Encouraging Grassroots Innovation

In the old “business as usual” paradigm it’s ok to exploit others for your own gains. Ethical, sustainable business seeks to challenge this perspective and to encourage a more responsible, caring and sharing attitude to those with whom we work and collaborate.

Anil Gupta is on a mission:  to support grassroots innovators, who are rich in knowledge but not in resources, who would normally have their ideas exploited by others. He began this venture when he came to the realisation that he himself was guilty of making a living from writing about social justice, but was not practising it.

Anil Gupta has since resolved to seek out indigenous entrepreneurs from around the world. He asserts that their ingenuity, hidden by poverty, has the potential to change the world. “Minds on the margin are not marginal minds” he says and “Scaleability should not be the enemy of sustainability.” He uses the example of cellphones, which for many people are over engineered and therefore wasteful of valuable resources.

I have a feeling that this type of product/solution localisation, and the recognition and appropriate nurturing  of grassroots innovators, will yield significant and important solutions for a post industrial, low energy economy.