Dr. Anil Kumar Gupta delivered a talk in NAB auditorium on the 22nd of February as part of the E-Summit conducted by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL). Drawing on his experience as a part of the Honey Bee Network’s “Shodhyatra”, he spoke about how day-to-day life can be improved using simple innovations.
Dr. Anil Kumar Gupta is recognised worldwide for his contribution in the field of agriculture. A social reformer, Padma Shri awardee, and management theorist, Dr. Gupta has brought a new dimension and perspective to the branches of agriculture and management. He also has delivered a TED talk on “India’s hidden hotbeds of innovation”.
The Honey Bee Network originated as an idea of travelling throughout the country with the objective of learning. This yatra-turned-network has come a long way since its inception. Now, it provides a platform for aspiring innovators to work on a plethora of projects to tackle real-life problems. He promoted the site “Techpedia.in”, a completely open source online database of projects which enables people to view what has been done before and what can be improved upon in a given field of research.
Dr. Gupta talked about the spirit of “past-perfect to future indefinite” signifying how the future might be in jeopardy if we keep clinging on to old traditions and lose the ability to change according to the circumstances. The debate between change and adaptation was stressed upon, which raised questions among audience members. Dr. Gupta preached change, whereas the audience sided with adaptation.
The audience was all ears when Dr. Gupta spoke about his adventures with ideas in various shapes, forms, and ages. Their interest was captured even more when he shared some stories about people, even kids who had managed to pique his interest with their ideas, managing to solve real-world problems with “complex science, but simple technology”.
A black-box for cars, cooling of medicines in areas without electricity, and an optimized way of selection of anti-biotics for Urinary Tract Infection(UTI) were some of the stories which stood out. The UTI anti-biotic selection optimization project was produced by Shivani Gupta, a student of BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus along with her teacher, Suman Kapur.
The creation of a body for the sole purpose of promotion of innovation was suggested by Dr. Gupta with high hopes from BITSians, and maybe someday we might see a new IC (Innovation Club) emerge to realize his dream.