SCAI at grassroots framework

Around fifteen years ago Honey Bee network had triggered a movement to scout, spawn and sustain unaided creative and innovative urges in unorganized sector of our society. Accordingly, the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, set up National Innovation Foundation (NIF) three and a half years ago under the chairpersonship of Dr R.A. Mashelkar, Secretary, DSIR and Director General, CSIR. 

The primary objectives of NIF include- (a) providing institutional support in scouting, spawning, sustaining, and scaling up grassroots green innovations and helping their transition to self-supporting activities; (b) building linkages between excellence in formal scientific systems and informal knowledge systems and create a knowledge network to link various stakeholders through applications of information technologies and also otherwise; (c) promoting wider commercial and non-commercial diffusion of grassroots genius. 

Keeping the primary objectives of NIF as the larger context, the framework of Students Club for Augmenting Innovations (SCAI) can be elaborated upon. SCAI seeks to serve as an institutional support to NIF's endeavor of up scaling grassroots innovations. It also links informal knowledge systems with the formal system of education in place. 

A further detailed description is given as follows-


1. About Students' Club for Augmenting Innovations (SCAI) at grassroots

"Students' Club for Augmenting Innovations (SCAI) at grassroots" is a body of students from India's best management and technological institutes. National Innovation Foundation (NIF) is encouraging students to set up SCAI chapters at various schools, colleges and universities in order to provide Product Development, Business Development (setting up of ventures), Mentoring and Monitoring support to entrepreneurs/innovators/traditional knowledge holders at grassroots level in the country. (Please visit www.scai.org.in) 

SCAI will be established in institutes with varied disciplines- Management, Engineering, Agriculture, Pharmacy, etc. and students institutionalizing SCAI in their respective institution would be required to devote quality time and efforts towards value addition to grassroots innovations and instances of traditional knowledge existing in our country. 


2. Scope

The most significant outcome of SCAI would be that students from different Business Schools and Technical Institutes would come together for advancing the cause of grassroots innovators. This is an effort to link the informal knowledge system (grassroots genius) with formal knowledge system and thereby have a distributed knowledge system in place. Such an attempt would ensure the reach of economically poor-knowledge rich people to the masses and will also prevent the erosion of indigenous knowledge base. This is an unprecedented event and has enormous potential to change the development paradigm. 

Our aim is to cover the entire country so that physical barrier involved in reaching innovators and knowledge holders does not remain a handicap. This would in turn enable us to form a distributed knowledge system/network. 


3. Institutional framework

Each educational institution shall have a student coordinator and a faculty coordinator to start with. The student coordinator shall be given the right to select his/her core committee and build up a SCAI chapter for his/her institution. The members may be from the first year or the second year. The student coordinator upon his/her selection/election/nomination will be required to submit a detailed Statement of Purpose (SoP) enlisting his vision for SCAI, expected areas of activities/involvement, learning involved, expectations from NIF, succession plans, skills of entrepreneurship exhibited in past, etc. 

4. Domain of activities

a) Market research for various technologies awarded or short-listed for third award at NIF,
b) Exploring licensing opportunities for several of these innovations through venture mall, or entrepreneurship clearing house,
c) Building technology networks by linking experts from technical institutions around each technology,
d) Managing some specific pages or functions at indiainnovates.com site,
e) Scouting innovations and traditional knowledge from slums, other localities, industrial clusters, and other neighborhoods of
    Delhi, through students or otherwise, and
f) You could develop business plan for technologies from all over India but which have potential in your regions.

5. Possible outcomes of SCAI activities

The technical students shall help the innovator with technical refinements in his innovation and the management students will help him develop a commercialization plan for his innovation. Students also have the opportunity to work on real life projects like prototype development, market research and enterprise development. 

Students may take up projects keeping geographical proximity of the innovators' place to their institute as a selection criterion but the commercial/social diffusion of it can extend anywhere across the nation. 

Thus, the students in their attempt to work for grassroots innovators will acquire proficiency in technological assessment, market feasibility, benchmarking, test marketing, preparing practical business plans, scouting for an entrepreneur, trying for licensing / technology transfer, franchising the technology to SHGs, etc.

6. Merits to SCAI teams

· SCAI team members would get access to grassroots innovations and instances of traditional knowledge existing in remote and far-flung areas of the country. Specific areas of interest of students can be given special consideration while allocating projects. They would also get an opportunity to work on real life projects- prototype development, market research and enterprise planning. It would instill entrepreneurial skills among the students. In order to facilitate this SCAI plans to organize SAAKAR- an event for scouting of entrepreneurs. Herein students preparing practical business plans would be provided venture capital to convert the innovation into a successful enterprise.

· SCAI coordinator for every chapter at the end of his/her tenure would be awarded a certificate of recognition for his services and efforts. 

· Team members will have the opportunity to organize several workshops, seminars, etc. in which innovators, entrepreneurs, field collaborators could be invited to share their hands on experiences and provide insights to the students.

· SCAI teams will serve as our contact point for announcing DISHA- Annual Business Plan Competition- in their respective institution and inviting multiple teams from their institution to register for participation. 

7. Issues to be addressed

(a) Non Disclosure Agreement: All students participating in any of the SCAI related activities would have to first sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA). It is only after this that projects can be assigned to the students.

(b) Succession issue: Every student coordinator on the completion of his tenure will have to hand over his responsibilities to another student from the junior batch. While doing so he has to keep in mind the characteristic traits to be possessed by a student coordinator. He should preferably hand over the role to a student who has been actively involved with SCAI activities round the year and thus will be able to resume his responsibilities better. 

8. Expectations from SCAI teams

• Members of SCAI teams are expected to expand the network by involving mentors, volunteers, corporates, Non Government Organizations (NGOs), Not for Profit Organizations (NPOs), etc. Students directly contacting their seniors, alumni associations, faculty, professionals, etc can facilitate this. Such an effort will promote commercialization of grassroots technologies. (Please visit www.indiainnovates.com)
  
• Students taking up projects would meet the set deadlines as regards submission of projects with the expected deliverables.
  
•  SCAI teams should help popularize the objective of NIF and involve as large a student community as possible. This could be done by word of mouth publicity, encouraging students to take up projects with NIF as volunteers, interns, etc.