It was a beautiful day as I slowly meandered through the alleys in one of Bangalore’s slums. A mechanic was putting together an old motorcycle engine while the owner intently stood watch over him. An old man was wearing a look of extreme boredom as he sat next to a mat with some refurbished toys he hoped to sell. A small group of children were chasing each other around in bare feet as women in saris busily went this way and that carrying pails to fill with water, bags overflowing with grain and baskets containing fruit to sell.

In a strange way that moment felt almost idyllic. I knew that virtually everyone I saw lived in abject poverty, yet they filled me with hope. They did not seem beaten down by their circumstance, but rather appeared to have carved out a sustainable life despite it. I felt like I was witnessing a parallel existence — one I was aware of as a young boy living in India 30 years ago and had rediscovered after reading “Creating a World Without Poverty” by Muhammad Yunus. I already knew the next few hours would evolve my understanding of social responsibility, but I had no idea how a chance encounter with a mother and her son — who had nothing but a TV and a VCR — would change my understanding of creativity.

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I had come to Bangalore for work, but asked the local office to set aside a day so I could learn about Yunus and his organization, the Grameen Bank. As background, Yunus was a professor of economics in Bangladesh in 1974 when a terrible famine swept across the country, killing millions. Moved by the scale of the suffering, he gave a small amount of money to some families to help them get back on their feet. Each family used the money they received as a seed investment and started businesses buying and selling crafts, toys, grains and other cheap goods. Yunus was surprised as one family after another paid him back the full amount he had given them. That experience altered his research and eventually resulted in the concept of micro-lending. A few years later he founded the Grameen Bank, a social enterprise dedicated to profitably lending money to those living in poverty.

My morning was spent with various levels of bank officials from Grameen before finally arriving where it mattered most — the slums they served. Everything I had read and was told was playing out in front of me at that moment.

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After walking around and soaking in what I could for 30 minutes my guide took me through a small door so I could experience the philosophy of Grameen in action: the borrower’s meeting. Ten women sat on the floor in a circle in front of me and spent the time talking about their businesses, sharing their successes and challenges, giving each other advice and finally repaying part of their loans before adjourning. This was their weekly ritual — part local business owners’ meeting, part support group and part banking obligation.

After the meeting was over one of the women came up to me and told me (through my guide) that she wanted to show me her business. We followed her back to her house (a one room, 100 square foot home with no indoor plumbing) where, crammed in at the end of her bed, was a rickety old desk with a 20-year old television and two ancient VCR Players. She had borrowed the money from Grameen to buy this equipment for her son, who was now the proud owner of a videography business servicing the slums of Bangalore. He would shoot video for weddings, religious ceremonies and other celebrations before doing his production work in his home, while sitting at the foot of the bed he shared with his mother.

As I made my way back to my hotel that night I knew I had seen something profound. I experienced the remarkable strength exhibited by people society doesn’t pay much attention to. I saw how a bank, ignoring hundreds of years of conventional wisdom that you only lend to people with money, had changed the lives of millions by lending to those who had none. And I met with the remarkable Grameen employees who made their own daily sacrifices because they believed deeply in the impact of the organization. But there was something else that I struggled to articulate for years.

What I saw on that sunny day in Bangalore were people living their lives, participating in an arguably efficient shadow economy and finding ways to make it from one day to the next with a positive attitude. But the reality is that they had virtually nothing. They often didn’t have running water in their homes. They didn’t have any capacity to deal with sickness — or a healthcare system to rely on. They had what they needed to survive that day and hopefully the next, but that was it. That was all they could afford, yet somehow someone had created a successful video business.

That was the profound learning I was struggling to articulate as I told and retold the story of my experience. These people had so little. And they were so thoughtful about what they spent it on. Their expenses were rightfully reserved for the basic human needs and nothing else: food, shelter, clothing and VHS tapes. Wait… VHS tapes?!

Yes, VHS tapes. Food, shelter and clothing keep us alive, but they are insufficient to “live” — in the romantic sense of that word. We live for the purpose of creating. And we create to share our experiences and pass the moments that make living, even in the slums of Bangalore, truly a gift.

The way I see it, I went to the slums of Bangalore to learn about poverty and expected to better understand ways to combat it. But I left with something much deeper — a better understanding of what it means to be human. When people have nothing, their humanity isn’t hidden under a mountain of fashionable clothes, fancy cars, noisy toys or big homes. Their humanity is on display for everyone to see. And if you slow down long enough to listen to a mother and her son they will happily take the time to tell you that every human has a story filled with great moments of joy and great moments of sadness. And that human instinct compels them to find a way to capture those moments — visually and emotionally — in order to pass it on to others. And if you were really open minded, they would go on to tell you that they were not defined as two poor people with outdated video equipment. They were artists helping to bring a voice to those who have none and in doing that bring more joy to the village they call home.

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I’d like to use the “Creative Voices” collection as a way to explore some of the many things I took away from that day. If creative expression is indeed a fundamental part of being human then what does research tell us about its origin? How will content creation change as technology (web, mobile and apps) make creation more accessible? What lasting impact will this change have on society? And what does the “democratization” of creativity mean for future creative professionals?

I hope you join me for this journey; I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share your comments, stories and pointers to other sources I can learn from and share in this collection.