Where Will Ideas Come From In The Future?
Remarks by Susan V. Berresford at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India. March 6, 2002
It is a great honor to be part of this distinguished Millennium Lecture series and to be with my friend, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, who served so brilliantly as trustee and adviser at the Ford Foundation. We will always be grateful that we had the benefit of his vast knowledge and experience as a geneticist, educator, humanist and policy maker. His contributions to India's and the world's food security system, his innovations leading to India's Green Revolution, as well as his creation of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation embody a standard of leadership to which we all should aspire.
As the world grows more complex, every nation needs exceptional individuals like M.S. Swaminathan to help solve its most serious problems. Every society needs to draw on its best academic, political, cultural, economic and scientific talent. India is a prime example of a society that has successfully turned to so many of its best and brightest people to help it make huge strides forward.
But in India, as in the rest of the world, there can be no certainty that challenges of the future will be met solely by relying upon existing sources of talent, no matter how skilled and brilliant the people from these sources are. It is increasingly clear that every society, including my country and yours, has to find ways to hear the ideas of people outside established circles of power and influence. For creative solutions are most likely to be found through a healthy diversity of ideas and people. Unfortunately, people living closest to the most pressing problems are often outside of the institutions and circles to which societies naturally turn for ideas.
That is why I decided to title my remarks today: "Where Will Ideas Come From In The Future?" Many of us would answer that they will come from the people we have always counted on in the academy, laboratories, the gatherings of established experts and institutions. They will say that these centers of excellence will produce solutions to the enduring problems of poverty, disease, injustice and ignorance. And for sure, that will be the case in many instances.
But, if we search our histories, we will discover that new and promising ideas have also come from a wider universe of players -- from "outsiders." Sometimes they remain outsiders even as they bring us breakthroughs. Other times, they become part of established institutions and bring in fresh perspectives. At the beginning, many of these "outsiders" have difficulty getting their ideas into the mainstream. Often, they have to struggle and toil while their ideas are ignored, trivialized and sometimes even parodied. This was true hundreds of years ago and, sad to say, it is so today.
I believe that as we move further into the 21st century, success will increasingly depend on expanding the talent pool of skilled people who bring fresh perspectives to bear on what today may seem intractable problems. Three recent experiences brought home to me how hard it is to do this and yet how high the pay-off can be.
The first was a delightful book with which you may be familiar, Longitude by Dava Sobel. Longitude tells this story: In the age of exploration, in the 18th century, sea captains sailed on the world's vast oceans exploring the unknown and seeking treasures. Some reached their destinations through a combination of luck and good seamanship but huge numbers lost their bearings and perished with their crews.
These tragedies occurred because sailors of that time had no way of determining longitude and thus, no way of locating themselves or their destinations with accuracy. Scientists of the period believed that the key to longitude lay in the stars and thus, they worked to map the heavens with increasing accuracy. But after several generations of searching for new knowledge, sailors were still literally at sea, unable to precisely locate their positions.
As the need for a breakthrough became more and more urgent, the British Parliament, in 1714, passed the Longitude Act, offering a prize equivalent to millions of today's dollars for "a practical and useful" means of determining longitude. It created a Board of Longitude to select among people with good ideas, to make research grants to them, and when the problem was solved, award the prize and celebrate the winner. The Board was dominated, as you might expect, by the most respected scientists of that era: astronomers and prominent figures from England's most prestigious scientific body, the Royal Society. Spurred on by the prize and the encouragement of the Board of Longitude, astronomers redoubled their efforts to catalogue the heavens and refine their calculations. But the answer ultimately came a few decades later from a completely unexpected source.
John Harrison was a clockmaker without any formal schooling or training. The son of a carpenter, he grew up in a small village far from London, Oxford or Cambridge. But he was, it became clear, a mechanical genius who, in 1727, began to work on the problem of determining longitude.
Instead of looking to the heavens for the answer, he turned to clockmaking. His theory was that if sea captains had accurate time measurement, they could calculate geographic distance and determine longitude. The "experts" found his ideas absurd. Clocks of that era were totally unreliable and shipboard clocks were wildly inaccurate because of the rolling seas and weather changes that expanded or contracted their parts.
Harrison's innovation was the creation of a series of clocks that were virtually friction-free, needing only the natural lubrication that a few wood parts provided (which he knew about from his woodworking experience). The parts did not rust and they stayed in perfect balance, no matter how violently a ship tossed or was battered in storms. He combined different materials inside the clockworks in ways that precisely complemented each other. If temperature changes made one expand, the other contracted to exactly counteract the change, keeping the clock's rate constant. Harrison worked on his clocks for thirty years, continually refining them until he finally reduced a large, heavy shipboard clock to the dimensions of an oversized pocket watch. Today, visitors to the Greenwich Observatory just outside of London can see these truly magnificent inventions—they are well worth a visit.
But here is the discouraging part of the story that Sobel's book tells so well. The scientific elites of the day fought Harrison bitterly. When trials showed that his clocks worked, they demanded more and more trials. When subsequent trials proved that the clocks were accurate, the astronomers changed the contest rules. They convinced Parliament to amend the Longitude Act and even sabotaged Harrison's inventions. It took King George III in 1773 to help set things right but even with the King's support, the Longitude Board never formally awarded Harrison the prize.
Harrison's solution was elegant, simple and easy to use but it faced long, bitter opposition. Ultimately, as you may know, his designs were copied and mass produced. Now called chronometers, they were in widespread use in ships by the early 1800s.
People at the center of established fields of knowledge sometimes distrust people who seem unfamiliar. This shouldn't surprise us at all. Each of us becomes familiar with our own world and too often we are shortsighted about other communities of people and their ideas. Harrison was from the wrong social class and in the wrong discipline or line of work. Thus, his ideas were ridiculed. I see Dava Sobel's book as more than a fascinating evening's read. It is a cautionary tale for our own efforts to find the innovative ideas our world needs.
A second observation about the source of good ideas derives from a recent exchange with the new president of Princeton University in the U.S., Dr. Shirley Tilghman. Among other distinctions, she is a world-renowned molecular biologist and Princeton's first female president. When we met recently, I asked her whether she thought there was a difference in the ways that male and female scientists approach scientific problems. I expected her to say: No, all scientists go about their problem solving in a similar manner. But she surprised me, saying that some observers see one interesting difference. They note that male scientists tend to focus on scientific challenges or problems that are recognized by their peers, and they try to solve the problem by committing more time, money and brilliant people to the task. In effect, men tend to marshal the power necessary to break through barriers to find solutions.
Some see female scientists taking a different approach. They focus on a subject few others notice, something off to the margins of their discipline's map, and work on that, sometimes making striking discoveries with significant implications.
The question of course is, if this is true, why are women more likely to study problems on the margins of their field while men tend to attack the big recognized problems. The answer could be that when people are themselves on the margins, as women scientists have traditionally been, problems others perceive as marginal are accessible to them. And they are likely to develop solutions that don't rely on the resources and power available to those working at the center of their fields. It also may be the case that if you are at the margins, you have a wider perspective across the whole field of study. You see neglected but promising topics more clearly than those preoccupied with assembling resources at the center.
I suspect that in today's laboratories there are many people, some of them female, who study problems considered marginal but whose work will ultimately turn out to be very important. Everywhere, in my country and in yours, there are barriers of class, caste, race, gender and other discriminatory practices. They prevent us from identifying and nurturing talented people. We can no longer afford to lose the abilities of a majority of the world's population whose disadvantaged position effectively squanders their potential.
If the past is a guide, it is very likely that those new ideas will come from unexpected sources, from the future equivalents of humble clockmakers like John Harrison and women scientists like Barbara McClintock, pursuing solutions the rest of the world has not yet seen.
At the Ford Foundation, we have tried to find such people and equip them for intellectual and practical leadership. Fellowships have been an important component of this work. In the 1960s and '70s, in addition to grants to organizations, Ford provided hundreds of fellowship grants to exceptional individuals and found later, after discontinuing the program, that many extraordinary people, such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, have emerged on the world stage from these groups.
Encouraged by the success of these earlier investments in human talent, last year Ford began a totally new fellowship initiative. In 2001, we launched the largest single initiative in our history—a 10-year, $330 million program called the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program or IFP. The program will provide at least 3,500 graduate fellowships for academically talented men and women with demonstrated leadership skills, who because of social exclusion would not have a chance for graduate study. The program operates in all of the countries and regions where Ford has overseas offices.
The Fellows receive three years of support for graduate study anywhere in the world. Ford will also make grants that enable undergraduate institutions to increase the flow of disadvantaged college graduates eligible for the fellowships. We will provide incentives for Fellows to work in their home countries after study, and to participate in regional and international activities that develop their leadership skills. Ultimately, we hope that a good proportion of the fellows will be change agents, bringing fresh vision to help their communities and nations progress.
I'd like to tell you a bit about how the IFP operates. It suggests the need to go beyond conventional criteria if we are to tap into the large pool of neglected talent in our communities. Doing business as usual, will not be enough.
Very early in the planning stage, we realized that we needed to draw on special expertise in each country—people who had knowledge about social exclusion and had new ideas about ways to identify promising candidates and prepare them to compete. In Vietnam, for example, carefully selected nominators went into rural areas and sought out women and ethnic minorities, with emphasis on those with strong academic records, who were working for NGOs active in rural economic and social development. Each person who requested information about the IFP was counseled about the application and selection process. Counseling was a necessary part of the process because social isolation had made applicants believe they had little to say about themselves. No one had ever asked them what they wanted to study or what their goals were. Some needed reassurance about moving ahead of their family and friends.
In Chile and Peru, selectors focused on those who had attended public colleges rather than prestigious private ones. They gave significant weight to academic performance in the final two years of the five-year undergraduate degree program, since talented students from excluded groups often need time to overcome early academic and social problems.
Our experience in India shows that there is no dearth of talent amongst historically disadvantaged groups. But, as elsewhere, it takes a determined will, tenacious effort and imaginative measures to discover them. Initial research in India, prior to starting the IFP program, showed that there were indeed meritorious students and scholars belonging to disadvantaged and marginalized communities. But most scholarship programs had failed to reach them. So the IFP program developed multi-pronged outreach and selection processes.
In addition to announcements in regional language publications, English language dailies, and the Internet, all Foundation partners were asked to alert potential applicants in their areas. Recruiters were sent to India's rural areas to describe the program and more than 1,000 letters were sent to nominators in remote regions. We used a two-staged process consisting of a pre-application form to screen the candidate's eligibility and a final application to evaluate the candidate's academic potential and ability to meet rigorous academic standards. The process rated applicants on their backgrounds, taking into consideration factors such as gender, caste, region, class, family income and kind of schooling. The leadership potential of the candidates and their academic record were also taken into consideration. Most of the candidates had not had much exposure to formal interview processes. So IFP devised a system whereby each finalist met with a member of the national selection committee for an informal interaction before the panel interview to try to set the applicant at ease and provide a friendly face at the interview table.
Four regional selection committees were instituted to enable the candidates to interact with people from their own regions and use the language of their choice during the interview. Throughout the selection process, the objective was to find the strengths of the candidates rather than weaknesses.
All these measures contributed to the success of the IFP program in meeting its objectives in the first year. In India, 80% of the fellows chosen had secured first divisions and many had graduated from top institutions. Moreover, 18 of them belong to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes, 14 of them are women and most of them are from remote rural areas or small towns. The average age of the fellows is 29. I have gone into some depth to tell you about the IFP in India only to make the point that talented people abound in all communities, groups and classes but it will take determination to find them.
This year, in India, the Foundation supported the establishment of the Foundation for Academic Excellence and Access (FAEA) to manage the IFP program in India. In addition to running the IFP program, this new Foundation will also serve as an umbrella organization for promoting the access of meritorious students from disadvantaged communities to higher educational opportunities within India. FAEA will identify and select meritorious students from marginalized groups and assist 25 institutions (mainly in rural areas and small towns) in improving their mentoring facility. They will provide special coaching to the selected students to increase their leadership skills and provide them with financial assistance to help them complete their higher education. FAEA will also undertake a range of activities to improve teaching standards in the 25 colleges across the country.
Now let me introduce to you a few of the fellows we recently selected. One of Mexico's IFP fellows is a young woman from an indigenous community whose parents were poor and didn't want her to go to school because she was female. She worked her way through college with the help of scholarships and contributions from her brothers who had migrated to jobs outside of Mexico. At college, she first tried to hide her ethnic origins to avoid discrimination. She later embraced her identity fully and, after college, returned to a small rural village to teach school. Full of ambition and hope for her people, she plans to use her fellowship to study population and demography. She has a forceful personality and a sense of moral urgency. When I met with her a few months ago, she said that "Unfortunately, there are few of us who enter the academic world; it is not an easy task. This struggle is not some kind of natural selection. Those of us who are already in the academic world are not better or stronger than the rest of our indigenous brothers. In fact, they are the principal motivation of this constant search for academic knowledge. What we accomplish is through them and for them."
There is another IFP fellow, from Uganda, who grew up in a remote rural area. He walked great distances each day to attend grade school and ultimately gained admission to Makerere University, where he was the first undergraduate student in 20 years to win a First Class degree in Literature. At the university, he attained the post of Lecturer while being involved in children's literature and women writers' projects, an AIDS Operation Rescue Club, and family support services. He will use his I.F.P. fellowship to study for a doctorate in English and Comparative Literature, either in Britain or the United States.
He commented in his application: "Ugandans have been traumatized by the political turmoil the country has gone through since independence… One of the legacies of this turmoil was the death of a reading and writing culture in the country. It was not until the last decade that a 'renaissance' has taken place, resulting in incredible literary production of works of fiction, theatre for development and the media… Furthermore, following the launching of the Universal Primary Education Program a few years ago, there is an insatiable demand for reading materials in the schools. This is bound to grow with universal secondary education in the next couple of years… My proposed doctoral research will… be the first of its kind to provide the vital criticism of the works emerging Ugandan writers."
The story of the IFP fellows from India are no less powerful. One of the fellows chosen this year belongs to a poor Muslim family and as the head of the family, he supports seven dependents. He has managed to earn his M-phil and B.A. while working to sustain himself and his family over the past sixteen years. His jobs included being a laborer, clerk and a ward orderly in a hospital. But despite the enormous burdens he carries, he has found time to work in various voluntary organizations to promote communal harmony and during the sectarian violence in Delhi in 1992-93, he did much to bring aid and succor to the victims of that riot. Currently a lecturer in P G DAV college in Delhi, his doctoral dissertation will analyze India's historical monuments as sources of contention and perspective on Indian social life.
Ford staff and trustees know that the IFP will help thousands of individuals like this appealing and talented man. But we also want it to generate debate about how public and private organizations can tap neglected talent pools of future leaders. We hope that as the IFP moves forward, it can be a vehicle to manage funds from other donors who want to help talented but socially excluded intellectual and practical leaders. I believe that there are many generous people, in India and elsewhere, some of wealth and others of more modest means, who would find IFP fellowships appealing and would donate funds to it.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the world's problems will only deepen unless there is a greater focus on the bottom segment of the world's population—those who are subject to social isolation, deprivation and discriminatory practices that have become serious impediments to national, social and economic development. We are losing their talent and our national goals for progress and equity are losing credibility. We can change these distressing realities if we choose to do so. One element of change is the identification of potential leaders who can help with this serious work. Their keen minds, their determination and their moral force are necessary for change on the scale that is required.
This year, the New Delhi Office of the Foundation is celebrating the 50th anniversary in India. The 50th anniversary is an occasion to renew our commitment to reducing poverty and injustice, strengthening democratic values, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. It is an occasion to reflect on the collective experience and lessons learned over the past decades and, with our partners, it is a moment to devise more strategic means to address the continuing challenge of creating political, economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of the environment on which life depends. And we will use this occasion of its anniversary to reposition the Foundation program to respond more effectively to changing context and development needs in contemporary India.
The Ford Foundation in India is privileged to have been a participant in India's remarkable progress and achievements during the past 50 years. But we also share in India's concerns. Despite significant economic growth and technological advance, the benefits of India's development have not adequately reached one half of the population, and have by-passed the poorest one-fifth of its population. We see that increasing numbers of people in absolute poverty, persistent inequities in access to resources and services, heightened conflicts and incidence of violence, growing social and cultural alienation and continued deterioration of the natural resource base, are among the elements of this development paradox.
While ensuring continuity in our work, the Foundation's New Delhi Office will make substantive and qualitative changes in our future programs to reach the historically disadvantaged, particularly those among the poorest one-fifth of the population. Future program designs will target the most marginalized—those who are most vulnerable, excluded and farthest from centers of power, knowledge and opportunities. Dalits, adivasis and women will be the focus of our priorities and issues that affect them will remain at the core of our programs. The Foundation will put in place mechanisms to facilitate assistance to grassroots organizations, citizens' groups and social movements for the uplift and empowerment of the poor.
Through its various programs, the Ford Foundation is trying to meet those challenges and we believe the IFP is one important step in the right direction. Here in India, the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation is engaged in similar efforts, such as the computer-centered "Every Child a Scientist" program for tribal and rural children. It is not far-fetched to think that some day those youngsters will be doing international graduate study and become national and world leaders helping to create a better future for all people. They are the John Harrisons and Kofi Annans of tomorrow.
That may seem a distant prospect. But if the world's nations and institutions invest a portion of our energies and resources in making it possible, it will happen.
Thank you.
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia.