Honeybee Network - Cataloguing Real World Innovation

So often when we invoke the word “technology” we invisage western scientists in white lab coats heralding some new miracle of industrialisation. How unfortunately short sighted and myopic. Technology is not the exclusive domain of the so-called ‘developed’ world. There is much creativity which impacts the lives of many, yet goes unrecognized. In India, the Honeybee Network endeavours to rectify this. Supported by associations like SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) and the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) the network has collated a database of over 51,000 innovations, with the intention of promoting them on behalf of the inventor, who maybe poor and lacking a formal education. Pest management, soil conservation, seed preservation, irrigation, nutrition and herbal medicine being just some of spheres of rural technology that have been recorded. Recent design projects based around this concept have included students conceiving of 1). a water bearing jacket to relieve the cervical stress that women encounter in bearing pots of water on their head from well to village, and 2). a bicycle attachment that charges mobile phones. Via Next Billion, more at ::Honeybee Network

And why the Honey Bee metaphor? A bee takes the pollen (idea) from a originator and spreads (pollinates) the knowledge far and wide, enriching others, without diminishing the source.