Prof. Shambu Prasad

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Shambu did his B-Tech in IIT Madras and then went on to finish a Masters and PhD. He was deeply interested in development issues and I interacted with him when he was writing a piece on Spirulina. Shambu was working for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Andhra Pradesh at that time. In his words

“This paper explores a civil society initiative in agro-processing from the perspective of attempting to understand innovation processes and their institutional contexts. Civil society initiatives are unusual in that often they have not been driven by the formal science establishment and its outputs, but instead have been led by an alternative paradigm of learning and innovation. However, these initiatives have not been studied and their contribution to informing research, project design, research management, and practice remain largely unexplored. This paper thus explores and highlights potentially underutilized sources of innovations from which research policy can draw inspiration and lessons.”

There are several versions of this paper amended for different audiences. See http://www.crispindia.org/docs/Shambu~s_EPW.pdf and http://www.climatebabes.com/documents/Algae%20Spirulina%20Technology.pdf

I really liked this paper. In many of the previous blogs I have given fragmented accounts in which I was involved. This paper puts a lot of that into perspective of civil society, innovation and the marketplace.

My interactions with Shambu continue as his areas of research interest are in innovation management, policy studies, public systems management, science, technology and society studies (STS), social and institutional development, agroecology, sustainable development and insitutional studies (including institutional learning and change).