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Grassroot Innovation, Laboratory Experiments and Modeling: Case Study of Appropriate Technology Development

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Abstract

Research Scientists and Engineers working in Government labs and Educational Institutions often doubt if interacting with people in the unorganised sectors such as tribal villages can provide opportunities for innovation, and, hence, refrain from such an interaction. There is ample evidence in the country that shows that such opportunities readily present themselves and successful innovations are possible. Such innovations also offer research opportunities whose successful persuites can also be presented for career advancement. Interactions with organised industry or engagements in frontier research are not necessarily the only ways to engage in satisfying research activity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The author’s Ph.D. work involved solution of Partial Differential Equations of mass, momentum and energy transfer in a particular situation. He had never dried anything!

  2. 2.

    Late Prof. A. Jaganmohan, Mech. Eng. Dept.

  3. 3.

    Such tall spouted bed dryers are used in Canada for drying wheat and peas (see, for example [4]).

  4. 4.

    This author prefers to define Technology as The Logic of Techniques.

References

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  4. Mathur KB, Gischler FE (1955) A study of the application of spouted-bed technique to wheat drying. J Appl Chem 5:624

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  5. Date AW, Jagadish BS, Shah JN, Subbarao V (1976) Mechanisms for transfer of appropriate technology from institutes of technology to rural areas. Report submitted to the CSIR, Government of India

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  6. Date A (1981) Understanding appropriate technology. In: Cole S, Acero L, Rush H (eds) Methods of development planning: scenarios, models and micro-studies. UNESCO Press, Paris

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the organisers of the National Symposium on BARC Technologies for Development of Rural India for inviting him to deliver a Keynote lecture on this largely unpublished work although some parts of the work have been reported in [5, 6]. The laboratory and modeling work was carried out by author’s M.Tech and B.Tech students [710] at IIT Bombay.

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Correspondence to A. W. Date .

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Date, A.W. (2020). Grassroot Innovation, Laboratory Experiments and Modeling: Case Study of Appropriate Technology Development. In: Ghosh, P. (eds) The Mind of an Engineer: Volume 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1330-5_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1330-5_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-1329-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-1330-5

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