I
Knowledge for Enablement (KfE) is a frame or mode of thinking about knowledge.
Through the KfE frame, we view knowledge as a means to strengthen people at all levels – in their capacity to do, in their capacity to think, in their capacity to respond & engage with the challenges they face, and most important, their capacity to lead fulfilling and meaningful lives.
The need to strengthen people at all four levels (in proportions appropriate to the situation), is universal. Almost all human beings have this need.
However, there are some situations and contexts where this need is pressing. These situations or contexts are what can be called “Knowledge Failures”.
II
KfE is also the means to build a more equitable society because KfE helps our society change and reconstruct itself in terms of new value systems & priorities.
If we want a society where people are less individualistic and more collaborative, where people choose to contribute rather than take or transact, or where people can keep aside their narrow self-interest and work for collective good – then we need to work to help people expand their value-systems, their self-esteem and their esteem linked to the larger community, to their models of living, and to their own sense of their place in the large ecosystem of humanity – we need to develop a systematic field of study that will enable humanity to evolve itself.
III
This field of study needs to be developed at four levels:
Level 1: Building the constructs, principles and high-level frameworks that will allow us to effectively reconfigure the mass and diversity of knowledge already available, and continuously being created in society, so that the knowledge failures in society are effectively addressed.
Level 2: Developing the underlying practices and models that will help us shape and improve methodologies and technologies on a continuous basis.
Level 3: Building methodologies and technologies that allow us to develop these applications and solutions on a mass basis for the variety of such challenges we face across society.
Level 4: Developing applications and solutions to the hidden knowledge challenges or knowledge failures we see in society.
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