The Beginnings..

There's a cluster of villages in Rasulabad, 90 km from Kanpur in UP, India.   It is pristine, simple and quaint with very warm people, aesthetic homes decorated with traditional art, yet amidst a difficult and infra-structurally deprived environment. 

We first visited these villages in early March when we ran the Jugaad workshop in collaboration with students of KTH, Sweden and Aalto University, Finland.

We recognized at the time across all ages, an eagerness to learn and a desire to innovate that I believe is inherent in each of us. It's whether or not we have the tools to pursue that desire.  















Last week we launched an initiative to run a set of 4 Design Innovation workshops there. At the core of its conceptualization as shown, was the guiding principle to involve and include all levels, ages and interests of the village.  

That most of the workshops will be led by our very own Masters and Ph.D students of the Design Program at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, is exciting. We are supported by both Vinodji who hails from the next village and Bharatji, both from the Media Center at IITK.

An article on Tagore's Sriniketan is inspiring indeed as we launch this, especially the last few lines:
  

While villages can gain from creative collaboration with people from the city, cities have to learn the value of physical labour from villages. 
Tagore's work at Sriniketan is a valuable reminder of how the ideals of village self-reliance and urban-rural co-operation must belong in our imaginations of the future.

15 April, 2015