Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom

The Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom runs Green Up, an initiative aimed at reimagining and transforming Indian society to address the climate crisis. Green Up comprises a range of ideas, actions, and measures for innovation, adaptation, and resilience. The goal is to make Green Up an election issue in 2024, shifting the climate discourse from a peripheral policy debate to a central focus on India's future. Through online and physical convenings, accompanied by research and supporting tools, Green Up spaces will facilitate collective wisdom and generate a roadmap endorsed by key stakeholders, shared publicly for widespread engagement.

The Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom aims to establish a collaborative platform called "Janta ka Faisla" (People's Verdict) to foster participatory citizenship and public problem-solving. This platform enables regular citizens to serve as a jury, evaluating policies presented by experts. It ensures that policy-making includes consultation with migrant workers and extends beyond narrow topics, encompassing the entire spectrum of Indian society and economy. By creating a space for citizens to articulate their vision, Janta ka Faisla empowers those most affected by policies and promotes resilience, dignity, and adaptiveness in addressing shared needs. The foundation's first initiative in this realm was the Chhattisgarh Migrant Workers' Jury.

The Foundation applies data, design, and public problem-solving methods to address complex issues in the realm of food systems. With a focus on transforming the large fertilizer subsidy to benefit farmers and ecology, as well as scaling natural farming practices in India, the Foundation engages with multiple stakeholders. Recognizing the significant contribution of India's food system to climate change and its vulnerability to its impacts, the Food Systems team adopts a holistic approach to tackle challenges related to agriculture, nutrition, farmer incomes, and climate change. Socratus has organised convenings on various topics including farmer incomes, fertilizer subsidy, and minimum support price (MSP), actively expanding its work in this rapidly growing field.

Under the Academy programme, Socratus Foundation for Collective Wisdom aims to design and develop various tools to facilitate rich discourse and collaboration. These tools include "Worlds," a physical modelling setup where participants construct a model of Natural Farming using custom-designed blocks. Another tool is "Worlds Online," an immersive 3D environment that allows participants to explore complex systems and capture their positions as annotated "keyframes." Additionally, a sketch note artist records participants' interactions as sketches, while video journals capture their evolving imaginations and opinions throughout the workshop. The final vision is expressed as a video, incorporating footage from these tools to vividly represent the collective imagination and narrative of achieving it.