Udai

Udai was started at UCSD by some friends, and we recently set up a chapter at Waterloo. I prepared a document to serve as a basis for initial discussions.

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
-- by Martin Luther King Jr.

“Our vision of India cannot be one that is half California and half Sub-Saharan Africa.”
--- by Amartya Sen.

Udai Mission

Promote awareness about social issues concerning India and other places, and provide a platform to synergize active efforts towards their remediation. Influence people to keep social issues in mind while they follow their respective professional activities and make career choices.

Website: http://udai.org
Udai mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/udai
Waterloo chapter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/udai_waterloo

What we can do

This is just a rough list of various possibilities. Lots that can be done, but we need to start small and gradually expand.

1. Hold regular discussion meetings where we discuss books and articles about issues and current developments in India. Status of infrastructure sectors like transport, energy, communication, education, sanitation, and health care. Projects underway for poverty alleviation through rural employment and empowerment. Disaster relief efforts. Scope for social entrepreneurism. Political policies. And much more…

2. Get in touch with grass-root organizations working in India for additional insight about the problems they face. Make a point to visit at least one such organization during each trip to India.

3. Publish these thoughts and information for increasing awareness among the people. Wiki, Blog. Flyers. Posters. Journals, Conferences. Magazines.

4. Promote new ideas. Interesting business models for new projects. New applications of technology. Leverage the local presence of grass-root organizations to push out these ideas.

5. Influence academic research to have a more rural/social development focus. Encourage academicians to float projects at the graduate and undergraduate levels, focused towards technological innovations for social development. Solve specific problems faced by local organizations in India.

6. Assemble content for distribution to graduate, undergraduate, and high-school students to make them aware of impending social issues.

7. Organize seminars and panel discussions by eminent personalities and thinkers.

8. Organize cultural activities to serve as a platform to bring about more awareness.

9. Help grass-root organizations. Give them additional exposure with help in the design of websites and promotions through flyers or other publications. This will prove extremely beneficial for the organizations in the long run. Organize fund raising activities. Arrange donations for them in cash and kind by getting in touch with other related organizations. Give useful information and suggestions that can improve the functioning of these organizations.

10. And keep thinking…

Project ideas

Here is just some random stuff thrown in together, more to serve as a representative set of ideas that are very much possible to work on.

1. Technology

a. Enable technology transfer: Most cooking in rural India is done using kerosene stoves or bio-fuel. Common problems include fuel leakage, unhealthy smoke in indoor cooking, partially burnt fuel, and broken stove pins. Some organizations promote research in fuel-efficient stove design, and have been successful in reducing fuel consumption to almost half. Such technological innovations can be pushed out to organizations in India that promote rural technological innovations.

b. Create new systems: Most of the rural Internet and computer kiosks are dysfunctional because of computers that are infected or have crashed OSes. Simple network-booting systems can be created to make a machine restart from clean state whenever it dies. Edubuntu already supports this, but there is scope for development of new tools in Windows that can do a clean installation of Google Pack on different machines.

2. Education

a. Bring awareness about new methods: A lot of research has been done in evolving better models for classroom teaching and computer based pedagogical adaptations, like the use of games, pattern recognition, and speech recognition. However, most of this has not touched NGOs that support schools for slum children and villages. Such NGOs can be promoted here to help them buy discounted systems from companies, or acquire used books and teaching aids like Lego/Mechano sets from schools, or educational content developers in India can be encouraged to make equivalent local language based systems.

3. Economics

a. Propose new ideas: Traditional arts and crafts from India like pottery, statuettes, paper-mache, embroidery, mats, and chikan-work, are very popular in North America and other places. Some organizations try to promote this globally in a non-profit manner by investing all their profits into the development of schools and other socially relevant projects. However, their marketing outreach is very limited. What is the best way to improve this, so that the benefits can directly go back to the people? Help create an online store for them? Or help them piggy-back on various sales and supply chains that already exist around the world? Or promote fresh ventures based on the ideas of shared ownership of the venture by artisans and craftsmen, much like the Gujarat Milk Cooperative? Social entrepreneurism needs to meet globalization.

4. Analysis reports

a. Reflections: Disaster relief was fast to come for the tsunami in S. E. Asia and the earthquake in Kashmir, but most of the efforts were unfocussed and not integrated with each other. New boats were given to the fishermen, but ice factories for cold storage of the produce were not redone. Schools were reopened, but clogged ports were not cleaned up for better hygiene and sanitation. Food supplies were dropped off in the mountainous terrains, but tarpaulins and clothing were not supplied to protect the survivors from the harsh winter. What can we learn from this so that the same mistakes are not repeated?

b. Survey: There are almost 250,000 NGOs in India! They are all doing great work, but if these small initiatives can be tied in together into a bigger whole, then even greater impacts can be made. In agriculture, shared ownership of mechanical tools for oil-seed crushers and chaff separators can be promoted through micro-finance organizations, to bring post-harvest processing closer to the source. Rural Internet kiosks can be used not just for e-governance and education, but also to create community centers and hold promotional events like awareness on hygiene and sanitation, movies, and cultural events. A survey of different NGOs will bring out new ideas on how their activities can be tied in together.

c. Politics: Growth surely and steadily takes place continuously in a democratic society, but selfish political measures tend to slow down the development process. Is the government taking proper and adequate steps for the eradication of poverty through the Bharat Nirman program? Is sufficient focus being placed on alternative sources of energy? What kinds of educational and labor reforms are needed to have the outsourcing industry grow even faster? What needs to be done to promote rural employment and small-scale industries?

5. Events

a. Promotional activities: Like-minded people are surely around, and promoting the activities of Udai at conferences like IDSC can bring them all together.

b. Bring awareness: Indian dances are very popular. Organization of charity concerts can help in not just fund raising, but also in bringing awareness to the people. It will be even more wonderful if the dances themselves can be choreographed to project the ills of global warming, and the benefits of school education.

What new initiatives do I see Udai getting into

- Understand: Develop contacts with grassroot organizations like Dhriiti, Sristi, and Aavishkaar, and use them to get in touch with social entrepreneurs and NGOs to understand their problems and working conditions better.

- Tell: Make posters and flyers about developed India, developing India, and under-developed India, along with information about different organizations working in these areas. Showcase these promotional activities at conferences, concerts, and other public events held at the University.

- Help: Leverage our presence and awareness we create to help local NGOs like schools and health organizations by collecting useful donations in cash and kind, and send them to the NGOs.

- Promote: Make the research community aware of the technological problems faced by NGOs, and encourage them to do socially relevant research. Also, transfer knowledge of useful research to the NGOs.

- Analyze: Review the business and working models of NGOs, and do a cost-benefit analysis to improve their functioning. Suggest synergies between different NGOs.

All of us are quite confident that we will be able to make a big difference through Udai.