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Dr. Abhay Jere Achievements Thus Far What’s inside Foreword A story that inspires In conversation with Dr. Arun Jamkar Amazing innovation Events INDIA’s IDEA Founding members Issue : 5, 17 Feb, 2016 About i4C Foreword With pleasure, I bring to you another edition of i4c’s monthly newsletter. We have slightly modified the name of the newsletter from ‘India ka Idea’ to ‘India’s Idea’. In this issue, we have an article on Jadav Molai Payeng—the Forest Man of India, who had achieved sensational success in the initiative towards afforestation. Incredibly, Jaday Molai Payeng single-handedly built a sprawling, lush-green, and dense forest spread over an expanse of 1,360 acres or 550 hectares in 34 years, which is now habitat to Bengal tigers, elephants, deer, rhinoceros, birds and many other animals. This issue also features an interview with Dr Arun Jamkar – one of the founder members of i4c, who was till recently the Vice Chancellor of Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS). In the interview, he tells us about how the idea of founding i4c was conceived, i4c’s mission, i4c’s modes of identifying innovative ideas, the way i4c assists the identified innovators and i4c’s major Dr. Abhay Jere achievements thus far. You can also read an interview with innovator Mahesh Rathi – who has built Convenor, i4c solar-powered ice-cream cart, as well as solar-power driven cold storages. Editor, India’s Idea Hope you find this edition of India’s Idea interesting. As always, we welcome your feedback. Thanks, Abhay A story that inspires A story that inspires... Can you imagine the amount of satisfaction that one would derive by planting a forest single- handedly and then having various forms of life sprouting and thriving in it? Isn’t it that incredible Godly feeling to create a mini-world and infuse life into it? Nestled in Assam in northeast India, some 350 kms from Guwahati by road, in the middle of Brahmaputra river - is Majuli Island—a long, narrow sandbank that happens to be the largest river island on Earth, home to some 150,000 people. In this island – sits Molai Kathoni (Molai’s woods) named after Jaday Molai Payeng—its creator. This is an incredible and amazing story of will-power and perseverance, in which Jaday Molai Payeng single-handedly built a forest over a period of 34 years. He was born in 1963, and hails from Assam belonging to the Mishing tribal community in Jorhat district. He started planting trees in the year 1979 – the year in which Assam was ravaged by flood. He was deeply moved by the sight of lifeless snakes that were previously washed ashore by river Brahmaputra, but later died Jadav Payeng due to heat and starvation. In 1979, the social forestry division of Golaghat district launched a scheme of tree plantation on over 200 hectares of land at Aruna Chapori, situated close to Jorhat. Jadav was one of the laborers in this project. However, after completion of the project, when the rest of the laborers packed and went away, Jadav stayed on – and this is how it all started. As a result, a sprawling, lush-green, and dense forest spread over an expanse of 1,360 acres or 550 hectares - which is even bigger than NewYork’s Central Park, exists today. On April 22, 2012, Jadav Payeng was honored at a public function organized by the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, for his outstanding achievement. JNU vice-chancellor Sudhir Kumar Sopory conferred him the title of “Forest Man of India”. In 2015, he was honored by former Contd... A story that inspires Contd... president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, with Padma Shri - the fourth highest civilian award in India. Molai Kathoni now has various forms of life inhabiting in it. Bengal tigers, elephants, deer, rhinoceros, and birds among many other animals have made the forest their habitat. A herd of 150 elephants come every year to this forest. Rabbits, apes, and several varieties of birds including vultures form a part of the fauna of this forest. The bamboo tree zone covers majority of the forest-area, spreading over an estimated 300 hectares. Jadav Payeng had his share of hardships too. It was quite a difficult task to water the plants as he could not himself draw water from the river and water all the plants single-handedly. The area is too vast for one man. So, he came up with an innovative idea of building a bamboo platform on the top of each sapling and placing earthen pots with small holes in them. The water used to gradually drip onto the plants underneath, until the pots were completely drained. To improve the quality of the soil, Payeng released several ants, termites, earthworms, and other insects, which work-up the soil by digging burrows, thereby rendering them porous leading to better water circulation. This in turn makes the soil arable or fertile. Termites improve the soil condition chemically by secreting certain enzymes. Jadav Payeng is married to Binita and has three children – two sons and a daughter. He lives in a small hut in the forest. He has cattle and buffalo, and sells the milk to villagers living in nearby villages for a livelihood. What an incredible sense of accomplishment it must be to plant a forest all by one’s own-self that is luring enough to attract wild animals to come for shelter and living! In conversation with In conversation with Dr. Arun Jamkar Dr. Arun Jamkar is one of the founding members of Inter-Institutional Inclusive Innovations Centre (i4c). He was the vice-chancellor of Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) until recently, before he retired. In this interview, he tells us about how the idea of founding i4c was conceived, i4c’s mission, the ways i4c identifies innovators from across India, how i4c assists innovators, and i4c’s major achievements. How did the idea of founding i4c conceive? It all started with organizing Inclusive Innovations 2013 competition in Pune in collaboration with Persistent Systems, Sakal Media, and Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS). I was Arun Jamkar then the vice-chancellor of MUHS. A phenomenal number of 35,000 innovators participated in Former Vice-chancellor of Maharashtra this competition, and an even more phenomenal 1 lac 50,000 people came to watch this event. University of Health Sciences (MUHS) The competition was such a grand success that the then governor of Maharashtra Mr Kateekal Sankaranarayanan, said that such an event should not be a one-time occurrence. That is when the idea of periodically hosting such an event struck us - through which innovative, path-breaking ideas from common people can come to fore. Upon discussion, we conceptualized the formation of an organization that would help build an eco-system of innovation in India. As a founding member of i4c, please tell us about i4c’s mission? i4c’s mission is to build an ecosystem of innovation in India. By eco-system, infrastructure is not meant. Infrastructure already exists in the form of labs and incubators. Our mission is to bridge the gap between individuals with high-potential innovative ideas to labs and incubators and venture capitalists. We already have 55 industries collaborating with us. We will help innovators network to see their idea develop into market-ready products. Besides hosting idea and innovation competition, how else does i4c intend to identify people with innovative ideas? i4c intends to build an interface between people of the country and industries. Anyone, who has a Contd... In conversation with Contd... good idea that they reckon can be transformed into market-ready products, can post their idea on the interface. If incubators, laboratories, industries find the idea interesting, they would then get in touch with the respective person, who has come up with the idea – to further develop it so that it can be transformed into market ready solution. Conversely, industries can also post the challenges they are facing - on the interface, asking people to come up with ideas that can be a solution to those challenges. Anyone, who has a potential idea that can overcome the challenge – can post it on the interface for the stakeholders to contact them. Once you identify innovative ideas, how would you assist them for further development? Arun Jamkar We quest for innovative ideas to bring to fore high-potential concepts from people, which could Former Vice-chancellor of Maharashtra have otherwise languished going unnoticed. Once we identify them, we help the innovators network University of Health Sciences (MUHS) with appropriate entities like respective incubators, venture capitalists, labs, and industrialists – for further development of their idea into beneficial market-ready products. What have been i4c’s major achievements since inception? During November 18-20, 2014 – i4c had collaborated with AICTE, CII, and DST to organize India Innovation Initiative (i3) in Greater Noida. The 2014 edition of the expo witnessed participation of 60 innovators (selected from over 1800 entrants) demonstrating the capabilities of their innovations. In i4c’s endeavor to provide platform to individuals with innovative ideas, it had organized the first of its kind science and technology innovation competition among students and scholars in the state of Goa. The event was organized in collaboration with Goa State Innovation Council, the Education Department Govt. of Goa, Vidnyan Parishad Goa, and Persistent Systems Ltd, in which 245 ideas were submitted. In October2015, i4c had organized Digital Pune Hackathon, along with Persistent Systems and Sakal Media Group. Pune based students of Computer Science and Electronics and Telecommunication came up with ideas on identified problems pertaining to power, water and sanitation, education, public health, transportation, and citizen security concerning Pune city.
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