After experiencing a period of extraordinary growth, having pioneered several pathbreaking initiatives and having evolved into a global institution for the study of indigenous knowledge, widely known for our innovative ideas that emphasise scale and global impact, we are now pleased to announce a new step towards becoming an Institute for Indigenous Knowledge, Cultural Leadership and Entrepreneurship.
Our actions since inception have been inspired by the principles of Design Thinking resulting in a unique ‘Six Dimensional Framework’. One of the dimensions of this framework is the role that we seek to play in the journey of the individual. We are deeply committed to encourage, enable and empower leaders, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover, nurture and express their potential. We capture this individual journey in a philosophically abstruse but poetic way – ‘self, selfless, Self ’, the expansion of which is given below :
“we enable public intellectuals discover their “self” – aptitude, passion and right career path, we nurture them to work for a larger cause and become ‘selfless’ cultural leaders, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we enable the pursuit of their true “Self” through an authentic spiritual path.”
Whilst our focus has always been to encourage public intellectuals not to fall victim to the forces that drive the attention economy, enticing one into facile and futile discussions, we believe the time has now come for us to shape our strategy of seeking to change the narrator and not the narrative in a more structured manner. Towards this transformation to become an Institute for Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Leadership and Entrepreneurship, we will be seeking from every intellectual, activist or artist who seeks a meaningful engagement with us to articulate their thoughts in two essays, answering the following two questions :
- What matters most to you and why ? ( 500-750 words)
- Why INDICA ? ( Upto 250 words)
Obviously, we are inspired by the application requirement for students seeking to apply to Stanford University MBA programme. The reason we have chosen existing questions from another institution is threefold
- the question itself is universal and timeless
- any intellectual seeking to answer the same honestly will perforce have to delve deep into his or her own ‘self ’, thus enabling us to better understand the individual as we begin the ‘self, selfless,Self’ journey with him or her
- there is enough open source material available for an intellectual needing the initial guidance and prompt to commence writing the essay
We will also be implementing this with our existing team and stakeholders in a phased manner.
Earlier this year we have also established a ‘Thought Center for Cultural Leadership’ in partnership with Rashtram School of Public Leadership. The goal set out for this Center is to train 1100 district wise Cultural Leaders.