Musings from the Year going by
This year is about germination and to an academic germination must be synonymous with thoughts and a lot of thinking .. So this year has been about a lot of thoughts up in my head and they continue to dance day in and out up there.
Thoughts about reframing and focusing where i ought to .. India and the knowledge and wisdom that has existed here for a long time and how NEW but similar wisdom must be created to tackle situations and catapult the country and more importantly society into a new but correct direction. I call this the need for indigenous wisdom. It has been bothering me for quite some time and i am trying to build a group of like-minded individuals fro a collaborative set-up on this.
There are thoughts about this one input in life and its multiple metaphors possible - WATER. This has been on the mind for some time and small beginnings were made and then have been sort of cold for some time but a lot more needs to be done and soon this kettle will be brewing up a lot.
There are thoughts about the spirit of the individual amidst situations of collective irresponsibility and apathy. this leads me to the thoughts on entrepreneurship in agriculture and the general apathy that some sensitive individuals in my generation are worried about - the rural-urban divide and many such divides. These thoughts have precipitated into action that has seen me launch two electives in as many years at IIMA (http://www.iimahd.ernet.in) as a faculty . Last year i made a beginning with "Agricultural Entrepreneurship" as an elective for the students of the Agri-Business Program and followed it up this year with "Bridging the Rural Urban Divide" (BRUD) for the PGP or MBA students in General Management.
Yes there will be questions and thoughts on how broad and deep is my definition and coverage of Agri-Entrepreneurship and that will be an area of concern for me always. That is essentially a quest that is best defined by the curiosity. i worked for about two years to figure out that there was very little relevant material that existed in this sphere especially if i were focusing on India and would usually confuse itself with a) BoP markets and b) Agri-business and worst of all be devoured by c) Social Entrepreneurship. The latter being my fear because almost half of social entrepreneurship is in the Agriculture domain and often does well for society but not enough for Agriculture cause it is seen more as Social than as Agricultural Entrepreneurship. This does not really help the domain of agricultural or the people involved in it and as such became the cause to salvage Agricultural Entrepreneurship from Social Entrepreneurship and merge it only where it made sense.
I also anticipate more questions about BRUD starting with if it is about BoP markets.
In this blog piece i think i can take on only this one question. BRUD is not really about markets at the surface or by the looks of it. However it is every bit about a large chunk of BoP markets as it takes a Sociological Orientation mixed with Management Objectivity and Economic Rationality and tries to learn more from Tacit Knowledge than hard coded Explicit Knowledge. It is also about psychology and Individual Dynamics as it is about Organization Behavior and Institution Building and therefore contributes to Consumer Behavior and Segmentation for various BoP markets.despite this It also takes a holistic perspective and doesn't look at Rural areas as only markets or suppliers but looks at them as both supply sources as well as possible markets. The same is true for Urban areas. But this is what the homo-economicus in us wants us to understand. This is also about different world views and multiple divides that separate the rural and the urban areas of the world and India in specific. It is also about various aspects of each of these divides but integrates them into interconnected Divides. This is the challenge that we look at in the first half of the course.
The second half talks about some broad solutions at present. More broad than deep at present as the deeper solutions are more complex to understand and also so specific at times that they don't really make an impact at the holistic level. The second half of the course picks up 7-8 such approaches and these are discussed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each .
The course ends with the project presentation that runs parallel to the teaching.
I guess this is good germination as of now but the nurturing is yet to take root.
This year is about germination and to an academic germination must be synonymous with thoughts and a lot of thinking .. So this year has been about a lot of thoughts up in my head and they continue to dance day in and out up there.
Thoughts about reframing and focusing where i ought to .. India and the knowledge and wisdom that has existed here for a long time and how NEW but similar wisdom must be created to tackle situations and catapult the country and more importantly society into a new but correct direction. I call this the need for indigenous wisdom. It has been bothering me for quite some time and i am trying to build a group of like-minded individuals fro a collaborative set-up on this.
There are thoughts about this one input in life and its multiple metaphors possible - WATER. This has been on the mind for some time and small beginnings were made and then have been sort of cold for some time but a lot more needs to be done and soon this kettle will be brewing up a lot.
There are thoughts about the spirit of the individual amidst situations of collective irresponsibility and apathy. this leads me to the thoughts on entrepreneurship in agriculture and the general apathy that some sensitive individuals in my generation are worried about - the rural-urban divide and many such divides. These thoughts have precipitated into action that has seen me launch two electives in as many years at IIMA (http://www.iimahd.ernet.in) as a faculty . Last year i made a beginning with "Agricultural Entrepreneurship" as an elective for the students of the Agri-Business Program and followed it up this year with "Bridging the Rural Urban Divide" (BRUD) for the PGP or MBA students in General Management.
Yes there will be questions and thoughts on how broad and deep is my definition and coverage of Agri-Entrepreneurship and that will be an area of concern for me always. That is essentially a quest that is best defined by the curiosity. i worked for about two years to figure out that there was very little relevant material that existed in this sphere especially if i were focusing on India and would usually confuse itself with a) BoP markets and b) Agri-business and worst of all be devoured by c) Social Entrepreneurship. The latter being my fear because almost half of social entrepreneurship is in the Agriculture domain and often does well for society but not enough for Agriculture cause it is seen more as Social than as Agricultural Entrepreneurship. This does not really help the domain of agricultural or the people involved in it and as such became the cause to salvage Agricultural Entrepreneurship from Social Entrepreneurship and merge it only where it made sense.
I also anticipate more questions about BRUD starting with if it is about BoP markets.
In this blog piece i think i can take on only this one question. BRUD is not really about markets at the surface or by the looks of it. However it is every bit about a large chunk of BoP markets as it takes a Sociological Orientation mixed with Management Objectivity and Economic Rationality and tries to learn more from Tacit Knowledge than hard coded Explicit Knowledge. It is also about psychology and Individual Dynamics as it is about Organization Behavior and Institution Building and therefore contributes to Consumer Behavior and Segmentation for various BoP markets.despite this It also takes a holistic perspective and doesn't look at Rural areas as only markets or suppliers but looks at them as both supply sources as well as possible markets. The same is true for Urban areas. But this is what the homo-economicus in us wants us to understand. This is also about different world views and multiple divides that separate the rural and the urban areas of the world and India in specific. It is also about various aspects of each of these divides but integrates them into interconnected Divides. This is the challenge that we look at in the first half of the course.
The second half talks about some broad solutions at present. More broad than deep at present as the deeper solutions are more complex to understand and also so specific at times that they don't really make an impact at the holistic level. The second half of the course picks up 7-8 such approaches and these are discussed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each .
The course ends with the project presentation that runs parallel to the teaching.
I guess this is good germination as of now but the nurturing is yet to take root.