say I understood very much so far, but at least I tried hard

Inevitably, I was also thinking of my possible contribution to the work of TGCI and Kanthari (earlier known as the Institute of Social Entrepreneurship) in Kerala and in India in general.  From one side I saw that many of my skills and areas of expertise (in people research, in future studies, in supporting innovation and strategic design etc) can be of some value for the multiple local entities, including local and international businesses, educational institutions, NGOs and research agencies. At the same time, there were not so many viable schemes, at least on a surface, to enable all this knowledge transfer.

Speaking about the surfaces, one striking, and inevitable observation lies right on surface there; a sharp, almost painful contrast between the ‘worlds’. It’s visible everywhere, and often referred as ‘rich vs poor’, or ‘tradition vs modernity’. Or is it ‘elite vs people’? Whatever the label, it beams right to your face, and from the various corners of life:

But it would be very wrong to see these ‘worlds’ as merely split apart and juxtaposed to each other; rather, it’s a complex web of relationships, some of which may not be always visible, but they are there, and manifest themselves a variety of ways. This complex interdependence is especially true if to think of the possible future developments, including social innovation projects and other transformation programs.

Fully understanding that it’s a gross simplification, I could picture four major ‘forces’ I spotted: the People/Communities (including their self-governing bodies), the Business, the Education, and the Innovation (agencies – e.g., TGCI, but also other NGOs).

I understand that I am omitting a whole lot of other important ‘players’ – such as the Government, or the Religion; mostly because I didn’t have a chance to get in touch with those and explore their role in the process of social innovation, now and in the future.

There is, of course, another large ‘force’ impacting the whole ‘game’; I didn’t name it explicitly, but it’s there (I tried to include it in my ‘stakeholder map’ as a background image). This is the Nature itself, the very earthness,  world-ness of this land.

Fortunately, I had a chance to explore this force too – during the last day of my trip we went to the Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary near Trivandrum, with its amazing evergreen forests, cascading waterfalls (and yes, 2m-long snakes too – part of the pleasure, I assume). It was a great place to relax after the turbulent ten days, but also great time to reflect on my observations and experiences (with the hope to convert them into something productive).

There was one cathartic moment there, at the last waterfall we’ve reached at the end of our journey.

At some point an entire valley got filled with thousands of flying ‘helicopters’, beautiful two-wing seeds that were graciously falling down from the tall trees.  With their pinkish-greenish swirling wings they looked like a fantastic swarm of the tiny elves. You can’t see them on the large picture below, since I failed to capture this beautiful carnival; but at least you can see a few samples of these seeds on a mirror.

No one in our eight-man group knew the name of these seeds (or the tree); I figured only much later that they belong to a large family of so called  Dipterocarpaceae trees.

Di – means ‘duo, ‘ptero’ – wing, and ‘carp’ – seed. Dipterocarp.  Carried by its two constantly swirling wings, the seed can cover large distances, thus enable rapid and wide-spread dissemination of, well, trees.

I was triggered, both by the beauty of the ‘dipterocarp’ and its elegant efficiency, and invented my own Dipterocarp Innovation.   The idea is simple, yet powerful (as it should be with all great innovations!)  I could deliver a range of innovation services we provide with Summ()n – from lectures to master-classes to training and up-to the project-specific consultancy – to the local business, helping them to gain more edge in the areas of innovation and strategic design. But this will be than matched with the same (or similar) knowledge-sharing activities and services to the non-business entities (colleges and universities, NGOs, social innovation programs and the likes), to help them now and eventually develop their own innovation skills and capabilities.

I’ve already briefly discussed this ideas with Alexei Leven, MD of TGCI, and with Sabriye Tenberke and Paul Kronenberg, co-founder and directors of the Kanthari International. The all see this scheme as both very feasible, and very relevant to the local situation (and not only in Kerala, but wider in India as well).

Let’s see how this idea will fly  - a on the two wings!

India is about contrast, so very true! You drive for about hour through the maze of messy, shabby, crowded, noisy, (often smelly too), yet brightly colorful and vibrant streets of the city – to end up in a colossal, palace-like structure called Technopark,  calm and cool, filled with an ordered, almost sterile light.

But something doesn’t change; even if people are dressed-up, and mostly with ties, they are still very friendly and warm, and greet with from all over with a very characteristic half-wave nod of their heads (I tried to mimic this very special nod, but failed so far).

We are invited by an  innovation team of UST Global, one of the leading developers of IT solutions and systems in India. Perhaps not the largest (yet), this private company is successfully competing with the Tier I companies, mostly because of its constant focus on innovation and agile knowledge sharing.   We had a very intensive yet pleasant conversation with the team, sharing  both past experiences and ideas about the future of innovation.

The nickname of their innovation team is Apple Tree: I wasn’t allowed (understandably) to take pictures inside their office, but managed to at least snap the logo on the door:

Frankly, I’d expected something more colorful and vibrant, something in the direction of their own image of the current on the inaugural issue’s cover:

Oh, well – how much do I know about the culture of innovation in India? Still a little.

Next day we went to one of the local polytechnic colleges (Neayyttinara, to be precise) to run a workshop on ‘design and fabrication of solar reading lamps’.  The event is a part of province-wide program of ‘community empowerment through polytechnics’, and the idea was that by learning more about solar-powered devices (such as this reading lamp) the students will not only gain extra knowledge about electric circuitry, but also about possible social impact of this new technology.

Frequent power-cuts is too familiar a problem in the area; partly because of insufficient energy production, but also due to the fragility of the grid (the wires are often teared by the strong winds and fallen trees, I was told).  The very opportunity for every student to have own, autonomous (=off the grid) light source looks very attractive, both in terms of energy savings and less vulnerable learning process.

Here Shyam Kumar, Technical Director at the TGCI, explains how to integrate solar power can feed the reading lamp.

Moments of ‘design and fabrication’

Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that ‘design’ in this context means ‘circuit design’, and not ‘look & feel design’; the students had to construct, in groups, a version of the solar-powered reading lamp, using the predefined kits (partly electrical, but also including bamboo sticks and blocks).

And here are the winners (they finished their lamp first)!  Quite symbolically, this was a mixed (boy & girls) group, to my my memory the only one in the class.

The winning team got the solar panel as an award (with the promise they will work further and enhance the design of the lamp – in this case meaning the ‘look and feel’ too!

I was lucky to join this event, an annual conference of the Trivandrum chapter of the CII, Confederation of Indian Industries, right in the first day of my staying. It was a bit tough because I was tired of the flight, but at the same time it was a very energizing event, full of creative vibes radiated by all the participants. This time the conference was held together with the Kanthari, and its new offspring, TGCI (Trivandrum Global City of Innovation).

V K Mathews, Chairman of the IBS Software, addressed the conference with his opening speech where he admitted that the goal of the initiative, to make the city a global hub of social innovation, sounds very ambitious, to the extend that it might be seen crazy by some, yet it’s feasible – subject of hard work and daring dreaming.

The conference was held on March 8, the International Women’s Day, widely celebrated in India, and Sabriye Tenberken, founder and a head of the IISE/Kanthari, used it as a chance to remind about the situation with women in India in general, and in Trivandrum specifically. Women have really an ambivalent status here – from one side mostly educated and knowledgeable, they are largely excluded from the decision-making process, both in business and in the society at large.  Yet they may be the most powerful force of social innovation and cultural and societal transformation.

The message  was echoed in a passionate speech of Priya Ajit, from Kanthari, who told about a long tradition of matriarchal society in Kerala and an important role women played in the society, and how the current situation is in striking contrast with this legacy. The spectrum of problems range from securing physical and mental safety to gaining better representation in various organizations, and to achieving an equal part of leadership, on pair with still dominant men.

The event ended with a large-scale creative workshop led by Alexei Levene from TGCI, who encouraged the participants to imagine – and model – the future of the Trivandrum, using the Six Thinking Hats techniques by de Bono.

It was a pleasure to witness the energy and creativity of the participants, and then to see a wide range of the concepts and ideas they generated, all in a relatively short amount of time.  If to believe in a concept of imprinting, I will be always remembering Trivabdrum as a place of optimism and creativity.

The campus of the IISE, International Institute of Social Entrepreneurship, in Trivandrum, Kerala, was designed by Laurie Baker, a famous British architect widely known for his “cost-effective, energy-efficient” buildings that he was designing and constructing in India.

The campus’ buildings has a very characteristic  brick-&-mortar look&feel of the late Baker:

But it’s an easily recognizable creation by Baker not only because of its  characteristic rusty lace of bricks; the buildings are also a large collection of smart, yet simple solution to provide comfortable living for the dwellers: natural cooling systems are omnipresent and diverse (and beautiful too!)

Off to India tomorrow, looking forward to explore in the next week or so both the land and the people, and the great initiatives they are launching there!

German publishing house Daab Media just published an very rich and informative collection of the ‘future visions’, in their book called Futuristic: Visions of Future Living (compiled by Caroline Klein, with the German/English texts written by professor Stefanie Lieb).  Architecture is one of the disciplines, and practices where ‘future visions’ are a daily business. I have a collection of books and other publications with various ‘architectural foresights’; very few of them go beyond the Star-Warish type of future vision, a typical blend of gigantic constructions dressed in all sort of pseudo-historical decorations.

My first impression is that this book is somewhat different token. The majority of the 50+ participating designers/studios/agencies are not sci-fi writers; they do real projects, and for real clients.  And so the future concepts they present are not developed to simply impress the public with exotic forms, textures or colors, but rather to articulate their own visions – in fact, the visions of the now! These are the statements about what and why should be done to solve a wide variety of problems and issues they are addressing, from stressful urban living to global warming, and to sustainable living in general.

The collection is large, and richly illustrated, and it’s very tempting to start scanning and uploading almost everything here; I will restoration myself for a moment, and see how I could avoid such a gross IP infringement But I will certainly come back to at least some of these concepts, and present them here, with more thoughtful comments and criticism.

Survival Kit 2012 is not quite about the coming end of the world and how to better prepare yourself for it.  But there is something futuristic about it, too – under the slogan ‘co-creating the future’ Dutch fashion design/lifestyle magazine Code invites designers and other ‘creators’ to think together about what’s coming and what we can to about it.

There is, of course, a project website  (http://2012survivalkitproject.com) but there is not much there yet, the project just started, and as of now you will see only the ‘sample entries’.  Contra to the usual practice of these days the paper version of the magazine, however, already presents a few participants (aka contenders);   I will write a few separate posting about some of the projects I found interesting.

I found, in the latest issue of the National Geographic, a large material about Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan. It’s less an article but rather a series of beautiful pictures from the city; it also has the striking title, Tomorrowland. 

I’ve never been to the new city, but all my friends tell me it’s indeed a mirage-like creation. There is a chance that I will go there later this year with a project (but I hope I can wait a bit, it’s -35c there now!

See more on either the magazine’s website or at the site of the photographer, Georg Ludwig.