I support Sramani Institute to Improve Human Wellbeing through Diversified Innovation Invigoration
http://www.sramani.org/contribute.html
Since I was a child I have lived in different countries across the world, giving me the opportunity to not only observe but experience how people from different cultures interact with and treat each other. From Switzerland to Japan, the United States to Germany, India to Canada, I have witnessed how xenophobia drives wedges of prejudice and misunderstanding between human beings. I have experienced how the concentration of melanin in your skin often determines how others with different melanin levels value you, no matter what you contribute or are capable of contributing to humanity.
When I was 3 years old my father decided to move to Halifax, Canada to pursue a Master’s degree, after having worked in the best national research laboratory and graduated from one of the most outstanding technical universities in India. But my father’s Professor would not give him a job as a teaching assistant, because he deemed my father not intelligent enough. Instead, the Professor hired a teaching assistant with few credentials except his color. This teaching assistant received a healthy stipend, even though he surreptitiously went for help to my father, who was paid nothing.
As an 11-year old in Germany I was the only non-German child in my Gymnasium (the school for the highest achievers in the 3-tiered German school system) at a time when the small town we lived in had a large Turkish population. I asked one of my teachers why there were no Turkish children in my school. He told me that they were not as capable as German children and so were sent to the ‘Hauptschule’ (the school for the lowest achievers). Even as an 11-year old I understood that being shunted into the ‘Hauptschule’ was a life sentence of low-paying trade jobs.
When I was in graduate school at an Ivy League university in the United States, I was once riding in the elevator with one of my professors, who later received the Nobel Prize. He was speaking with one of his colleagues, telling him about a conference he had attended in India recently: “What a waste of time. There is no innovation in India. The only time a few of those smelly Indians do anything useful is when they come here to learn from us.” To my chagrin this professor turned to me and said: “I’m sure you agree.”
These are only three stories out of hundreds, if not thousands, that shaped my worldview as a child. I pledged to myself that I would devote my life to achieving excellence myself (so that differently colored people would have a difficult time undervaluing and obstructing me) and then drawing out the innovation potential of those individuals and communities, who have been subjected to prejudicial undervaluation and marginalization.
Thus, after earning the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences for being one of the most innovative and excellent young scientists in North America, I returned the bulk of the $500,000 award that I had been given to start up my own research laboratory at an established academic institution, and instead set out to found my own non-profit institution with no resources but my determination.
I wanted to create an institution that not only draws on the astounding diversity of human ideas and innovations across the world to solve real problems affecting a wide spectrum of humans and ecosystems, but that ensures a high quality of life for each human individual and community, regardless of their genetic, geographic, or socio-economic origins. I wanted to devote my life to ensuring that people would not be undervalued, exploited, and excluded merely because of their origins.
I founded the Śramani Institute with the mission of realizing the inter-connected wellbeing of all human beings, especially those marginalized, within their ecological, economic, and cultural contexts. Our approach to fulfilling our mission would be to create, facilitate, and promote intellectual and technological innovations that ensure Equitably Sustainable Progress* and are based on the scientific-analytical methods of diverse Knowledge & Technology (KT) Frameworks.
I knew that to be effective I had to understand how innovation is valued, protected, and marketed in the global economy. So I enrolled myself in law school, while I worked full-time as a scientific advisor (and later as an attorney) in various Intellectual Property law firms. In my ‘spare time’ I established the Śramani Institute in three countries: Canada in 2010, the United States in 2011, and India in 2012. I kept working full-time as an attorney so that I could fund the institution. My nights, weekends, and holidays, I spent training my staff, conducting research and fieldwork, making connections, handling legal and administrative matters, and supervising the implementation of our initiatives.
I poured all of my life savings and all of my earnings, save my own frugal food and accommodation expenses, into the Śramani Institute to pay for our infrastructure costs, field work expenses, staff salaries, community funds, travel, etc. In late 2014, because my staff needed more guidance from me, I quit my paying job as an attorney to dedicate myself entirely to the Śramani Institute, even though I only had enough money saved up to suffice for just 1 year of food and lodging for my family.
Over the past 5 years, I have personally worked with extraordinary tribal communities in various parts of India, who each have developed fascinating Knowledge & Technology (KT) Frameworks, which form the bases of sophisticated socially & environmentally sustainable innovations. Each adult in these communities has developed expertise and innovates in at least 4-6 different areas: food technologies, medicines, biodiversity preservation, architecture, civil engineering, microclimate manipulation, education, etc. The innovative capacity and knowledge base of these human beings never ceases to amaze me. Yet these extraordinary people are devalued and marginalized into the non-mainstream. They have been evicted by the government from their original ecosystems. They have been made dependent on social welfare and charity. And they have been forced to work under inhuman and dangerous conditions as indentured laborers.
It is these remarkable people that have kept me motivated to continue devoting my time, energy, and money to the Śramani Institute. As a means to help them, I spearheaded the development of AVISH™ (Augmenting Vigor of Innovation through Structural Harmonization). AVISH™ enables the prediction of the quantity, quality, and nature of the Vigor of Innovation (VI™) of an individual, community, or organization. AVISH™ also enables the creation of customized training & education programs designed specifically to draw out and augment VI™.
http://www.svevak.org/#!articles/c1inh
Through AVISH™ the Śramani Institute draws out the inherent capacity of individuals and communities to innovate and encourages them to develop and implement innovations that are equitably sustainable* and range from agricultural methods to healthcare, and resource management to civil engineering.
The Śramani Institute has already developed and applied AVISH™ in two different settings: (1) working with marginalized, non-mainstream, indigenous communities in the areas of Equitably Sustainable* development and employment; and (2) working with postgraduate (Bachelor's degree or higher) students in the areas of higher education, health, and employment.
The Śramani Institute is in the process of cementing partnerships with universities and non-mainstream communities in India, Canada, and the United States to further refine and implement AVISH™, with the goal of expanding our work to other countries in the near future.
I would greatly appreciate an opportunity to tell the story of the Śramani Institute and our work in building an equitably sustainable* world at the Dec. 1 Gates Social Media Meetup in Washington D.C.
Thank you very much.
Best wishes,
Kakoli Mitra
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*The Śramani Institute defines Equitably Sustainable Progress as: ‘implementing a set of interconnected diverse thoughts and actions that build a world where human beings of all socio-economic and geographic affiliations are healthy and safe, have access to relevant and uncorrupted education and resources, can engage in dignified livelihoods leading to self-reliance, and are respected for who they choose to express themselves to be.’
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