GIA organizations -and newly invited organizations- are meeting in Ahmedabad (India) from January 24 to 27th, 2025 for a second enriching gathering where diverse dimensions of grassroots innovations for agroecology will be discussed. Organised by Honey Bee Network / Gujarat Grassroots Innovation and Augmentation Network (GIAN) and Schola Campesina Aps, this gathering is made possible thanks to the financial support of the 11th Hours Project This three-days event will enable the discussions and collaborations initiated in Italy to continue, while strengthening the global efforts for technological sovereignty and agroecology.
This meeting will bring together diverse organisations from grassroots innovation networks around the globe. It will provide a platform for farmers, activists, innovators and their organisations who are already leading the way toward a farmer-led future for agricultural technology to share knowledge, experiences, and ideas. The meet will offer space for collective dialogue, with a focus on elevating the often-tacit knowledge of how these innovations can be scaled and made explicit to benefit broader communities.
The following topics will be addressed. The facilitation of each session is organized by a working group of GIA organisations, that will ensure an inclusive knowledge sharing.
- Fostering Innovation: Processes of identification, documentation and dissemination/sharing of grassroots innovations
- Sharing & Cross pollination: of our innovations
- Financial sustainment of grassroots innovations:
- Protection of shared innovations: the issue of IPR and Common / Open source Knowledge
- Enabling Infrastructure: Common Technical, Legal, Financial structures and administrative backbone to support agricultural knowledge commons
- International Cooperation: Functioning internationally / Distributed governance– how to ensure good process to build our future collaboration (Charter / Governance rules) – Website maintenance
- Connecting to Movements: Link to Nyéléni and Agroecology and Food sovereignty movement
- Fostering bPeer Networks: experiences in grassroots learning /capacity-building/ farmer-led experimentation, especially in those priority areas, such as ecological soil management, ecosystem restoration, etc. Agroecology schools
- Innovation for whom? What are risks/harms and potentials of emerging innovations (AI, Automation, Biotech)
- Digital Infrastructure: What is the role of GIA versus local and regional networks? How best would the GIA site function? How can digital tools be shared across networks and platforms?
From 28th until 30th of January, 2025, GIA organisations will attend the Fifth International Conference On Creativity And Innovation At/For/From/With Grassroots [ICCIG 5], organised in collaboration with Centre of Management in Agriculture, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Honey Bee Network institutions and several other international and national institutions.
“Giving voice, visibility, and velocity to creativity and innovative people at the grassroots has been the key goal of inclusive development. Honey Bee Network has emerged over the last thirty-five years as a committed new social movement in support of knowledge-rich, economically poor people. In order to enrich the ecosystem for inclusive and empathetic innovations, the Fifth ICCIG will pool the insights from the ground and global playfields of ideas, institutions, and initiatives by policymakers and also by local/global communities and networks. The conference invited contributions on inclusive innovations from the grassroots from scholars, activists, policymakers, and innovators themselves.
Honey Bee Network started more than three decades ago to raise the voice of collaboration between formal and informal sectors, respect for local/indigenous knowledge for the conservation of biodiversity and associated knowledge systems, sharing of benefits through ethical supply chains, and rewarding local communities and individual innovators and traditional knowledge holders. Today, the concern for inclusive innovation has become much more widespread but the voice of the knowledge-rich, economically poor people and the youth is still not heard adequately” . https://www.iccig.org/