Prof. Anil K. Gupta

Professor Anil Gupta created the Honey Bee Network to ensure recognition, respect and reward for grassroots inventors and innovators at local, national and global levels. Searching the country with colleagues, he found countless inventions developed out of necessity, which he documented and often shared with the global community.

Since 1988, the network’s database of original inventions has grown to over 12,000, and its newsletter is now published in eight languages and distributed to 75 countries. Through this network, Professor Gupta has demonstrated the pivotal role of innovative ideas and knowledge possessed by economically poor people in the sustainable progress of developing countries. 

Professor Gupta has established  the Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI, www.sristi.org) and the Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN, 1997, www.gian.org) to support the Honey Bee Network and scale up and convert grassroots innovations into viable products. With the help of Government of India, he also set up the National Innovation Foundation (NIF,2000, www.nifindia.org), which later became an Institute of the Department of Science and Technology of the government of India, contributing to make India an innovative and creative society as well as a global leader in sustainable technologies. 

So far, NIF has mobilized more than 170,000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices from over 545 districts of India, the largest database of its kind anywhere. Through student volunteers, it established a portal of 167,000 tech student projects at www.techpedia.in in order to link the needs of informal sectors and small entrepreneurs with young technology students. 

In addition to many other prestigious awards, Professor Gupta was recently conferred a Doctor of Letters degree from the Central University of Orissa, India (2012). The Network also received the Hermes Award (May 2012), and an award from the European Institute for Creative Strategies and Innovation in Paris. In 2013, the Humanistic Management Network recognized Professor Gupta’s work with a lifetime achievement recognition for Humanistic Management at the Academy of Management Meeting, in Orlando, USA.