Academic Design

I've worked with Ramasubramanian OB in Tamil Nadu, where his work and connections are some of the best; in the Himalayas; in Delhi, Germany, New York City, Maine and Toronto, Canada. I've seen him give very well received lectures to academics and community members; offer workshops much loved by young people and elders; garner the trust and ear of industry leaders in business and in the social sector; change and design new institutions that benefit villages and governments and spiritual organizations.  I have watched him co-lead social and ecological change initiatives others may have said were next to impossible but he would just say are miraculous in a world in which miracles always happen.  He is an expert on Gandhi, local economies, sustainable development in the South Asian context, institutional transformation, multi-sectoral knowledge creation for a complex world and social entrepreneurship.  He is a continual student of deep spiritual traditions in India, including Buddhism, Hinduism, village communities and tribal/adivasi/indigenous communities as well as indigenous wisdom from around the world.  He is continually offering fresh interpretations and convening conversations on some of the most ancient questions: why are we here; what is ethical action; what is our responsibility to future generations; how do we, individually and collectively, live in harmony together.

Ramasubramanian is the kind of leader who walks behind the group he is leading, like a shepherd who walks behind his sheep. You can often find him standing at the back of a room of crowded people, and not know that he is the one responsible for bringing those people together in the first place and ensuring that the team of amazing young people at the front of the room was mentored. He understands that leadership doesn't arise by itself: it needs to be nurtured. The much needed new knowlege pathways requires someone to do a lot of the hacking through the weeds that those pathways may be formed. Changing institutions means being able to work in multiple offices, translate across different disciplines, and easily move between complex organizational and societal hierarchies without loosing track of the mission and without giving up when people get caught up in the system and forget who they are and why they are there. He's one of those few mentors who mentors mentors, writes the policy the government uses and designs corporate knowledge institutions while keeping his own feet in the villages from which he derives so much inspiration and wisdom. In a world of a lot of noise, his calm, rambling voice has come to be trusted by many of us pioneers who know that, at the end of the day, he cares far, far more about creating a more sustainable future than any one person's or any organizations ego - including his own
 

After our conversation, I have been rethinking the type of metrics captured by the farmer-facing questionnaire, and how the datapoints could support a transition towards more environmentally and socially sensitive policy. Have also been ideating about incentives for farmers, to embed it in the design itself…

I do appreciate and am happy about the work you are doing in Samanvaya as well as with Magan Sanghralaya. It is a pleasure to go through Samanvaya's Newsletter.