Social Entrepreneurism

Gram-Vaani is a winner in the prestigious Knight News Challenge!

2008-05-21T00:26:00.003-04:00

Our proposal to enable media services in rural areas of India by using community-radio has been accepted for funding in the Knight News Challenge! This is great news for me and my team. The project is called Gram-Vaani, standing for voice-of-the-village. Do take a look at the website and give your feedback. We are also looking for a lot of volunteer help to get us started -- so, do take a look at the volunteer openings.

Rising inflation in India

2008-04-09T16:26:00.000-04:00

7% inflation, riding on the back on rising food prices, is of grave concern. Not only can it lead to social instability, it is quite inhumane that the poor are finding it more and more difficult to feed themselves. It is very frustrating to see that such smart economists like we have in the cabinet, resort to populist measures and stupid policies, rather than tackle the core problems of agriculture in India -- irrigation, power, education, transportation, commodity exchange points, etc. I am a firm believer that scientifically formulated policies that solve these problems will gain the respect and votes of people, rather than short term populist measures which are easily forgotten.

National rural employment guarantee act, India

2008-03-11T02:05:00.002-04:00

Niraj gave an SJC today on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India. The slides are available at: http://floatingsun.net/udai/files/SJC_NREGA.pdf

As is common with almost any other government scheme, NREGA has produced mixed results. The usual story: 101 different ways in which corruption happens, local needs are not understood, poor execution because the government staff is not adequately trained, etc, etc. All is not dark though, it does work in a few cases. And implementations are in progress using smart card based accounting systems to prevent corruption.

However, the very premise of this scheme is under doubt. There are already government programs for building roads, improving watersheds, etc. And NREGA is funding very similar activities. Therefore, either NREGA is just a different name for these programs, or it is giving more funds to these programs. Essentially, it is not doing anything really different, and it is not trying to solve the major problems of corruption and bad planning with which all government programs suffer. Instead, it complicates program management by adding an extra parameter of giving job cards to people to guarantee 100 days of employment per year.

All of this sounds pretty much like a broken record. Bad policies, bad management, missing channels of accountability, inadequate transparency, ignorant people who do not question authority...

This somehow brought our discussion to a very abstract level of what an ideal governance structure should look like. In general, systems decentralized politically and administratively all the way to the Panchayats, with transparency in their functioning, would work much better. Decentralization has however been very slow to come about. There is clearly an incentive against decentralization because those in power do not want to let it go. This recent article from The Economist talks about it quite well:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10804248

In the next month of so, we are planning to study some papers about governance structure, and how it influences the success of development/ welfare programs. If you know of some good resources, hopefully those that go beyond anecdotal examples, then please let us know.

The limits of leapfrogging

2008-02-09T00:28:00.000-05:00

A very insightful article from The Economist about why only a few new technologies are able to diffuse in developing countries. New technologies not only rely on the existence of appropriate infrastructure and prior technologies, but also on the ability of people to "absorb" the technology.

This can help explain the mixed success of ICTs, especially kiosks, in rural areas. For example, one of the most successful example of ICT is that of the ITC e-Choupals, which succeeded not only because ITC provided VSAT connections in villages to get real-time mandi prices, but also because the infrastructure for commodity exchange points was set up in the villages. This is missing in other projects such as the e-marketplace being pushed by aAqua. Selling wheat or cows or goats online is not that simple, because an entire team of field staff is required to ensure that the transactions are actually carried out in practice, and appropriate infrastructure needs to be available so that these commodities can be shipped across.

Related World Bank report.

And the one single figure that captures the essence of the arguments.

Social stability index

2008-01-22T10:58:00.000-05:00

I've been toying with the possibility of having a social stability index, and how it could impact economics. Let me explain.

The market -- stock/ commodities/ futures etc -- is essentially a mechanism for price discovery that relies on the wisdom of the traders to find the right price: the right price for wheat, for oil, for Google's share price, etc. The philosophy is that given access to complete information, the traders will rationally compute these prices. The prices then actually pave the path to progress, that is Indian wheat better than wheat from Kazakhasthan, or is Google better than Yahoo, etc. This is how I understand it.

Now, there are a couple of problems in accurate price discovery. This fact cannot be argued against because of overwhelming evidence. The sudden food price inflation is a supreme example -- had the price rise been gradual, it would have been much easier for the poor to cope with it. Human induced climate change is another example -- had the markets listened to the arguments of scientists 50 years ago, they could have induced heavier investments in research for renewable energy or carbon efficient car design etc. The problem I am trying to identify is the robustness of the path discovered by the markets. Evidence such as the sudden food price inflation and climate change show that the path computed by the markets is not robust.

So, why does this happen? My thinking is that robustness is not taken into account by the traders in the market. They should because if they do then they will not make such big mistakes. But maybe they are computationally starved to take such complex environmental and social stability factors into account. So, how can that be changed?

This is where the idea of a social stability index comes up. If we can devise an index using market mechanisms that is somewhat predictive of the social stability of society, then we can make it easier for stock / commodity / futures traders to take this information into account. The CPI (Consumer Price Inflation) index is one such example -- a high CPI signifies social instability, and an unstable society is never good for economics. So, suppose we allow traders to speculate on the CPI, and assuming that these speculators will be smart enough to predict CPI accurately, then their activities will have an effect on the market traders to invest more appropriately.

I think other indexes can also be designed by looking into research in sociology of societies and civilizations. Jared Diamond's book, Guns Germs and Steel, is a good example of an effort in this direction. He wants to look at societal progress in isolated cultures as experiments that tell us something about human behavior and progress on a macro scale of civilizations. Cues from research such as his could be used to design indexes that could be predictive of social stability, I think, and utilizing the wisdom of the crowds through market mechanisms to predict this index for different cities, states, countries, and the world in general, could serve as a source of guiding information for other traders that define economic investments on how the humans move forward as a society.

Any thoughts on this would be most appreciated.

Open source speech recognition

2008-01-19T12:11:00.001-05:00

An open source speech-recognition and text-to-speech software suite was recently released. This is clearly useful for disabled people, but it can also be put to good use in rural areas having high illiteracy. For example, microfinance transactions can be automatically recorded and verified by having people speak into a mobile device, or maybe even into a simple taperecorder that can be replayed and digitized later. A similar system can be used to record payments made in rural employment schemes, where much corruption happens because proper documentation is not maintained in electronic form so that it can be easily checked for discrepancies. Rural banking institutions are trying to do something similar, but it'll be great to have an open-source solution to all this.

Carnegie libraries

2008-01-18T12:08:00.000-05:00

Such an amazing story, and I got to know about it only today when I was talking with Prof. Manuela Veloso, a robotics researcher from CMU! The rise from rags to riches of Andrew Carnegie is one of those stories that sound just too mythical to be true. He worked his way from working fulltime as a kid of 12 to support himself, all the way up to creating an industrial empire worth $400 million in the 19th century. And then he gave away almost all his wealth to the creation of over 2,000 libraries across USA, Canada, Australia, and many European countries. He strongly believed in meritocracy, and that if people had access to books and education, and if they were willing, then they could be successful. These ideals clearly resonate with many things. The children's library that Bakul has set up in Orissa, and the establishment of rural kiosks to provide information services to villagers, are two activities that are based on the same principles. Some more comments in the article are interesting. For example, a person who has access to education, and yet he prefers not to make use of it, essentially settles himself down for a lower status in society. Capitalism is also legitimized by saying that those are capable of leading, should be in positions of leadership, but they should eventually give back to society what they have earned, and that everybody should have an equal opportunity of training themselves to get into leadership positions.

Health and education in India

2008-01-17T11:18:00.000-05:00

These two excellent articles point out the woes of healthcare and education in India: A healthier future for India, and Education push yield's little for India's poor.

India has only 1.5 hospital beds per 1000 people, which is way lower than averages of 3-4 in most other developing countries. And only 0.6 doctors and 0.08 nurses per 1000 people, as compared to world averages of 1.2 and 2.6 respectively.

As for education, among the poorest 20 percent of Indian men, half are illiterate, and barely 2 percent graduate from high school, according to government data. Those who do go to school, hardly learn anything because of teacher absenteeism or poor quality of education. By contrast, among the richest 20 percent of Indian men, nearly half are high school graduates and only 2 percent are illiterate.

These figures are indeed disheartening. It is not only humanely wrong, but it is also hurting India economically. Most than 50% of the population is below 24, which means a terrible wastage of human resource if they are not well educated and healthy. How can this be corrected? The government is of course spending a lot of money on building hospitals and schools, and paying doctors and teachers to work in the villages. But the results have not been great. Corruption is surely to blame, but a lack of good leadership both at the government as well as at the local level, seem to be missing too. Corruption can potentially be corrected with electronic systems, social audits, RTIs, and the whole lot. But what about leadership? Given the largely mediocre civil services sector and the [cannot-find-a-single-adjective-for-this] politicians who are in no way capable of governing a nation of billion people, can we ever expect things to become good? This raises a lot of questions on the assumptions. Why is health and education supposed to be a public sector enterprise anyways? Is there a substitute for leadership, maybe better work ethics on part of the teachers or doctors or other concerned people? Can systems be structured such that they automatically promote better conduct and commitment to jobs? The answers may not be straightforward, but they may definitely be there somewhere only waiting to be discovered.

Animal power

2008-01-17T11:13:00.001-05:00

I made a presentation in the Udai meeting about animal power. Draught animals such as horses, camels, oxen, and donkeys have been used since many centuries for transportation and farming. I will give examples of some non-conventional uses of animal power for tasks such as grain grinding and wood sawing, which are rarely seen today. Instead, there seems to be a tendency to rely on fossil-fuel or electricity powered equipment for these tasks, or else solely on manual labour. However, animal powered systems are a viable alternative, and probably a more appropriate technology for certain rural areas. We discussed how animal power can be popularized and made more efficient, and various issues that can come up in its usage. The bottomline is that to popularize animal power, the technology must be commercialized and the local people must be trained in the principles behind the technologies so that they can customize it for their needs.

Inside Dharavi

2007-12-27T00:57:00.000-05:00

The article presents a very vivid description of daily life in Dharavi. These stark realities of individual people about poverty and hardship and that fire for survival normally get lost in statistics and we hardly think about them. But they hit you hard in the face, especially when seen against the backdrop of a glittering display of affluence by the newly rich in India.

Rural banking

2007-12-27T00:56:00.000-05:00

The Indian banks plan to use many innovative solutions to expand their footprint into the rural areas. Smartcard and biometric based authentication, and voice driven transactions, will be used to cater to the largely illiterate rural population. The actual exchange of cash will probably be through mobile ATMs at kiosks, or by a bank official who will make periodic trips into rural areas. Access to banking facilities will make it easier for the poor to build savings and a good credit history to help them tide over domestic financial downturns.

Adaptation to climate change

2007-12-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

Much activity with regard to climate change is targeted towards the long term, to achieve energy efficiency, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, etc. But in the short term -- maybe within the next two decades itself -- there are likely to be considerable adverse impacts of climate change because of the rising sea levels, river flooding, and changes in rainfall patterns. The people who will face the greatest challenges to adapt to the changing conditions during this time, will be the poor people in developing countries. However, no government is looking at comprehensive adaptation strategies for this purpose, such as creating relief funds and weather insurance policies. Without such programs, the poor will face increasingly challenging times, and so much funds spent on healthcare and education and housing could just go waste.

Ocean reforestation to counter global warming

2007-12-06T22:36:00.000-05:00

Here's a very interesting project whose outcome could change the world! More than 20 tons of iron dust has been dumped into the water near the Galapagos Islands. The idea is to revive the ocean plankton that absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then sink down into the depths of the ocean. Apart from the technical aspects, it is probably also an example of social entrepreneurship -- making profit by selling carbon credits. But there is also huge skepticism that this could have adverse effects on other ecological processes in the ocean, because so little is understood right now. The project has similarities with thoughts by Freeman Dyson, where he talks about the regeneration of biomass on land to reduce carbon dioxide.

Effective social entrepreneurship

2007-12-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

Given the huge amount of interest in social entrepreneurship and non-profit activities these days, we still hear of only a few success stories. The evidence of huge social change is absent, despite the big hype about working for "social good". This article talks about 6 keys to the success of such activities:
1. Advocacy for political change
2. Make markets work in sectors where they are buggy
3. Inspire and coordinate volunteers for effective work
4. Work together with other non-profits
5. Learn to adapt to changes and correct assumptions
6. Share leadership across different organizations.

The economic lives of the poor

2007-11-10T17:27:00.000-05:00

I came across this paper recently. It makes some interesting points about the daily lives of the poor in a number of countries, including India. Although not altogether surprising if you sit back and reflect on their observations, this kind of a quantitative study based on household surveys could be very useful for policy formulation. Well worth a read. Some points they make:

- The poor generally hold multiple occupations during different times. For example, during the morning, some women sell dosas, but later they do some rag-picking or daily-wage labour work. Similarly, many men work on their fields during the farming season, but otherwise they often temporarily migrate to the cities or construction sites in search of work. This generally indicates a lack of specialization in any one single profession, which makes it harder for them to find a job. This hurts their earning abilities in the long term. This also probably explains why many of the poor are "entrepreneurs", because they find it much easier to hawk vegetables and other goods than to actually find a well-paying job. One reason that can explain this lack of specialization is that the poor are unable to raise sufficient capital to run a business that would fully occupy them. So, for example, farmers may be unable to use sophisticated technologies to extend their farming season. Or, the women may be unable to convert their individual dosa businesses into a more formal and higher paying outlet.

- Most of the poor rely on informal sources of credit, which tends to much more expensive. The high interest rates seem to occur not because of high rates of default, but because of the problems in enforcement of contracts. The moneylenders or shopkeepers who give credit, have to spend much time keeping track of the expenses and making sure that the people pay back. Instead, formal sources of credit such as from self-help-groups generally help cultivate a discipline for saving and spending money, and also provide lower interest rates.

- An increase in income of the poor is not always followed by an increase in their food expenditure. Instead, they spend significant portions of their income on alcohol, tobacco, entertainment, and festivals. This is probably because they do not make the association between healthier eating and higher productivity, and also because entertainment helps them relax from the daily financial and psychological stress they undergo in search of employment. However, the penetration of television is still quite low, because it is a bulky investment and requires a consistent commitment to saving. This is probably evidence that the poor find it difficult to save money in the absence of any banking institutions or saving-groups because they tend to succumb to temptation much before they can save enough money, and also because keeping cash in boxes or under the pillow is not really secure.

In light of this study, the Pradan approach to self-help-groups seems ideal. They not only help organize the poor into groups, but they also train and educate them in how to save and spend their money. The Internal Learning System of having the women maintain dairies of their saving and expenditure also helps the Pradan volunteers to teach the women how to manage their household budgets more efficiently.

Other things that the paper highlights is that poor land-record management actually prevents farmers from combining their individual small land-holdings into larger and more productive pieces of land. And the poor quality of public education impacts their commitment to sending their children to school. Similarly, the poor quality of public healthcare actually increases their expenses because they either have to go to private practitioners, or bear with ineffective and improper treatment.

Some Ashoka Fellows from India working on ICT for development

2007-11-04T23:26:00.000-05:00

A friend from Ashoka in India suggested the following Fellows as invitees to a conference on the use of ICT for development. I thought that I might as well post the information here. There are some ideas on ICTD projects as well.

Rabindranath, Assam: Link

Organization: Rural Volunteer Center -- Civil society model that helps people cope with frequent floods in the Bhramaputra.

Comments: Will bring insights about the problems faced by rural populations during flood season, and possible solutions. For example, what kind of rapidly-installable community radio stations and receivers be helpful to coordinate large groups of people during sudden flood situations?

Rahul Banerjee, Indore (MP): Link

Organization: Aarohi Trust -- Community building among tribals by reinforcing the local language and culture. Adopts different approaches, including community radio on the ICT side, along with written literature for books and magazines.

Comments: This is a very grassroots initiative. Will bring insights about the actual cultural processes in remote and marginalized communities, and how ICT interventions should take these factors into account.

Dipendra Manocha, Delhi: Link-1, Link-2

Organization: DAISY consortium: Develops standards and hardware/software for converting/synchronizing text and braille content into audio for visually impaired people.

Comments: Dipendra represents the DAISY consortium in India. He works on content creation in local languages, and development of a low-cost player. The work sounds very interesting from a research perspective, of coupling braille print with accompanying audio content.

Shanti Raghavan, Bangalore: Link

Organization: Enable India -- Trains physically disabled and visually impaired people in computer skills, and place them in jobs with IT companies.

Comments: They currently use commercial software for screen reading, which is quite expensive, and apparently very annoying to use for some applications. Will bring insights about various usability requirements for the blind, which could lead to interesting ideas for alternative techniques.

Pratima Joshi, Pune: Link

Organization: Shelter Associates -- Uses GIS to plot and query household data about slum dwellers for more efficient slum planning and development. Data is collected through surveys done by local slum dwellers.

Comments: They have much use for automation of data collection activities using OMR/ILR techniques, or by using PDAs. They may also help explain the exact use-case for a GIS interface on mobile devices.

Solomon Jayaprakash, Bangalore: Link-1, Link-2

Organization: LabourNet assists workers in the informal economy to search for employment in areas such as plumbing, tile-layering, painting, building construction, etc. A parallel program, Maya Organics, helps organize the informal artisan network into worker cooperatives for manufacture of toys, wooden furniture, garments, etc. LabourNet seems to be a reasonably sophisticated IT enabled initiative.

Comments: It will be interesting to know what kind of identity-verification and user-interface issues they run into, when working with people having poor educational backgrounds.

Rajiv Khandelwal, Udaipur: Link

Organization: Aajeevika Bureau -- Assists rural migrants to develop skills and find jobs in cities. Also maintains databases of migrant workers, which helps study migration patterns.

Comments: Will help gain knowledge of how they maintain photo-id cards of people, and what problems they face.

Lisa Heydlauff: Link-1, Link-2

Organization: Going to School -- Develops videos about how children in different parts of India go to school, and their diverse experiences and ambitions. Brings respect among kids for the diversity and vastness of Indian cultures.

Comments: Could be very interesting for other researchers working on education.

World Bank to give $944 mn loan to India

2007-11-04T23:24:00.000-05:00

"The World Bank has agreed to sanction a loan of $944 million to India for strengthening rural finance system, vocational training programs and community-based water management projects."

Apparently, the WB lendings to India go up to almost $3 billion per year.

But is this something India really needs? People argue that it only complicates forex management for India because India does not need $ loans to finance local development activities. On the other hand, local Indian banks have always been skeptical of funding pro-poor programs, and the WB probably fills in the gap. What is more interesting is that the central government often lends money borrowed from the WB at higher rates of interest to local companies! Not sure if this really does any good to the Indian economy though. And apparently, the WB likes to lend to India because India is more creditworthy than Africa, and hence needed by the WB for its own survival.

To a suspicious mind, it all seems to be part of a big money generating scheme by the rich countries, in which the rest of the world is pulled into out of no choice of their own. And ironically, it is termed as pursuing a "liberal" agenda out of respect for individual freedom! How words and meanings get contorted over the years...

On Policies and Paradigms

2007-10-08T11:38:00.000-04:00

I have often come out immensely frustrated after discussions about Left Vs Right, globalization Vs localization, "Small is Beautiful" Vs "Big is Useful", etc, as I am sure you must have often also felt. Much of the frustration stems from the fact that we tend to confuse between various issues, or analyze in terms of symptoms instead of causes, or overly generalize and simplify matters. This short writeup is meant to put some structure to this debate, which at least I have found to be useful when thinking or discussing about such hotly debatable topics. My goal in writing about it is to help me state my thoughts clearly, and not to advocate any particular approach when having discussions.

Let us consider the topic of globalization Vs localization. Globalization refers to the current trend of increased trade linkages across the world, which is claimed to lead to lower prices of goods and services for all. Localization refers to pretty much the opposite argument where stress is placed on local production and consumption of goods. The definitions can of course be expanded, depending upon the context of the discussion. For example, globalization can be equated with free market economics that relies on the "intelligence" of the market to place a correct price on the conversion of raw material and natural resources to value added goods and services. Localization can be considered as a more "humane" economic system where resources are considered as commons, and nobody consumes more than what they need, thus leading to an adequate supply of resources at a fair price for everybody.

The important point is to realize that whatever be the definitions depending upon the context of the discussion, we are talking about two different paradigms here, that is, globalization and localization. Each paradigm has its own set of assumptions, risks, and objectives, which cannot be equated. I am referring here to Kuhn's theory on the structure of scientific revolutions, where he suggests that rival paradigms are incommensurable, that is, "it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm".

To explain this further, the paradigm which justifies globalization, henceforth referred to as the globalization paradigm, assumes that the value-addition process of converting raw material to finished goods can be given the correct price. Relocation of different parts of the process to places which do it most efficiently will lead to lower prices of the finished good. This can happen if there is fair competition in the market, and complete information is freely available to all the agents in the market. Now, if any of these assumptions are violated, which they are, then the objective of operating in this paradigm are not met. Similarly, the localization paradigm has its own set of assumptions. The local governance systems will ensure that the commons are not used unfairly. Local economics will interact with each other through a self-organized process, and exchange goods and services which they cannot locally produce. Sufficient thought will be placed in the value-addition process so that labor is rewarded according to its worth. These are also very strong assumptions, and you will quickly realize that neither of these paradigms can be considered as an absolute truth, and more importantly, cannot be compared to each other in a scientific manner because the objectives are different.

Note that objectives of either paradigm can also be to influence factors which encourage people to operate within that paradigm, that is, paradigms themselves can be selfish and meant to reinforce themselves. Thus, an objective of the globalization paradigm can be to influence governments to embrace globalization, which is actually what globalization tries to do through trade organizations and other mechanisms! Localization is no different.

So, given that these are two opposing paradigms, let us see how we can understand the rationality of actions such as policy decisions made by governments, or democratic protests that take place against these policies, etc. But before going on, consider the word rationality used above. Rationality is itself specific to a paradigm, because actions considered rational within a paradigm might be irrational in the other paradigm. When we cannot compare the two paradigms with each other, we cannot evaluate the "rationality" of an action in some absolute sense. This is exactly my point, that we can argue about the rationality of an action only within a particular paradigm, globalization or localization in this case. I believe that it is important to agree upon a common paradigm when having a discussion, or at least to have the realization that there are opposing incommensurate paradigms.

Therefore, at this point, it is better to direct the discussion along one of two different directions. Either change the topic of discussion to first focus on finding common parameters based on which the different paradigms can be compared, if at all. Once there is consensus, analyze the action in both the paradigms. Note that by finding common parameters, there is a huge risk of mis-interpretation. You might have invented your own new paradigm in doing so! But any how, at least the discussion will not be as frustrating as when both parties cannot even agree upon common parameters for comparison, and only cause a mutually irritating cacophony of heated arguments. Alternatively, select a particular paradigm, preferably the one in which the world is operating, and analyze the action in that paradigm.

Taking this alternative route, whatever paradigm is selected, the actions such as government policies can be analyzed on two metrics: intra-paradigm effects and extra-paradigm effects. Intra-paradigm effects are those that influence the assumptions or operational factors to meet the objectives within the selected paradigm. Extra-paradigm effects alter variables to move towards the objectives of the opposing paradigm. Let us talk about two characteristics of intra- and extra-paradigm effects: robustness and efficiency. Robustness refers to the state of stability produced by the action -- does it lead to a more or less stable state of the system. For example, free-trade agreements that caused a drop in international cotton-prices resulted in anti-globalization protests, leading to a less stable state. Efficiency of an action refers to how well it meets the objectives of the paradigm. Thus, free-trade agreements which reduced the prices were an efficient action. Typically paradigms have an objective of reinforcing themselves and opposing other rival paradigms; therefore, actions that produce more extra-paradigm effects can be considered to be less robust, and actions that produce more intra-paradigm effects can be considered to be more efficient within the paradigm under consideration.

The rationality of an action can thus be justified on how efficient and robust it is, where efficiency and robustness can be measured based on the intra- and extra-paradigm effects produced by the action. An action can be accompanied by other supplementary actions which can help balance out the efficiency and robustness of the action. For example, incorporation of appropriate insurance policies and commodity futures for poor cotton farmers would have reduced the impact of falling cotton prices on their livelihoods, and led to fewer protests. This supplementary action would have preserved efficiency without compromising robustness. Based on this, I next mention four interesting thoughts which could lead some productive discussions.

1. Actions can some times produce a paradigm shift, that is, the extra-paradigm effects of an action could get so large that it could tip over the entire system into changing its operating paradigm. For example, worldwide anti-globalization protests could tip the governments into adopting a localized paradigm. This would be extremely disruptive however, marked by conflicts and other intermediate highly unstable states. Alternatively, actions could slowly cause a paradigm shift, moving gradually towards the adoption of a new paradigm. For example, if localization or "Small is Beautiful" is considered to be a "better" paradigm in which the world should operate, that is, in some absolute "truthful" sense of leading to a better world, then actions could be chosen to produce minor extra-paradigm shifts while simultaneously producing intra-paradigm shifts so that the action remains acceptable in the current globalization-paradigm. Over time, these actions could aggregate to peacefully and non-violently tip the world into the localization-paradigm though a paradigm shift!

2. Are policies formulated scientifically within a paradigm more rational than policies based on democratic politics? The voting behavior of people in a democracy is actually considered to be highly irrational because of a lack of information and excessive complexity of modern societies, and science could possibly improve the situation. But where should a line be drawn between the relative influence of science or democratic voting on policy formulation, especially when science and democratic voting might be operating in different paradigms? Policies formulated scientifically would in fact depend upon the paradigms in which the scientists are operating, which could be different from the paradigms that the electorate desires.

3. Combining the thoughts on policy science and paradigm shifts, can policies be chosen scientifically to deliberately push the system into a paradigm shift? This would actually amount to hacking the democratic system! Assuming that the localization paradigm is better than the globalization paradigm in some absolute "truthful" sense, is the democratic system capable of choosing the right paradigm in which to operate? Does the voting behavior of largely ignorant people cause intra-paradigm effects or extra-paradigm effects or just a confused muddle of both leading to useless oscillations? I believe it is important to think about this question because it could reveal how and what roads to choose that lead to a better world in an efficient and robust manner.

I would again like to state that my goal in writing this was only to help me state my thoughts clearly, and not to advocate any particular approach when having discussions.

Role of communication technologies in development

2007-09-26T00:38:00.000-04:00

I am sure all of us have heard of great examples of how communication technologies have spurred rural development, as what this report shows too. People finds all sorts of innovative ways on how to put technology to good use, and if they are convinced that the technologies can indeed benefit them, they will come up with the coolest of ideas to gain access to the technology.

But then again, is communication really as important as proper health-care, or education, or providing employment? A lot of my own work is related to the use of ICT for rural development, and I have been asked this question many many times. This Economist article takes a very realistic, though one-sided, view: What use is communication to a poor person who doesn't even have food to eat? Or, a sick person who can't go to a doctor? People like me argue back that communication provides crucial information flows that these poor or sick people can use. The poor person can probably gain access to microfinance through organizations like Kiva. The sick person can probably get some medical advice through telemedicine. The critics argue back that the poor don't have money to pay for such communication services, or that they are illiterate and cannot use them. Diverting public funds to rural communication is hence a waste of money, and the governments should instead invest in other infrastructural services. We again argue back that communication is also needed because it can improve the efficiencies of various other development activities -- lower corruption, provide information, etc. And the debate goes back and forth each time...

I am any how strongly convinced that communication is important and it provides a strong positive feedback to improve various local developmental and professional activities. The sad part though is that implementation is always harder than philosophizing and leaves so much ground uncovered. For example, telecentres or rural Internet kiosks are being set up extensively in rural areas to provide Internet services to the people, but the most common purpose to which they are put is for electricity bill collection (personal experience) because it saves the people bus-fare and a day's travel to the city! And this is not surprising, because the kiosk operators are hardly knowledgeable themselves to be able to help educate the local people about various other possibilities. There are of course many other problems as well, but this always throws back the same questions in our faces of what are good ways to intervene in a system so that the interventions actually live up to their potential? Where does technology stop and where does execution begin?

I think these are important questions to answer for any interventionist activity or government policy, because their success or failure depends on so many contextual factors. On the other hand, the market-driven cellphone revolution probably reinforces Adam Smith's invisible-hand theory to leave everything to the free-market and reduce the government's role merely to that of a facilitator. But this has its own set of challenges and biases which makes it equally hard to understand. It's a difficult question to answer, and something I've been struggling with for a long time.

Dam realities

2007-09-15T09:58:00.000-04:00

Much of the dams in India seem to be heavily mis-managed. The 2006 floods in Gujarat were mostly man-made: water was not released in time, and later when there was danger of the entire structure suffering damage, almost 30 times the regular amount was released. The result: a hundred people dead, and losses of over 21,000 crores.

But as this article shows, the negligence continues. Water is released or stopped without any prior notice. The farmers have to move their pumps closer to the river when the water levels go down, and later when the water is released, they find their pumps under several feet of water. Worse is when lives are lost, which could have easily avoided by being more responsible and having appropriate technology and systems in place.

If the authorities cannot manage dams at this scale, why do they even talk about massive projects such as the river-interlinking project. It just scares me to think of the complications there, which simply dwarf the complexities of the management of dams today.

Shame the corrupt with Rs. 0

2007-09-13T07:57:00.000-04:00

Very low-cost Internet access in rural areas using KioskNet

2007-09-12T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is an article I wrote for Saatva:

Rural areas in developing countries are deprived of access to information. This is because it is often economically unviable to provide telecommunication services in remote villages; or even if the infrastructure is available, high cost of usage and illiteracy among the villagers reduce the abilities of the poorest sections of society to take advantage of the modern communication systems. A solution that has proved effective in recent years is that of setting up rural Internet kiosks (also known as telecenters) in the villages. A typical kiosk houses a few computers having Internet connectivity, and is operated by staff recruited from among the local community members. Sharing of the kiosk infrastructure among many people effectively reduces its cost for the people. And the kiosk staff members who are trained in basic computer skills are able to serve as an intermediary to help even illiterate people find useful information on the Internet. Kiosks can also be made economically sustainable by charging a small fee from the people using them.

There are now literally thousands of telecenters across Africa, Latin America, and even in India. In fact, the Government of India is supporting a programme called Mission 2007, with the goal of setting up a kiosk in each of the 600,000 villages of India. Stories abound of how very useful medical and agricultural information distributed through such kiosks has helped hundreds of people to adopt healthier lifestyles and improve farmland productivity. Access to the most recent weather forecasts and crop procurement prices in nearby markets has given even further control to the farmers to make better decisions for crop harvesting and sales. Even other programmes such as watershed development, microfinance, and rural electrification have received a boost from hearing and learning about similar activities pursued in different parts of the world. Yet another useful application supported by many telecenters is that of e-government services, such as automation of land records, and requests for birth, marriage, and income certificates. It is hard to deny the tremendous advantages of kiosks to provide information in rural areas.

However, kiosks face many practical problems. Due to limited electrical power, pervasive dust, mechanical wear-and-tear, and computer viruses, kiosk computers often fail, requiring frequent (and expensive) repairs. Similarly, network connectivity is often lost due to failures in the communication system. Dial-up are cellular-data connections are very slow and flaky. Satellite terminals are expensive, and have large power requirements to operate. Other solutions such as long-distance wireless links require expensive and sturdy towers because the antennas often lose alignment with each other in strong winds. Faced with high costs and unreliable service delivery, customers quickly lose interest, and kiosk deployments often become unsustainable in the long term.

Our research group has built the KioskNet system by approaching these problems from a holistic standpoint. KioskNet attempts to make a kiosk more robust without increasing its cost. It uses a low-cost and low-power single-board-computer as a kiosk controller at each kiosk. This runs from a car battery charged using solar power, to ensure 24 hours of up-time. The controller provides a network file-system for PCs running at the kiosk. These PCs are typically recycled PCs, and do not need a hard-disk; they boot from the kiosk controller itself. Kiosk controllers are reasonably tamper-proof so they offer reliable virus-free boot images and binaries. Since we do not use the PC’s hard disk, it avoids hard disk failures and disk-resident viruses. Moreover, recycled PCs are cheap and spare parts are widely available.

The controller can communicate wirelessly with another single-board computer mounted on a vehicle, powered from the battery of the vehicle itself. These vehicles may belong to government officers who regularly visit the villages, or taxi owners who operate in the area, or transportation providers who carry goods and groceries back and forth between villages and cities. The computers on the vehicles automatically pick-up or drop-off data wirelessly at the kiosks, and carry it to and from an Internet gateway typically in a city. Even during a few seconds of connectivity while a vehicle simply drives a past or gateway, almost 100MB of data can be exchanged. This ‘mechanical backhaul’ avoids the cost of trenches, towers, and satellite dishes, allowing Internet access even in remote areas, though at the cost of increased end-to-end delay. In areas where dial-up, long-range wireless or cellular phone service is available, the kiosk controller can be configured to use these communication links in conjunction with mechanical backhaul.

We did a successful pilot deployment of the KioskNet system in May 2006 at a kiosk in the Anandpuram village of the Vishakapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh. Some pictures from the deployment are shown in Fig. 1. We plan to do a bigger deployment soon to verify many of our assumptions and observe the system carefully. Please let us know if you are interested to use or experiment with KioskNet. More information, including links to papers, technical details, and cost estimates can be found on our website:
http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/tetherless/index.php/KioskNet

The persistence of underdevelopment: Raghuram Rajan

2007-09-09T23:22:00.000-04:00

Although I haven't been able to completely read or understand this paper, some parts of it sound really interesting. Raghuram Rajan is director of research at IMF, and has proposed an explanation of why countries like India and Mexico, which are "vibrant democracies", are still plagued with underdevelopment. Why do people choose poverty, is the question under concern!

It assumes that comprehensive reforms, defined as (pro-market reforms) + (education for all), are needed for the collective development of different groups of people. This seems to be justified because without education, the uneducated would not be able to take advantage of the pro-market reforms. And pro-market reforms are in general considered to be good because they promote competition and lead to lower prices for goods and services.

Then it goes on to show that educational reforms might never happen because of the diverse interests of different groups of people. For example, the uneducated people might vote for them, but the educated people would want to preserve their elite status. Or, even if the reforms do get voted through, their success would depend upon factors such as the price of educational services, which are again provided by the educated people.

In the absense of educational reforms, the pro-market reforms would never gain consensus. This is because (a) without education, the uneducated would not be able to take advantage of the opportunities created by pro-market reforms, and (b) pro-market reforms would create additional employment for the educated, which would lead to higher prices for services such as healthcare provided to the uneducated by the educated. Thus, the real wage of the uneducated might actually decrease with pro-market reforms.

The bottomline is that different groups of people want to preserve their current rents, while also trying to expand their opportunities. But opportunity expansion is always good for some and bad for some, and everybody cannot preserve their rents. As a result, the people "may act like crabs in a bucket, willing to pull down any crab that appears to be climbing out, with the active help of the elite oligopolist, who prefers them all to stay in the bucket. The oligopolist may even forego some reforms that could enhance his rents, for fear that they would unify the crabs in the bucket and allow them to overwhelm him."

The general suggestions for policy formulation are not different from what we already know: pro-market reforms should be accompanied with reasonable endowments for education to different groups of people. However, this is easier said than done. What is a "reasonable endowment"? What should be the sequencing of pro-market reforms and endowments for education? How can the government persuade diverse groups of people to follow a coordinated reform process? The last question indeed seems to be the crux of the problem, to persuade uncoordinated masses of uneducated and educated people to think in a coordinated manner. Even the other questions are not answered in a straight-forward manner because economics and its implementation is still a science (?) under development.

Although this is a highly academic paper, I think it provides a framework to understand the complexities of much that is going on in India these days, especially with regard to OBC reservations, SEZ expansions, the Narmada Bachao Andalon, etc. And it shows that it is wrong to analyze these problems from highly simplified viewpoints such as corrupt politics, or manipulative corporations, or "irrational mobs" in a democracy. In fact, they subsume the media, civil services, democratic politics, economics, and what not. An utterly complex world that humans have woven for themselves! Small can indeed be beautiful :)

Ngopost.org

2007-09-05T06:06:00.001-04:00

Members from Udai at San Diego (www.udai.org) have put together a website to post about interesting social development activities around the world. Please register and send in your contributions!

NGO Post is the people's platform for sharing and discussing social welfare ideas and initiatives.

NGO Post is more than the traditional news website or mailing list. More than about news, it is about ideas that facilitate action. And because it is You who bring in the stories and You who decide what gets published, we expect the best, and only the best, to be on our frontpage.

Keep up-to-date with ongoing social developments. Learn how people are making a difference. Get inspired. Share insightful stories. Discuss ideas and solutions. Find information. Connect with people interested in common causes. And Contribute to the projects that need your skills.

All at NGO Post

OpenFM: Open source FM radio station

2007-08-24T00:43:00.000-04:00

Adapted Consulting has recently released an open source FM radio station for community radio in rural areas.

Some very cool features:
- Transmitter costs under $1200, which is one of cheapest transmitters available so far
- Dust, heat, humidity resistant
- Runs from 12V batteries charged by solar power
- Receives stereo input from a computer, which can be a Via ITX box or maybe even a Soekris
- Computer can run mixing and editing software such as Campcaster or Audacity
- Software is also provided for account and bill maintenance at the community radio station, fetching of rss feeds from the Internet, and publication of news feeds.

This is great, but it will be even more wonderful to see FM PCI card transmitters that can run from the Via or Soekris box itself. This should reduce the total cost drastically.

Apparently, these are the same group of people who wrote the book on wireless networking for the developing world. They have an office in Toronto as well.

They also have a solution called Iota PC for rural telecenters that supports basic caching functions for wikipedia, google alerts, email, rss feeds, and website mirroring. And a reporting tool called TeleScope, which generates reports on the hourly usage, connection speeds, websites visited at the telecenter, etc.

A Proposal to Provide Media Services in Rural Areas

2007-07-25T14:42:00.000-04:00

Media services such as television and radio are an important intervention to support and accelerate development programs in rural areas. This proposal explains the crucial role played by media, the current problems with the media in rural areas, and outlines a scalable model to enable media services through a new form of networked community radio stations. The proposal is in three parts: a technical section in which appropriate technologies are suggested that can reduce the capital and operating expenditures for community radio stations; a deployment section in which an operational model is suggested that includes training programs for media personnel, expert advice, financial sustainability, and support and maintenance of the infrastructure; and a research section in which a long-term sociological study is proposed to observe the effects of media and determine the parameters that improve the effectiveness of media services. The media services model proposed here is scalable and easily replicable in other areas. Once verified on a pilot basis, it can be expanded from radio to other forms of media as well.

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~a3seth/cr_proposal.pdf

The Sisyphuses' of Today

2007-05-21T10:43:00.000-04:00

Sisyphus was a Greek king who was made to push a rock up a mountain again and again, only to have it roll back down each time. But he persisted incessantly in this never-ending effort, without despair.

The world today has more people like Sisyphus than ever before. Unlike the original Sisyphus who pushed the rock alone, there are many more Sisyphuses' today and they can together push the rock over the mountain. They can together change the world.

Who are these Sisyphuses' and what do they do? Why do they do what they do, and from where do they draw their inspiration? Is their work of any good? Will they be successful? Should we help them, and if so, then how?

Who are these people?

You just have to look around and you will find them everywhere! There are so many of them now! They are the Mahatama Gandhi's of today, the Mother Teresa's, the Martin Luther King's, the Swami Vivekananda's... All multiplied a thousand times over! They are the people who work with social development organizations for your good -- not for their own, but for the good of others. They are the people who help educate the illiterate, who help the poor fend for themselves, who try to convince the governments to do something about climate change... They are the people who make sure that the municipal corporations responsible for keeping the streets clean, actually keeps them clean. They are the technologists who make technology available to those who don't have it, they are the doctors who provide healthcare to those who can't pay for it, they are the journalists who give voice to the voiceless, they are the social entrepreneurs who relentlessly persist in pursuing their vision to change the world and make it a better place... And there are lots of them now!

What is common among all of them?

All of them have a vision of a better world. They are all working for the good of others to change the world but they face huge challenges, yet they keep on going. They are trying to push the rock up the mountain and it slides back down each time, but they persist in their efforts and do not give up. Mahatama Gandhi was arrested so many times, yet he never resorted to violence and kept up the struggle for Indian independence. Mother Teresa faced many financial difficulties time and again, yet she kept on going and never gave up loving and caring for the sick. Martin Luther King persisted with his struggle for justice and peace and eradication of poverty despite all efforts to silence his views. Swami Vivekananda wandered as a beggar across the length and breadth of India in search of the right path to bring equality among all and inspire millions of Indians to be proud of their heritage and realize what it means to be a good human being. The Sisyphuses' of today are doing just the same, keeping up their struggles and never giving up. Different efforts by them face different challenges: financial, legal, technological, social, cultural, but they always find ways to meet these challenges and move forward. They are not paid to educate the illiterate, or to train the poor in different skills, or to stand in protest rallies against the current government policies to tackle global warming. In fact, teachers are often misunderstood on unreasonable cultural grounds such as religion and caste, grassroots social development workers often get caught in local wars and conflicts that can even be fatal, and protesters often find themselves in jail. Technologists often find their hard work being neglected because it may not be economical to provide services to the poor, doctors often find their hands tied because they do not have adequate finances to help those in need, journalists often their work being sidelined because it does not agree with the commercial and political outlook of their publication agencies, and social entrepreneurs are always hard pressed for time to expand their work and do more. Yet they always find ways to work around the problems and keep on going.

Why do they do this?

Their life cannot be imagined to be comfortable when they have to surmount obstacles at each step. Why then do they not give up and settle back for a relaxed life like so many others of us? They have nothing personal to gain out of their huge efforts. Why then do they bother? For each problem they solve, new problems arise and the chain seems to be never-ending. Why then do they keep working to achieve an ever-receding target, especially when they know that they may never reach it? I do not know the answer, but I do know that all of them have a vision, they believe that this vision is good, and they believe in the religion of pursuing this vision. This is apparent from some quotes by these great people, and which serve as an inspiration for the Sisyphuses' of today.

"I do not care for liberation, I would rather go to a thousand hells, 'doing good to others (silently) like the spring', this is my religion" -- Swami Vivekananda

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree" -- Martin Luther King

"If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning" -- Mahatama Gandhi

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world... I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much" -- Mother Teresa

All of these quotes indicate a vision and an undying energy to pursue it to the end, to tackle problems when they arise, and never despair. Just like Sisyphus, they keep on going. The small and big successes every now and then probably gives them satisfaction, or their self-confidence maybe propels them forward, or as Camus puts it in the ending lines of his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, "... one must imagine Sisyphus to be happy"; this happiness they derive in pursuing their visions for a better world is probably what is common among all of them. But whatever be the reason, the important fact is that more and more people today are finding reasons to pursue similar visions, and this is really good.

What are these visions that they are pursuing? And why do I say that pursuing these visions is good?

On the contrary, having a vision and pursuing it relentlessly sounds quite fundamentalist, and the word has unfortunately gained much negative connotation lately. Having a religion and preaching it to others can also be considered as conflicting with the freedom of actions endowed to human beings. In fact, even Lord Buddha once said, "... when I speak to you, don't accept it blindly, because you love and respect me. But, examine it and put it to test, as a goldsmith examines gold by cutting, heating and hammering to know whether it was genuine gold or artificial one. If you see it is acceptable, only then accept and follow it".

The reason why I say that these visions are good, is because they are all based on sound scientific, economic, and religious principles for which I have not found any refutation so far.

Scientific principles such as sustainability have become the holy grail of today. Unless our resource consumption is not countered with a recreation of equivalent resources elsewhere, our activities will deplete the planet of its natural reserves. The Sumerian civilization was wiped out because they did nothing to desalinate their agricultural fields, the Mayan civilization perished because deforestation washed away the top soil from the mountain slopes where they grew their crops, and similar consequences arose in other parts of the world where ever unsustainable agricultural practices were followed. Today, our activities related to resource consumption have gone beyond agriculture to fuel consumption, minerals, and energy generation. Unless we do not understand the underlying processes and make sure that they are sustainable, our civilization will have terrible consequences to face.

What about economic principles? You may argue that leftist ideals such as equality and justice that most Sisyphuses' of today support strongly, are all too socialist and history has proved that it is not practical to pursue them in the long term. The demise of the Soviet Republic and the large amount of social inequality still present in China, indicate that socialism and communism may not be the right path to follow. Capitalism on the other hand, which relies on letting society progress as fast as it can, regulated by the free market, has led to rapid technological developments that have benefited the rich and the poor alike. These rightists argue that competition solves everything; the rich may become richer faster than the poor, but the poor also become richer much faster than they would had leftist agendas been followed. Keynes summarized this by saying "... the road to heaven is paved bad intentions, for foul is useful but fair is not". Policies in the world of today can however not be simplified in terms of left and right alone. Pursuing a completely leftist agenda may surely lead to stagnation, but a completely rightist agenda will also kill the system because the world is so much more connected today. The newspaper was responsible for the French revolution, the television was responsible for the uprisings in S. Africa against apartheid, and the cellphones were responsible for turning over the government in the Phillippenes. The poor and underprivileged are no longer alone but they are connected with each other and can topple the system if it goes beyond tolerable limits. Most of the world's population lives in democratic countries today, and political will can easily be turned one way or another because the mob is no longer stupid but smarter than ever before. They know how to demand equal opportunities for their economic upliftment, and they know how to make their demands heard by others. Capitalism vs. socialism, or left vs. right, or liberals vs. democrats, is no longer a valid classification for economic policies. Free markets have to function together with state control for democratization of opportunities to create wealth, big corporations have to make sure that their activities do not exploit the poor, and banks have to help the poor create enterprises instead of focusing only on the rich.

Religious principles such as love, caring, helping, and not doing harm to others that the Sisyphuses' promote, are common to all religions. You just have to take your pick! The objective of Nirvana in Buddhism, or Heaven in Christianity, or unification of the soul with the Brahmana in Vedantism, or any other religion for that matter, is immaterial because the path to attain this objective is the same for all religions. Buddhism argues about the middle path to life, Christianity argues about donating your wealth and being good to others, Vedantism argues about realizing the effects of your actions, but all these philosophies can be followed in only one way: by loving and caring and helping your fellow human beings and other living creatures. There is no other way of life that remains in consonance with these religious philosophies. It is important not to confuse religion with God though. There are atheists like Dawkins who claim that science can explain everything, or those who say that economics governs the rules of living in this world. I myself do not have strong stands about the existence or non-existence of God. But people who come from this point of view should understand that it is their most important responsibility to extend their scientific and economic theories to explain phenomenon that their theories cannot explain so far. If science and economics is their religion, then they should make sure that they understand it much better. Buddhism, Christianity, Vedantism, and other religions essentially set the bounding lines for human actions whenever there is a lack of knowledge or ambiguity in the results of our actions. The modern religions of science and economics should do the same and come up with bounding lines for life whenever their theories fail to predict the best way forward.

The Sisyphuses' of today may come from a religious point of view, or from economics, or from science, but the principles which form the basis of their vision and the philosophies they promote, are all backed up by solid theories that validate their actions. This is why I say that pursuing these visions is good because there is reason behind them.

Will they be successful, and how can we help them?

What is different today is that there are many more Sisyphuses' around us than ever before. And they do not function under a single umbrella, but the social movement is completely decentralized. It is easy to put an end to a centralized entity, but distributed systems are extremely robust and hard to break. This is why I have a lot of hope that the mini-movements started by these Sisyphuses' will keep on going, transforming and mutating, but never dying. Never before in history have there been so many leaders doing so many diverse things. There can be many reasons for this. It may be because communication is much better now, and therefore people can draw inspiration and ideas more easily than before. Or, it may be because societies are more democratic now, and therefore people can pursue their vision of a better world more easily and efficiently. Or, it may be because civilization and improved standards of living lead to a more ethical and cooperative society. It will definitely be good to know the right reasons so that they can be reinforced, but there is much that we can do even without knowing these reasons accurately.

The biggest contribution we can make is to join them in their struggle and not leave them alone. The world needs these Sisyphuses' because they are ones who impose checks and balances to put the systems of the world back on track. They are the ones who observe the flow the money and power, and try to divert it for the good of others. They are ones who make sure that democracy works correctly. They are ones who make sure that the poor are not left behind in the continuous struggle for progress. The world needs them for its survival, we need them for our survival, and the least we can do is to help them. And they need our help now because the problems they are trying to solve are huge! E.F.Schumacher in his celebrated book Small is Beautiful, remarked "If you imagine that at least two people are required to look after a hundred, it means that the entire educated population of India needs to start helping the uneducated". Although the statistics are a bit old now, you can estimate the enormity of the problems. The rock is getting bigger and heavier each day, and unless we do not join the Sisyphuses' to push it over the mountain, it will roll back down again.

On an ending note, I want to write about what I am doing to help them. If you believe it makes sense, let me know and we will do the job together. I work with Udai, which is a student organization at the University of Waterloo and the University of California at San Diego, to give technical help to NGOs in developing countries. You can take a look at our projects on the website. For my PhD research, I am working on a information recommendation system that tries to spread news about the great work that many NGOs are doing, assist in citizen journalism by connecting remote rural areas to the Internet, and to ensure that people are not presented with just one point-of-view but a diversity of views so that they can use reason to make better choices about various actions they take.

Cellphone disassembly

2006-06-11T21:03:00.000-04:00

This is from WorldChanging. Companies like Nokia are designing cellphones that can be disassembled within 2 seconds, as compared to the manual disassembly process of over 2 minutes. Computers and many other electronic goods are recycled, but the disassembly time required for cellphones did not justify doing it profitably, and therefore cellphones were normally shredded. But this attitude is changing, and there are research groups such as Active Disassembly that exclusively work on designing screws and nuts and bolts that can be simply heated with a laser and open up the device within seconds. Cellphone recyclying can surely become a lucrative industry, as also suggested by Keshav.

Using the sun to sterilize water

2006-06-11T21:01:00.000-04:00

Villagers in Tanzania seal plastic water bottles and leave them under the sun. Within a couple of hours, the water is clean enough for drinking purposes! If the sun is hot and the water reaches up to 50C, then it is fit for drinking within an hour. The technique still faces some hurdles due to cultural quirks, but it is an excellent way to purify stagnant or standing water, and should be publized in other parts of the world.

aAqua

2006-06-11T20:12:00.000-04:00

Standing for Almost All Questions Answered, this was developed at IIT-B for helping farmers place queries at village Internet kiosks, which are then answered by professors and researchers working at different agricultural institutes across the country. It is a self-sustainable initiative where Rs. 10 are charged for each query, and replies come within a couple of days. A search facility is also available that is fully multilingual in nature. A good coverage is also available here.

Participatory Rural Appraisal

2006-06-11T18:17:00.000-04:00

This scheme has been proposed by the World Bank to help assess the situation of rural people, and collaboratively come up with a set of remedial procedures. It seeks to tap into the local knowledge, and empower people to help themselves. The key tenets of the PRA include participation, teamwork, flexibility, information gathering at an on-demand basis, and triangulation of opinions from multiple sources to ensure correctness and reliability. A lot of the ideas are very similar to our vision of the global brain.

A prime organization supporting this movement is Insight, who have pioneered the use of participatory video as a tool for empowering communities. It is similar to Witness, but focuses more on training methods for making videos.

What we need next is a video version of the community radio.

The community radio movement is being pushed across the world by organizations like AMARC, and has matured to a great extent with UNESCO handbooks being available to set up appropriate organizational structures to initiate community radio programs, train the people to make new radio programs, and guidelines of technical steps to set up the systems. The whole movement is very active in places like Nepal, Bangladesh, and S. America, but the Indian government has still not given the go for it. Educational campuses are allowed to set up the systems, but NGOs and non-profits are excluded from it. However, the potential is well recognized, and there is also an online petition going on to open up community radio in India! The Community Radio Network maintains how-tos on setting up systems in India.

The costs to set up community radio mentioned in the handbooks are quite high, but I believe that they can be minimized to under 1000$ per station covering 15-20km by using PCI based FM cards. Such systems can be installed easily in village Internet kiosks, and programs can be recorded for broadcasting in the local community. Community radio forms an important component of the Global Brain project, and my aim is to use reputation, social networks, and content based routing to circulate local content in neighboring areas, and even across the world. In the long term, couple it with sousveillance systems to keep track of performance appraisal of government officials and politicians, and to give a more process oriented turn to media by building clever analysis tools that make it easy to observe trends and correlations.

Converting the community radio movement into a community television movement in a cheap fashion is really the next technical challenge. Tools like Democracy TV, Al Gore's Current TV channel, and IPTV, coupled with TiVO like DVR systems can potentially be one answer, even for rural areas.

Nearly half of Indian children are undernourished

2006-06-11T18:16:00.001-04:00

Such statistics normally go uncovered by the media, just because there is a lot of fad to document other interesting masala newsitems. AIDS gets more coverage than TB or diarrhea, even though the latter two contribute to more child deaths than AIDS. Undernourishment is hardly noticed on the faces of smiling children, but it gets translated to increased vulnerability to other lethal diseases, a shorter lifespan, and retarded intellectual growth. Even this article simply states what the WB report found, without bothering to analyse the repurcussions of the report. Media has become too lazy. As P. Sainath says, the media of today is completely event based, and documents incidents as and when they occur. What is needed however, is a more process oriented approach, where situations are analyzed from start to finish, and learnings are derived from them for prevent similar mishaps in the future, or find long term solutions to problems.

A better article is from the BBC about water development. 20% of the world's population still lacks access to safe drinking water, and this is the prime cause of deaths due to water borne diseases like diarrhea and cholera. It says that governments, NGOs, politicians, and businesses, all have a role to play in executing successful water policies. Water quality is depleting due to receding watertables because of lesser rainfall, which in turn is caused due to increased deforestation. Urbanization has also been a great contributor to increasing the consumption of water. There is much to be learnt from people at the ground, but their opinions are never sought and incorrect policies are drafted that worsen the situation. In short, what the article recommends is that a holistic approach is required, and all stakeholders have to understand the problems from a bigger perspective and then try to solve them.

A related article on the WHO initiative to eradicate TB from the world -- it shows that government control actually works.

Orissa's Sambalpuri weavers: From boom to bust

2006-06-11T18:16:00.000-04:00

There were many factors that contributed to this fall. The cooperative societies that organized the artisans together, were highjacked by the politicians through some clever manipulations in the elections, to be able to make an extra buck for themselves. The result was that the cooperatives closed down, and the artisans had to rely on middlemen to market their products. This reduced the wages that the artisians finally received. At the same time, the cottom boom caught up and gave though competition to the Sambalpuri materials. The result was that their fortunes turned, and what once used to be a happy, respectable, and profitable profession, now became quite the opposite. Rehabilitation efforts have been proposed, and include diversification into other materials and trading options. But this incident should be remembered as a learning experience for NGOs and weavers across the country because corruption and capitalism are not always to be blamed, but the people themselves can safeguard their future by increasing their awareness to trends and new businesses. The governments should also provide insurance support to entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risk and explore alternative options.

The woes of relocation

2006-06-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

It is the same story, be it the Narmada dam or the Orissa steel plant. Land is usurped from tribals and villagers who rely on the natural resources for their sustenance. Meagre compensation is given, and sometimes promises are made for employment in the factories, but rarely do these things follow through. People are displaced from their land, alieneated from their communities, and hardly given anything in return to start their lives all over again. And if protests are made, then police brutalities bring up shocking pictures of human rights abuse. There is clearly no one single way out. The government, judiciary, NGOs, and the people, have all got to work together to make sure that promises are carried through and the people get what they rightly deserve.

Village for sale

2006-06-11T18:14:00.000-04:00

The headline is not important, but what is important is to analyse the factors that led to this outcome. Farmers growing cotton in a small village in Maharashtra are so burdened by unpaid loans that they decided to sell all their land and possessions and move to the city. They were hoping that the government will pair a good price for their cotton, but that was never done. The government is also helpless in front of the laws of supply of demand. Cotton growing got lucrative in the mid-90s, and everyone started to grow cotton. The result was a flood of cheap produce into the market, which brought done the sustainability for all the farmers. To make matters worse, there was a drought in the late 90s, and cotton being very intensive on the soil, the poor farmers were forced to take loans that they haven't been able to pay back. Moving to the city is surely not a solution. Cities have always sounded lucrative to the villagers, but the reality is quite different. Squatter cities and slum areas have even worse living conditions than the villages. The government should take note and prevent this mass migration. The farmers should be supported in growing other crops and their loans should be excused or the interest should be cancelled. Most important of all, they should be educated to not just follow the herd, but analyse the factors and take consultancy from NGOs in the best crops to be grown for long term sustainability. I sometimes wonder though, if the Soviet way of a centralized planning system is the way to go!

Reconstruction and rehabilitation

2006-06-11T18:12:00.000-04:00

This is an excellent article on things that went wrong in establishing temporary housing shelters for the tsunami victims, and guidelines that should be followed for subsequent disaster relief efforts. Some of the things that went wrong were:

- Inadequate attention paid to sanitation
- Use of tar sheeting, even though it was neither durable, waterproof nor heat-resistant.
- Improper choice of land for building shelters. Easily got flooded during rains, and drainage was poor.
- Inadequate medical facilities available to the victims.

Some guidelines identified for handling such situations in the future:

- Involve the community. Don’t go with fixed models. Follow government guidelines, but also take the local community’s expertise and needs into consideration. Remember, panchayats are not always true representatives of the entire community.

- Space is important. These houses are for large families, and working class families have to store gear and equipment in their houses. Generally, the profession decides the design, while differences in the need and size of the family should determine the space.

- Build where people want to live. People have always gravitated towards locations that are best suited for their occupation.

- Transparency in budgeting, planning and design and community participation at all levels is necessary.

- Construction shouldn’t be contracted out to agents. A serious engagement with the community has to be taken up.

- Taluk-level quality committees should be formed to look into the quality of material used and check other discrepancies like commission and graft.

The Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology has a research group working things including sustainable housing: Design for the Bottom of the Pyramid. A book by C. Sinclair and K. Stohr is also available: Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises.

Fritz report

2006-06-11T03:53:00.000-04:00

The San Francisco-based Fritz Institute has conducted a study on disaster response, and analysed the challenges that come up in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to affected areas. The main problem was the unpreparedness, lack of coordination, and poor supply chain management by NGOs, governments and the private sector. The report says that improvements can be made by training the local people in advance for efforts of rescue, identification/burial of the dead, debris clearning, medical services, and relocation. A pool of skilled logisticians should also be maintained globally, so that these trained people can help organize the relief workers.

The report also said that most people reported a nearly 50% drop in earnings, even one year after the disaster. This was completely due to aid being provided in an unplanned and short-term manner, as what I have previously written as well.

Message in a doodle

2006-06-11T03:52:00.000-04:00

Comics are apparently the most simplest, effective, and low cost way of getting ideas across. World Comics India trains people in this art, and also develops educational content on basic sanitation, firstaid, parenting, and many other things. Narrating entire chapters in a story form makes the learning process interesting, and having pictures with that makes it even more engrossing. Simplest solutions are sometimes the best solutions!

Friends Without Borders

2006-06-11T01:50:00.000-04:00

A very beautiful and touching initiative to encourage world peace. Thousands of children from schools in India have written letters of friendship to students in Pakistan, and they are replying back. The videos on the website are awesome. They even wrote the world's largest loveletter in the Chinnaswamy stadium at Bangalore! If the new generation is brought up with such strong ideals of love and friendship, then folks like bin Laden will never be able to find muster enough hatred into these warm and beautiful hearts.

Telecentre

2006-06-11T01:36:00.000-04:00

The telecenter movement is aimed at connecting people across the world with eachother, who visit rural Internet kiosks for educational purposes and write about their experiences, including photographs from their respective villages. This carries the same potential for bringing about awareness and revolutions in the lives of the children, just like the television managed to abolish apartheid in South Africa by opening up the world for Africans and giving them courage and hope by showing that their brothers lived at par with the whites right across the ocean.

The "low cost" Solo Computer for Africa

2006-06-11T01:34:00.000-04:00

A very interesting pointer by Rabin, and an extract from his email on TIER.

Key features:
- lower power - finally only 8.5 watts - primarily work on batteries etc versus upto 200-300 W for a regular PC
- rugged - small, in dusty env. etc
- no hard disk - FLASH
- LCD screen
- currently runs RISCOS - but will run Linux
- cost is aroun $1200 - but claim is that it will last for upto 15 years
- applications will include spreadsheets, word processing, PDF viewers

Specifications:
http://www.explan.co.uk/hardware/solo.shtml
Screen: 13.3" TFT LCD panel at XGA
Power: 6-40v DC at 8 1/2 Watts,
Weight: 8 kg
CPU: 500 megaherts on an ARM processor
RAM: 256MB of memory
Disk: 2.5GB of flash drive capacity.

Designed by Fantsuam Foundation in Nigeria. The Fantsuam will soon produce Solo computers for the general market - deadlines are still awaited. Workshops and demos are underway. There is one problem though: it costs around US$1,200, far out of reach of the average African.

The only thing you might want to replace is your battery. These are nickle metal hydride high-temperature batteries. They are triple A battery size, and stacked in two sets, in a box with an intelligent processor, which makes it hot-swappable so you can swap one out when low on charge.

Health of Humanity, Larry Brilliant

2006-06-11T01:33:00.000-04:00

Larry Brilliant, currently executive director of google.org, gave a talk at UC Berkeley. Melissa diligently took some excellent notes of an excellent speech. Larry outlines four main threats facing the world today:

- Global Warming: He stated that all the excellent work done by Mohd Yunus with the Grameen Bank will all go to waste because 10% of Bangladesh will get submerged under water if the sealevels were to rise by 1m. The developed nations of the world need to take up the responsibility because they share this planet with everybody else, and their negligence can spell disaster for their brothers and sisters on the other side of the world who never did them any wrong in life.

- Diseases - zoonoses: A global early warning system is needed to check the spread of diseases. It is being realized that even AIDS came out from chimpanzees, and now kills thousands of men and women and children across the world each day.

- Poverty and Injustice: The Internet has played a great role in linking people together, and provides avenues to keep injustice in check by empowering the people themselves with tools and technologies to do better sousveillance.

- Religious and Sectarian violence - including but not limited to terrorist: Hate is like a virus, and love is like a vaccine. If we start loving them, they will stop hating us. 'We' being all of us in this world. And 'they' being all of them who encourage their followers to perpetrate violence.

The smart-card way to self-esteem

2006-06-11T01:32:00.000-04:00

Melissa pointed us to this article in the TIER mailing list. A very interesting way being tried out by an organization in Mysore, is to give smart cards to sex workers, through which they can buy discounted clothes or beauty products they need greatly for their profession. The only condition is that to renew the validity of the smart cards, they have to show up for HIV tests regularly. Certainly a very interesting way, but there are many questions to this as well. Prostitution in India is illegal -- can this lead to prosecution of the sex workers? Will these cards isolate them even more from the general public? How many vendors will be ready to take part in this initiative? Whether it be successful or not, the approach surely highlights the importance of there being some kind of an incentive structure to encourage empowerment and awareness. Because otherwise, the general population is quite indifferent to changing their ways of living.

Going nuclear

2006-06-11T00:25:00.000-04:00

A very interesting article by Patrick Moore, founder of GreenPeace, who now argues that nuclear is the way to go. Traditionally, environmentalists had always opposed nuclear power, given the high risk involved in disposing the nuclear waste, and the possibility of civilan nuclear technology being used for the development of nuclear weapons. This article, by an environmentalist, argues in favour of nuclear technology because it is clean, and technologies are now available to handle nuclear waste in a safe and secure manner. Alternative fuels like solar, wind, ethanol hybrids, and biodiesel are still not cheap enough for wide-spread usage.

Indian economy overview

2006-06-11T00:23:00.000-04:00

This is a fairly neat analysis of the current state of the economy, and contains an outline of the essential to-dos in order to maintain the growth rate of the economy at 8%. The issue that most people do not realize is that if the growth rate were to drop to the regular 4-6% because of not meeting the requirements mentioned below, then the large amount of youthful workforce about to join the ranks of the unemployed, will never get absorbed. And the trickle down effect of the economic progress being able to touch the lives of the bottom 30% of the Indian population below the poverty line, will never go through. Some of the things that need urgent attention are the following.

- Simplifying procedures and relaxing entry barriers for business activities. IFC, a World Bank organization, has ranked India at 116 in terms of the ease to establish a new business.

- Relaxing the labour laws. Any decision to lay off more than 100 workers, has to be approved by the State government. This has prevented many manufacturing firms from hiring temporary workers, even though they are willing to pay three times the minimum wage for more than 100 days of employment per year.

- Checking the growth of population. The awareness work being done by grassroots NGOs is indeed very impressive in this regard. All initiatives like microfinance, watershed development, and fair trade practices, have become conduits for pushing techniques and ways of sustainable living to the rural population.

- Boosting agricultural growth through diversification and development of agro processing. Agriculture forms the livelihood of over 60% of the Indian population, and cannot be neglected, especially when sustainable agriculture has to be improved manifold into a second green revolution to feed the growing population.

- Expanding industry fast, by at least 10% per year to integrate not only the surplus labour in agriculture but also the unprecedented number of women and teenagers joining the labour force every year. No amount of software development or BPO services can provide the same amount of employment as the manufacturing industry.

- Developing world-class infrastructure for sustaining growth in all the sectors of the economy. Traffic jams, toll booths, and plain red tapism, have led to an average speed of 11 kmph for most transport vehicles that run on the Indian roads. Not just speed, but poor roads and inadequate penetration into rural areas affect each and every sector of the economy. Privatization is only part of the solution, but the government seriously needs to improve its investment in developing better transportation services. Not just transportation, but energy puts forth an even bigger question mark on whether the growth rates can be sustained.

- Allowing foreign investment in more areas

- Empowering the population through universal education and health care. Primary education forms only 3% of the annual government expenditure. This is certainly a shocking figure, given that education is the primary building block for just about any kind of economic or social progress.

Importance of open-source

2006-06-11T00:22:00.000-04:00

Most NGOs and small businesses are starved of funds to buy proprietary software, or employ highly skilled software people for inhouse development. Open-source and publicly licensed software is definitely the answer, but making robust and generic software is more of a cultural issue than anything else. The good thing is that the FOSS community is expanding out to places like India, and if pushed in the right direction, this definitely has the potential of placing cutting edge products in the hands of social entrepreneurs.

We at Udai are trying to start a similar initiative called the Technology Hub, where we will have highly skilled volunteers with 3+ years of job experience, visit NGOs and non-profit organizations and make detailed specifications of their requirements. We will then match the requirements with skill-sets of student volunteers in universities and elsewhere, looking for summer projects and other part-time work, to implement the overall systems. So far, we have identified friends and colleagues working in India, who are willing to spend some time in making these specifications. We are now trying to establish links with universities to gather volunteers. We already have a few NGOs in mind who need some help. TARAhaat, based in New Delhi, is looking for people to help design agricultural information services software, where farmers can come to the TARAhaat kiosks and place queries related to choice of seeds or choice of seasonal crop, and experts based in agricultural institutes can answer these queries. Pradan, a fairly large NGO working on rural empowerment techniques, including micro-finance, is looking for analysis tools to understand the utilization patterns of the loans they give out.

NHC: NRI Home Coming

2006-06-11T00:21:00.000-04:00

A new networking initiative called IDCA (India Development Coalition of America) has lately come up, to connect organizations based in the USA working for social development in India. Definitely something to keep an eye open to. They recently organized a conference, and have a great set of people working on fantastic projects. It includes:

- Vikram Akula, who gave a great push to the microfinance movement in India.

- An interesting project on a mobile science laboratory to awaken the interests of students in villages who would normally never get to see a science laboratory in their schools.

- Virendra Singh, ex-chief of DuPont South Asia, who organized poor girls around his home-village in UP, and transformed their lives.

- Exciting ways to empower people in rural India by working hand-in-hand with each family and guiding them to uplift themselves.

Webaroo

2006-06-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

This is a very interesting startup that aims to bring the entire Internet on to your harddisk! Well, not exactly. They have products to prepare knowledge-packs of couple of Gigabytes on different topics, that you can download on to your laptop and access the resources without needing an active Internet connection. So, for example, if you were to download a knowledge pack on New York, then you will have access to all information about subways, restaurants, and night clubs of NYC, without requiring an Internet connection. They employ interesting information retrieval techniques to gather useful and relevant information through Google, Wikipedia, and other resources.

Such a tool can be very useful for rural Internet kiosks as well, where information can be downloaded and cached locally. This information can be on things like basic healthcare, or educational material, or agricultural information. My friend, Maheedhar Kolla, is quite interested in exploring these things further.

Women based ICT enterprises

2006-06-10T15:31:00.000-04:00

Womenic Enterprise is a website that provides information and guidance about different women based ICT enterprises running in developing countries. It includes the following:

- A women's cooperative that assembles personal computers.
- An individual woman running her own cybercafé or telecentre.
- A female entrepreneur plus staff managing a shop selling computer supplies.
- A woman graduate designing Web sites for local businesses.
- Two women providing IT training classes and word processing services.

Some of these initiatives are private based, but most of then are initiated by the government or NGOs. For example, the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) of the Vishakapatnam district (Andhra Pradesh, India), where I went in May 2006 to do a pilot project of our research systems, is responsible for coordinating the 42 RAJIV (RAJiv Internet Village) kiosks. The first identify women entrepreneurs who are educated up to the high-school levels, train them in using the systems, and then provide loans of up to Rs. 90,000 from which the women buy computers, printers, scanners, digital cameras, and even photocopy machines. It is the women then who operate the kiosks, and they are able to earn up to Rs. 8,000 per month, from which they gradually pay back the loans they borrowed from the government and local banks. The kiosks run different e-governance services such as providing birth, marriage, caste, and income certificates; electricity and telephone bill payments; land records management; and even computer training, resume building, and other educational classes.

The website has a handbook that can be freely downloaded. It has case studies from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, India, Ukraine, and Tanzania; and demonstrate many different ways of creating sustainable women-based ICT enterprises. The handbook is very comprehensive, and outlines best practices for setting up small scale enterprises, analyse demand and plan out expansion or diversification into other services, and even guidelines for agencies to coordinate such enterprises together.

Such initiatives are certainly useful for promotion of gender equality and women empowerment, and have a greater potential for the benefits to reach other members of the family. But just helping women should not be the one and only objective. I will write later about ILS booklets used by Pradan, an India based NGO, where they go beyond just providing microfinance loans to women, to actually working with the entire family and helping them change their lives.

Local content development

2006-06-10T12:50:00.000-04:00

Content on farming practices, education, retail, housing, etc has a high degree of locality. Content developed in the cultural and geographic setting of some place is hardly directly relevant to communities elsewhere, even if language barriers are resolved through translation services. This position paper correctly argues on the importance of creating local content, but they plan to do so through dedicated agencies working on this task. I however believe that even greater empowerment can be gained by training the people themselves to create content. I have written earlier on things like community radio and grassroots journalism, that carry an even bigger potential to change things.

Filling the void

2006-06-10T12:48:00.000-04:00

25 key social entrepreneurs who "solved some of world's toughest problems with creativity, ingenuity, and passion. Because they can't stand a vacuum". This list includes:

- BELL with remedial programs for low-income kids in the US, to bring down school dropout rates.

- PATH with technology transfer related to health care for the poor.

- Heifer International with microfinance without money, but with livestock.

- First Book with opening up new markets for book publishers in rural areas to create a self-sustainable educational system.

- New Community Corporation with creating employment by organizing the poor into doing jobs for low-income housing, healthcare, education, music clubs, and other businesses.

- ACCION International, one of the founders of the microfinance movement.

Africans pay $1800 for 1GB of data

2006-06-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

A very shocking statistic indeed. Density of backhaul PoPs has always been a problem just about everywhere. I remember that when the ERNET backbone was being laid out, there were just 5 PoPs in the whole of India. Africa seems to be facing a similar problem at the moment, but increasing the density through fiber can be very expensive, simply because of the hugeness of the land mass. Satellite systems can be an answer, but only if the licensing costs are reduced. Meshes of microwave towers can be another possibility to route traffic locally instead of backhauling it externally, but there is much work on routing and fairness in wireless meshes that remains unsolved. But surely, anybody who solves this problem, is surely going to be a great winner. I wonder if our systems based on mechanical backhauls can prove useful here for certain key applications.

Long distance WiFi

2006-06-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

My friend from UC Berkeley, Sonesh Surana, recently completed the deployment of a pilot project based on their research on long-distance WiFi links for Aravind Eye Hospital at Theni in Tamil Nadu, India. Remote medical services can now be delivered to many more people easily. The project has been a great success, and plans are underway to deploy it in other states, and create many more service clinics.

Melissa, also from TIER, gave a pointer to a company called Inveneo, that have set up similar long distance WiFi systems for VoIP and Internet access in Uganda.

Other similar initiatives are mentioned in this article from the NY Times. Yet another project, Green-WiFi, wants to produce under 200$ solar powered WiFi routers.

Site map

2006-06-10T12:36:00.000-04:00

Writing this blog has mostly served as a learning experience for me. But there is a lot of information on this blog which I hope you will find useful. Just write to me if you want to discuss more about any particular aspect of social development -- I'd love to hear from you.

Politics, Policies, and Media
As P.Sainath said in the context of rural empowerment, "No amount of social work done by NGOs can produce the same effect as land reform schemes implemented by the government". In other words, small/large scale social entrepreneurial projects are great, but the government cannot ignore its responsibilities to formulate appropriate policies and provide a conducive operating environment for the economy. I also believe that media plays a great role in a democracy, and is responsible for voicing the opinions and needs of the people to the government.

The economic lives of the poor
The persistence of underdevelopment
Local content development
Raghav radio station
Indians find information too costly
Content development to bridge the digital divide
Citizen journalism
The year of the global citizen
Janaagraha: participatory democracy
Viplav Communications
Kalam's digital dream for India

Social Equality, Justice, and Corruption
Love (for other people) are justice are closely tied to one other. Apart from ensuring a just and fair environment, free from corruption, awareness must be created among people to preserve social equality and peace.

Participatory rural appraisal
Shame the corrupt with Rs. 0
Friends Without Borders
Health of Humanity, by Larry Brilliant
Kalam suggests study on judicial delays
Elections in Bihar
Narayana Murthy blasts corrupt politicians

India Shining (! or ?)
Some contemporary topics of discussion about India.

World Bank to give $944 million loan to India
Indian economy overview
President Kalam at the CII summit
Kalam for 10% GDP growth
Keep going... But how?

Social empowerment
This sections outlines many interesting and fantastic projects going on around the world. The characteristics of each successful project include, (a) having a holistic approach to social development, rather than a focus to solve a single point problem, (b) remaining operationally and financially self-sustainable so that the initiative does not die but produces long ranging effects, and (c) being replicable in other places by other people after having demonstrated a working model.

Overview Some inspiring stories... Effective social entrepreneurship Some Ashoka Fellows from India working on ICT for development Profits with a conscience Unselfish technologists Sarah Mclachlan: World on Fire Filling the void		Developing technology The poor do not need cheaply produced technology, but the best technology developed differently so that it is affordable by the poor. Animal power Development alternatives Srishti Gadgets for the poor
Rural employment Most following sections expand on initiatives that generate rural employment in different ways, but this section sets a context for them. Village for sale The woes of relocation SEZ plans: Boon or bane Bharat Nirman Rural employment		Communication Of primary importance to any economy, and it applies across multiple areas -- education, media, healthcare, finance... Role of communication technologies in development Africans pay $1800 for 1GB of data Long distance WiFi Motorola to offer services via post-office Disaster warning pilot project PCOs book 50 cr private call Book: Wireless Networking for the Developing World Microsoft to put poor online by cellphone Fishermen in Kerala Tetherless communication Vegetable vendors to sell CDMA phones Broadband on power lines BBC on rural connectivity Vanu Bose on SDR as an answer to rural communication Pedal power to run VoIP on WiFi Rural telephony in India Cellphone use changes life in Africa Options for wireless telephony in rural areas Net and phone connection for every man and woman GNU Radio, WiFi VoIP, AM/FM, and more...
Power supply Economies like India and China are completely energy driven, and the tremendous growth rates being enjoyed right now can only be sustained if the energy requirements are met. Sustaining the growth rates is essentially if the poor living in the countryside below poverty levels are to be uplifted out of their age-old misery. Going nuclear Battery brigades Airborne wind power India's first community power plant Ocean power Gridwise Setting up wind turbine farms Ecohouse Fuel efficient stoves Time to wake up Perpetual motion machines Vertical axis wind turbines Bright prospects for renewable energy		Environment Humans have always used up natural resources faster than they could be replaced. Unsustainable agriculture was responsible for the fall of the Mayan and Sumerian civilization, and today's civilizations seem to be heading down the same path with global warming having accelerated climate change, and GM crops rapidly destroying biodiversity. Adaptation to climate change Ocean reforestation to counter global warming Fritz report Dam realities Watershed development Sulabh International Plastic waste recyclying Waste Concern Gram Vikas Ship breaking industry
Agriculture 60% of the Indian population is employed in the agricultural industry, and it constitutes 28% of the annual GDP. No discussion on social entrepreneurism can be complete without a section on new agricultural practices for helping the farmers. Arid area greenhouse Sustainable agriculture High tech mandis Emerging agricultural missions Food crisis The story of wheat Kalam calls for global monsoon research Drumstick cultivation in drought prone areas Agricultural development in ACP countries Agripreneurs ITC e-Choupals		Health care Lack of appropriate medical aid operates in a cruel vicious cycle, and is alone the most important factor responsible for poverty. Health and education in India Nearly half of Indian children are undernourished Using the Sun to sterilize water Smart-card way to self-esteem Birthing suit could save lives Super-resistant TB The other side of the story: rural healthcare Aravind Rural practice must for doctors Energy efficient water purifier Awareness about health and hygiene Telemedicine Mobile phones for detection of breast cancer Waterleaders Zero infant mortality rates Grand challenges in global health Voxiva: connecting you and your world Jaipur Foot Selling soap: handwash or eyewash? Aravind Eye Care System Why are people poor? Flying doctors to the rescue Point-of-care diagnostic system Barefoot College
Banking and finance Microfinance has helped alleviate innumerable numbers out of poverty, but there's much more to it than just lending money. Rural banking Online donations Deutsche MF focuses on rural India Microfinance creating roads to energy Philanthropist Google DHAN Micro venture capitalism Grameen Bank Micro-financing: The Gains and the Resistance		Education This is the building block of any progress made by humans. Learnings by our ancestors have been passed down over the ages and improved continuously and rapidly because of the evolution of speech and writing. Carnegie libraries Message in a doodle Anandan Games and education Kenya pilots handheld education Phulki Sure Start Child Care
Transport Better infrastructure enables faster economic growth, and transport forms a big chunk of it. India's superhighway into the 21st century The despairing infrastructure		Information technology Computers have revolutionized the way the developed world works, and are fully capable of doing so for the developing world. Open source speech recognition Cellphone disassembly Very low cost Internet access in rural areas using KioskNet OpenFM: Open source FM radio station aAqua Telecentre Low cost Solo computer for Africa Importance of open-source Webaroo Women based ICT enterprises Computer access for the blind Bill Gates mockes the 100$ laptop Drishtee Microsoft on rural development Software for NGOs PCs for the poor e-Gov projects The 100$ laptop The 99$ Ubuntu computer Bug free PC from Intel
Housing The very first asset required by all. And one of the greatest contributors to economic growth because of its indirect requirements from many other sectors. Inside Dharavi Reconstruction and rehabilitation Designing better shelter Construmex: building homes		Retail There is a lot of fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, and if tapped properly, it can help generate even more fortune and reduce poverty. Rural FMCG sales outrun towns The public distribution system HLL Shakti dealers Casas Bahia
Fair trade Prevent exploitation, generate employment, and also produce some of the most beautiful handicrafts -- what else could be better? Orissa's Sambalpuri Weavers: From boom to bust Mirzapur carpet weavers World of Good		Disaster relief Natural disasters will always occur, but they can surely be handled in better ways. Disaster relief communication kits Knowing the problems

Disclaimer: None of the above categorization is hard. Many articles belong to more than one category.

References
Books
TIER Workshop 2005
Conference on broadband wireless access for rural areas
Schwab Foundation
Ashoka
NHC: NRI Home Coming

Articles
I believe that both economic upliftment of society [4,8, 9], and creation of a political state condusive to economic development [1, 2, 7, 9], are essential components to bring about a social change [3, 5] in the developing countries of the world.

[1] On Policies and Paradigms [Aug 2007]
[2] A Proposal to Provide Media Services in Rural Areas [Jul 2007]
[3] The Sisyphuses' of Today [May 2007]
[4] The Big Bang: Globalization plus Social Entrepreneurism [Jan 2006]
[5] The Nature of Education [Jan 2006]
[6] Socialist Companies for a Socialist Democracy [Dec 2005]
[7] What India Needs: The Role of Media and Society [Dec 2005]
[8] Social Entrepreneurism: A New Perspective to Development [Sept 2005]
[9] India: A Democracy? [Jul 2002]

Activities
Things that I am involved in directly.

Contribute at NGO Post
India trip [May 2006]
Udai
Micro-finance and the Need for Understanding Society [Udai SJC presentation]

Call for pointers
If you come across any interesting information that you feel should be mentioned here, then please email me about it: aaditeshwar AT gmail DOT com.

India trip [May 2006]

2006-06-10T11:34:00.003-04:00

I made a trip to India to set up the systems for rural wireless connectivity that our research group at the University of Waterloo has developed. I had written a bit about our work earlier. The trip was quite successful, and also very educative and interesting.

- A detailed description of our solution
- Photographs from the deployment
- Notes from the trip

I also went to the anti-reservation protest rally in New Delhi, organized in the Ramlila Maidan on the evening of the 27th. It was very peaceful and well organized, with some great speeches and lots of participation from the youth. Hopefully the government will get better sense and rollback the decisions, otherwise the spark can become a flame very easily. Some photographs from the rally are also here.

Mirzapur's carpet weavers

2006-03-27T11:18:00.000-05:00

Many of the famed carpet weavers from Mirzapur are today found on the sidewalk selling potatoes and onions, or pulling rickshaws. Things are not going at all well with the carpet industry. The international market is flooded by cheap Chinese and Iranian products which receive tremendous government support, but the Indian government has not been so helpful. Furthermore, petty strifes between administrative officals over warehouse availability for storing the carpets, has left the carpet manufacturers with inadequate infrastructure to stock up and market their goods because carpets are a bulky item requiring much more groundlevel support than other arts and crafts products.

And whatever happened to the whole notion of fair trade out here? Unfortunately, the manufacturers themselves resort to anti-fair-trade practices by using child labour, or underpaid workers from the neighboring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh. Really, the government should notice their plight and help NGOs in the surrounding areas supporting rural and traditional handicrafts to take the unemployed carpet weavers under their clout. Otherwise, this will not only spell doom for these artisans, but also spell the death of the local carpet industry.

A follow-up article was published on the large scale use of child-labour in these parts. It does not make a pleasing read at all. Children hardly 13 years of age are sold by their poor parents, and made to work in inhuman conditions to manufacture these carpets. Raids have been made in the past, and the children have been returned to their homes. However, as it turns out, the children are resold to dalaals who send them elsewhere for other kinds of work. An integrated approach is needed, where not just raids are conducted, but educational programs are put in place for the children, and incentive structures are established to encourage the parents to send their kids to school.

Birthing suit could save lives

2006-03-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

Researchers have developed a reusable suit that can be strapped on using velcro, and forces blood from the legs to vital organs during haemorrhages. Tests indicate that women who used the suit lost half as much as blood as others. Haemorrhaging causes a third of the 500,000 deaths a year during birth, and such a birthing suit could save many of these lives. The best part is that it is reusable, and can be administered by anybody without much training.

Disaster relief communication kits

2006-03-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

RedHerring reports about an organization called NetHope, that has developed a net relief kit for establishing fast communication links in disaster struck areas. It is powered by a car battery and can connect to the Internet through satellite, for both voice as well as data delivery. When extended through WiFi mesh links, this becomes an ideal system to rapidly cover large areas with connectivity.

Online donations

2006-03-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

One-stop online donation websites are clearly the right way to go forward. Social entrepreneurs, NGOs, and other organizations can submit proposals to get listed on donation websites, and if selected, then this provides more exposure to these organizations. Philanthrophists and small-time donors now only need to visit such donation websites, and can browse through multiple social development organizations working in different areas. Other websites like GiveIndia have taken this a step further, and list only those NGOs who submit their financial statements regularly to GiveIndia. This brings in a lot of accountability in the functioning of the NGOs, and also ensures donors that their contributions will be used rationally and usefully.

SEZ plans: Boon or bane

2006-03-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

The government is to consider 100 SEZ plans in the areas of automobile manufacturing, textiles, garments, pharmaceuticals, and other industries. These will generate over 5 lakh jobs, and will bring in investments of over 1,00,000 crores in the next three years. This sounds absolutely great.

The article also says that the areas to be built-up have already been identified, and together stretch over 210 million square feet. This however brings to mind the rural areas that will have to be displaced in order to have this scheme go through. But we all know that right from the Rourkela Steel Plant, Nalco, Hirakud, Indravati or Rengali dam project, the people who had lost their homes to the projects are yet to be settled. Protests were made in Orissa against steel plants, but many tribal protestors unfortunately lost their lives when the police turned violent.

The answer is hard to find unless other systems like the judiciary function properly, and ensure that the funds meant for rehabilitation are utilized properly. Other than this, there are always environmental hazards to take care of. Recently, a coke bottling plant was accused of consuming too much water, to the extent that neighboring farms started drying out because of lack of irrigation. Governance is a highly organic system. No one policy decision can be considered in isolation, but it's affects on other things must be taken into account as well.

Raghav radio station

2006-03-27T09:05:00.000-05:00

A young man from a village in Bihar strung together an antenna with a couple of transistor sets, and started a radio station that broadcasts popular songs, and even AIDS and polio messages. Farmers listen to it while in the fields, their families listen to it, and it is more popular than the FM channels in that part. There are issues with licensing though, and it is likely that the radio station might have to be shut down. But anyhow, this is a very appreciable effort by somebody who does not even know how to read and write properly, but yet has benefitted the community greatly. If broadcast media can be made available to people so easily and cheaply even in the remotest parts of the world, then what are we waiting for! The applications to disaster warnings, healthcare alarms, and news and awareness are just phenomenal and cannot be denied. This is the least that can be done to bridge the digital divide, and help citizen journalism by making the voices of people heard all across the local villages. Commercial radio stations will surely not give slots for news on microfinance self help groups, or whether a new well was dug in a village, or about efforts for watershed development, but such radio stations definitely can, when coupled with a good recording and distribution network handled by the people themselves.

Unfortunately, the station was closed down because it is illegal to operate community radio stations in India. Hopefully new laws will be passed soon, because the community radio initiative is very popular in other democratic countries across the world. Also have a look at another blog posting I did.

Arid Area Greenhouse

2006-03-27T02:26:00.000-05:00

Prof. Girija Sharan from IIM-A has developed a method to set up greenhouses in arid and drought prone areas, where water supply is very sparse. This also won him the Global Development Marketplace Award insitituted by the World Bank. A pilot greenhouse is up and running in the Kutch area, and the technology is all set for commercialization. The full is available as well: Greenhouse Cultivation in a Hot Arid Area. I have concern with the energy requriements for running the pumps that drive the heat-exchanger, but these can possibly be overcome in other ways if the costs justify the end results.

Motorola to offer services via post-offices

2006-03-27T01:33:00.000-05:00

Similar to the idea publicized in an article by BBC on rural connectivity, Motorola plans to sell air-time through postmen carrying cellphones and bring out something like a PCO-on-wheels. The postal service is certainly is certainly a sector with a tremendous outreach, and it will be pitiable if we are not able to harness it for such purposes.

Deutsche MF focuses on rural India

2006-03-27T01:06:00.000-05:00

The world has certainly begun to catch on with there being a lot of fortune at the bottom of the pyramid! Deutche Mutual Fund plans to fund companies that are focused on rural India. This is something that even I was trying to say with an earlier article on socialist companies for a socialist democracy, that corporate houses should really look into MFs having equity stake with organizations like Aavishkaar. This will be useful for hedging risks in an increasingly global economy, and extending their returns to beyond just the middle and higher class income groups.

Kalam suggests study on judicial delays

2006-03-26T23:40:00.000-05:00

The voice of our favorite President Kalam; a step certainly in the right direction, and pushed by the highest official of the country, but only just the beginning. We already know how slow and inefficient the judicial system really is, with delays and adjournments being a regular feature, non-computerization causing scalability problems, and stupid rules that are unable to handle blatant corruption. The solution is not simple. A quick search brought up an excellent study from 2005 (** already done **) by the Centre for Media Studies from Delhi.

Some quick points from the report:

- Value of corruption is estimated at Rs. 2630 crores per annum
- Delhi has the highest 2.31 judges per lakh of population. Bihar has 1.21, and Uttar Pradesh has 0.78.
- 2.6 crore cases are pending in Indian courts, given that the population of India is only 1 crore, and almost 50% of the population is below 25 years of age and hence likely to form a minuscle share of the pending court cases.
- More than half the respondents have to visit the courts at least 4 times. 36% of these people have to visit again because of postponement of their hearings, while 21% have to come back simply because the judges did not show up.

Things look bad, but small steps are being taken, but but probably too slowly. Fast track courts have been set up, registrars are appointed to look into complaints about judges and other staff, and government grievance websites are available; but then again we all know the latest on the Jessica Lal murder where all the accused were set free, and the Zahira Sheikh hostile witness incident. Even if sufficient judges are employed, even if the system is computerised, even if the grievance websites work, something is still wrong that the Jessica Lal and Zahira Sheikh cases still occur.

If President Kalam must do a study, then the study should focus at higher levels of the working of the system. Things cannot work well in a country where the judiary is unable to ensure lawful behavior on the part of its citizens, and prefers to blindfold itself from the world. All talk of social entrepreneurism, success in IT, Bharat Nirman, etc, etc, etc, is all waste otherwise. Corruption should not be taken for granted just because it is there. We must learn from efforts like those of Bob Geldof and Transparency International to tackle corruption and ensure that the benefits reach the beneficiaries. But that alone is not going to help until we ourselves unite and vow to stand up against what is unlawful and unjust. Rang de Basanti!

Microfinance creating roads to energy

2006-03-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

The Lamelson Foundation proposes, identifies, and funds social entrepreneural programs. They work with many other organizations we have talked about earlier, like Aavishkaar, n-Logue, and Ashoka; and have been supporting programs on marketing low-cost irrigation equipment, asthma inhallers, micro power-plants, and micro-finance intiatives, among many others.

This particular project talks about setting up a sustainable biogas based power plant, where all the local entrepreneurs will be funded through micro-credit. Such proposals go on to highlight how small initiaties can come together, and work in coordination with each other to create a much stronger force.

Computer access for the blind

2006-03-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Although this software was developed exclusively from the point of view of enabling the blind to work in call-centres, but it is an important step towards IT access for the physically disabled. Coupled with other initiatives like the Hindi chatbot developed by students at Chandigarh, such technologies can go a long way towards bringing the handicapped into the digital world and bridging the divide for them.

A similar tool is Talkr, that converts text-based blogs to mp3 files that are suitable for pod-casting.

Indians find information too costly

2006-03-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

A shocking article on the state of information access. To quote: "When Rakesh Shukla, a poor farmer from the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, asked local authorities for information on paddy field purchases in his area, he was handed a bill for 182,000 rupees ($4,100)."

Obviously, the farmer cannot pay this amount, and so the government "funds" the information access, where you can read "funds" as "CORRUPTION". This is simply apalling. The article talks about a "cash-strapped government" and "changing the law": what utter crap! The whole dysfunctional system needs to be changed.

Bill Gates mocks MIT 100$ laptop

2006-03-26T19:52:00.000-05:00

Many of you must have read this news where ol' Billy Gates seriously *mocked* the MIT 100$ laptop project (better known as one-laptop-per-child, or OLPC project). His main criticism was about the absence of a hard disk, the small screen size, low focus on connectivity, and operator support to help the users. Of course, much of this is also politically motivated because the OLPC does not run Windows! I have written about this previously as well, and my criticisms are largely about the high cost involved in providing a computer to each child, as compared to a shared infrastructure supported by the rural kiosk model.

Excerpts from the mail by Edmund Resor on TIER came as quite an eye-opener on the other things that the OLPC project is trying to do.

--------

There is an excellent introduction and overview in the Feb. 16th lecture by the president, Walter Bender, to MIT Students. The podcast is on http://www.laptop.org/press.en_US.html .

Some answers to Mr. Gates reported criticisms.

1. Lack of a disk drive: OLPC is also developing a $100 server to which the laptops will have wireless access. With 50 gigabyte drives, these servers will act as e-mail servers, personal data stores, and school libraries.

2. Tiny little screen: the small screens, low price, and 0.6 watt power requirement allow this laptop to function as an e-book reader in low-income countries where the copyrights for text books are owned by the government and freely distributed.

3. The cost of connectivity: OLPC is looking for other groups such as TIERS to succeed with connectivity solutions. The $100 server above is designed to use night time and idle time data capacity, such as the standby bits on GSM networks, to provide good enough connectivity for data updates, chat, e-mail, and night time VoIP. Government regulators can establish special rates for educational institutions. The regulator in Bangladesh had to outlaw free night time calls introduced by two GSM operators because parents complained that their teenagers were distracted from their work. Already, unlimited EDGE access from GrameenPhone costs $13.33 per month today. OLPC is requiring participating governments, who regulate wireless operators, to take responsibility for the provision of connectivity to the schools. Since each government must put up irrevocable letters of credit for $100 million for the first 1 million laptops, each government has a strong incentive to solve the connectivity problem.

4. Cost and availability of applications: Governments are also required to localize and develop applications, along with the open source community. Demonstration boards will be available soon providing 12 months to develop and localize applications before the first production computers are shipped. The use of open source Linux from Red Hat (The OS might have been open Windows 3.1.) will stimulate the development and localization of many applications.

5. Support: Support is also part of the contract signed with the participating governments and their ministries of education. In addition, the support for open source Linux is well established and will increase as school kids take it apart, break it, and then fix these laptops.

--------

All these justifications are good and go on to show that things are quite well structured. But I would still remain skeptical about the One-Laptop-Per-Child idea, just because it is about providing one laptop for each child.

Anyhow, here is an excellent article on what computers can do for the poor. It talks about how automation, communication, and media can keep a check on corruption; computer skills can help in creating employment opportunities; communication can revolutionize access to important and timely information; and how the population at the bottom of the pyramid can generate funds to make the IT projects self-sustainable in rural areas.

Content development to bridge the digital divide

2006-03-26T18:51:00.000-05:00

This is a position paper by the African Internet Service Provider's Association, and is very similar to the kind of things I would like to do towards my PhD thesis.

Providing access infrastructure like satellite, wireless, or other means is only one part of the solution to bridging the digital divide. The other important things are identification of content to transmit over the access infrastructure, and ability to understand the content.

This paper largely talks about the need to produce relevant content, and then distribute it. Things like good irrigation techniques, or sanitation habits, or best farming practices, or school education, or e-governance, and many other things. They encourage organizations to produce this content, and fund it through advertisements. A system to put in requests for content can lead to more focused content development. All of these are great ideas. Saurabh from Udai also recently pointed me to the Digital Studyhall project, that was initiated by researchers from Princeton and UWash to leverage the postal network for creating a system to disseminate content burnt on DVDs. This content is mainly educational, filmed in schools in the nearby urban areas and then supplied to the surrounding rural areas.

I am personally of the view that all of these are excellent ways to proceed, but content creation should be gradually pushed out to the people themselves. This will turn out into a form of citizen journalism that will not only provide local content, but also encourage people participation in politics and welfare through sousveillance and empowerment. Even healthcare related projects can benefit greatly by disseminating timely information on these channels. And think of not just rural and developing parts of the world, but also urban cities where sewer systems do not work properly, or roads do not get repaired. What if we can build a video-wiki where people can supply video clips filmed from their cellphones, and a content developer can string them together. If we do so, how can we ensure authenticity of content. How can we plug news and status reports to build something like a balanced scorecard for governance. How can we let people follow the timelines of related newsreports. How can we let the citizen reporters connect better with each other. It is a basic instinct of people to get noticed, and we should use that to form a reward system to encourage people to participate. Financial returns should also be possible with advertising revenues.

But things do not stop even when content is available. What if the local people speak a different language, or literacy skills are not high enough to understand the text. Automatic machine translation and text-to-speech systems can only help to a certain extent. Volunteers will be needed to do the rest, and these volunteers can be one of the people themselves.

Many of these ideas are very raw, and if you have anything to suggest then please do write to me.

Super-resistant TB

2006-03-26T18:11:00.000-05:00

Sonesh pointed out this news on the TIER mailing list.

Many cases are being reported all across the world that are resistant to the first and second lines of TB treatment. This is extremely worrisome because researchers do not have any further drugs in the pipeline. The reason that is being cited is that people do not complete their full course of medication. What could be a solution to this?

Edmund Resor, also on the TIER list, suggests that having a medical records system will be ideal for this, similar to the one for HIV/AIDS in Africa. This is an excellent idea, but problems remain with encouraging people to complete their medication or seek medical advice as soon as symptoms begin to appear. Entities like the Self Help Groups (SHGs) for watershed development and microfinance could prove ideal out here, because such contagious diseases are harmful for the entire community. Cultural quirks still remain however, where patients are supposed to be quarantined, and thus might even lose their jobs, which in the case of a single-money earner in the family can put everybody at both health as well as financial risk. There is no one answer to this problem, but it is tied down with awareness, education, and to realize responsibilities. However, one thing is very clear that the people have to help themselves. Organizations and charity groups can only facilitate the process by putting systems into place, but the systems have to be run by the people themselves.

Another thing of concern is that medical research, like any other research, follows fad trends. AIDS and HIV vaccines are the hot topics of today, and receive a lot of funding. Thus, other diseases like TB do not get the attention they deserve.

Battery Brigades

2006-03-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

There are over 1.6 billion people in the world who do not have access to electricity, and have to rely upon kerosene lamps to get lighting. This not only adversely affects productivity by cutting down on the number of working hours, but it is also environmentally unfriendly. In a few places, villagers have been getting around the problem by acquiring used car batteries, and then lugging them to-and-from cities for recharging. However, common methods for recharging reduce the battery life and are wasteful.

Prof. Vijay Modi's team from Columbia University has developed a lunch-box sized battery unit which can attach to a fluorescent lantern and supply light for 4 hours. The unit is portable and can be carried to a especially designed diesel generator driven recharging unit, one in each village. The recharger reduces cost by recharging many batteries at once. The best part with the proposal however is the suggestion that this recharging unit should be placed in schools, so that children can come back and forth with their battery packs for recharging. This will give an incentive to the families to send their children to school!
Dr. Modi has also written a report on the electrification of villages in India.

Micro-finance and the Need for Understanding Society

2006-02-24T02:53:00.000-05:00

I am giving a presentation on micro-finance in the Udai SJC today. The first important thing I want to convey is how any social initiative should understand the nature of society and culture in order for it to be successful and involve the people better. With regards to successful micro-finance initiatives, some points are as follows:
- People value trust
- People value their social status
- Solidarity based on caste and income levels is still prevalent
- Respect for hierarchy exists
- People take pride in their identity
- People are inherently entrepreneural

The second important thing I want to convey is how such initiatives can serve as conduits to push other ideas and philosophies, like family planning, satination, civic sense, and education. We are trying to follow the same principles for our research work here with tetherless communication, by developing applications to turn rural kiosks into community centers and media/awareness depots with location specific broadcasts.

Unselfish Technologists

2006-02-24T00:52:00.000-05:00

Keshav pointed to me the earlier RedHerring article on Profits with a Conscience, and that got me started on this blog and on social entrepreneurism. Here is another brilliant and warm article, not on social entrepreneurism per se, but about do-gooders, who out of their simple motivation and dedication are making a big difference to the world. The article talks in detail about 6 such technologists.

- Orlando Bonilla from Columbia became rich, but he did not waste his wealth on thrills and frills like other rich people pursuing high status symbols. He invested his money in the people, by empowering them and helping them to set up new ventures and get good education. In his words: "Parquesoft is more than a regular business incubator, it is a big social project about social inclusion, a kind of social Trojan Horse. My dream, which I am certain will come true, is that these actions will multiply in a spiral of startups that can generate wealth for us all".

- Mac Dearman ran a wireless ISP in Louisiana. When evacuees from Hurricane Katrina was harboured in a closeby church and they did not have access to telephones to contact their loved ones, he set up a simple wireless link for VoIP communication to help them. But that was just the beginning. It worked, and then he moved further south with some volunteers to set up similar wireless links in Lousiana, which also worked. The ranks swelled, and eventually there were more than 800 PCs and 400 phones in hundreds of locations around Gulfport, Mississipi, and Louisiana. "After setting up PCs in a shelter, I watched an elderly woman who had languished for several days with no news from her family discover on a Red Cross web site that they were alive and looking for her. That’s what drove us for the next 10 days".

- Hamish Fraser was the Director of Partners in Health, a Boston based non-profit organization, when one of the clinics' was robbed and all the medical records were destroyed. This was a turning point, and Hamish went on to make a web-based software that would keep regular backups of the records, even in cases of power failure or poor Internet connectivity. The system is now not just in use by Partners in Health, but organizations in Phillipines and Rwanda are also using it.

- Robert Maranga from Kenya was raised by his single mother after his father died, and his education became possible only through the small loans that his mother would take from scattered MFIs and money lenders located in the area. He is not 30, realised the benefits of MFIs a long time back, and has dedicated himself to writing software to help MFIs improve their functioning. "It’s not simply about better bookkeeping. More accountability will lead to more money flowing to micro-financing institutions".

- Oviemo Ovadje from Nigeria has developed an absolutely novel blood cleansing system that avoids the need for frequent blood tranfusions. He is currently having difficulty in getting funds to popularize his invention, but he says that he would rather spend time in saving lifes than run around to VCs for money.

- Lee Thorn once bombed Laos during the Vietnam war, but he has come back after 40 years with a message of peace of friendship. He has set up the Jhai Foundation, a non-profit organization that has helped villagers build schools, sources of drinking water, and a co-operative for local coffee farmers. It has also created the Jhai PC, an innovative, built-from-scratch computer designed to help low-income communities become financially viable. "I wanted to give back to these people not out of guilt, but because I wanted to share in the compassion that they had. I wanted to be like them, be able to forgive and work with people who had hurt them".

We have a lot to learn from such people.

Turning out gadgets for a $2-a-day multitude

2006-02-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

I loved the last few lines of the article: "MBA students, who 10 years ago said they wanted wealth, now say, teach me to make a difference".

But it's not just MBAs. Technologists and innovators have done simple things that have made a big difference. The article talks about a few of them:

- Drip irrigation was invented to water fields in an economical way: do not flood, only release water whereever required. A great step, but it was unaffordable by poor farmers. Along comes innovation, don't use pumps, use gravity. The prices dropped, and this improved farm produce by three times - an enough margin to propel farmers from the lower income class into the middle class.

- A straw was invented with seven layers of filters, which purified the water and even made regular standing pond water drinkable.

- A solar powered lighting system allowed artisans and craftsmen to work late hours in the night as well, increasing productivity and income. Solar rechargable LED lamps became a substitute for fume producing kerosene lamps.

- Bicycle extenders allowed loads of up to 100kg to be carried to and from villages.

These are not all. There are many more innovations, but they need to be popularized by appropriate technology transfer. Hopefully, we will be able to collect enough information as a part of Udai to facilitate this process.

Software for NGOs

2006-02-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

Something that is absolutely necessary, but is not there as yet. Mifos is supposed to a microfinance open source software with development efforts headed by the Grameen Bank, but the software is not available online as yet. Panacea Dreamweavers from Chennai, India are slightly better off and provide two paid applications: automation of school activities, and NGO accounting software. They also provide a free Self Help Group (SHG) managing software, but the functionality is only limited to loan management, and the source code is completely undocumented.

There is serious need for a good MFI software, because it is not just good account maintenance that is needed, but accountability makes it easier to improve the money flow to an MFI. If any geek wants to make some real impact, then this is what he or she should work on. Or, leave the geeks aside, why not you or I? And why not Microsoft or any other company for that matter?

On the same track, NGO In A Box and the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative are trying to assemble together software commonly needed by NGOs, such as email clients and web browsers, and provide pre-loaded systems so that the NGOs do not have to spend a lot of time in overcoming the technological hassles. These organizations are presently putting together generic systems, but plan to develop profile systems for specific categories of applications as well very soon.

Rural FMCG sales outrun towns

2006-02-23T21:58:00.000-05:00

C.K.Prahlad's vision of serving the Bottom of the Pyramid is actually happening. Shampoo, Chyavanprash, soaps, hair color, all the teeny-weenie sales articles that we traditionally used to think villagers would never use, are actually very much in use! The problem so far had been that of reachability of retail services into the villages, and appropriate pricing and packaging of the items. But the HLL Shakti initiative solved the reachability problem to a big extent, and the realization that sachet packaging was more appealing to the rural people solved the pricing problem. But this is only the beginning. New products developed especially by keeping the rural environment and culture in mind will be the next growth area.

As C.K.Prahlad puts it, rural people are very brand concious, they are connected and word of mouth advertising is of fundamental importance, and they accept advanced technology readily if it is easily usable. Companies have to keep these principles in mind when they develop new products for the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid market. But the rural market should not be viewed entirely as a cash cow. The philosophies of Amul should be followed, who are trying to market pizza to the villagers that not only has funk value but is also protein enriched, and icecream which is not just tasty, but has a high calcium content.

Designing better shelter

2006-02-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

Worldchanging has a very interesting entry on temporary housing shelters, especially for disaster relief activities. Even more than one year after the tsunami, many people on the coastal areas still lack basic shelter and live in apalling conditions. The blog has links to many organizations that are trying to develop innovative solutions to provide temporary shelter. Right from assembling cardboard boxes, to the use of on-site available bamboo sticks to string together foldable tarpulin and ceramics, the possibilities are quite enormous.

Sulabh International

2006-02-23T20:27:00.000-05:00

Did you know that the dozens of Sulabh Shauchalayas that we see in the Indian cities are actually the work of one single organization! I did not know until when I read this article about an Indian NGO asked to build model toilets in Kabul.

Sulabh International was started by Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak in 1970, and now has over 35,000 volunteers on its rolls to promote human rights, environmental sanitation, health and hygiene, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education, training and awareness campaigns. The technology behind the Sulabh Shauchalayas is unique. It needs less than 2 litres of water to flush the excreta, does not require the service of scavengers (typically, youth from backward scheduled castes and tribes) to clean the toilets, provides manure on the spot, can be easily connected to a sewer line whenever it comes up in the area, and the pits can be cleaned easily to transport the waste to biogas generation plants. They have set up waste water treatment plants, facilities for electricity generation from biogas, production of manure, and even vermi-composting plants. Their expertise is now sought after by WHO, UNDP, and the World Bank.

Rural practice must for doctors

2006-02-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

The government is likely to pass a law that makes it mandatory for medical graduates to take up a year's posting in rural areas. The goals behind this are clearly very noble, but I am not sure whether having a compulsory service is the right way to go about this. History has shown repeatedly that compulsory military service in countries like Germany, Lebanon, and Iran has been criticised by its own citizens, and so much so, students migrate (read, run away) abroad for studies and never come back because they fear that they will waste valuable time in the military service. India has never had such a law, and this reflects very positively on the democratic characteristics of the country. Besides, forcing anybody to do anything makes it lose its value and importance.

In my opinion, this should be made into a voluntary service, and candidates should be selected only on the basis of merit and honest dedication to the cause. In the long term, this will actually make rural medical service a prestigious activity, for which students will be given certificates of appreciation, and awards for their contributions. For example, somebody who helps in the setup of a new rural clinic should be much highly ranked than somebody who just serves in an existing clinic for a year. And somebody who helps in other initiatives like campaigning for the promotion of clean sanitation and hygiene will be even higher ranked. Last but not the lease, if recruitment into hospitals can be based on whether somebody has served in a rural area or not, then this will be even better.

Disaster warning pilot project

2006-02-23T19:57:00.000-05:00

The National Disaster Information System has launched a pilot project to send warning messages to coastal areas over SMS and dynamically generated voice messages, whenever the meteorological department senses the occurance of a natural disaster. The information broadcast is not to take more than 33 seconds. This will later be integrated with the Tsunami Warning System as soon as it is complete.

Energy efficient water purifier

2006-02-23T18:28:00.000-05:00

The Grameen Bank has partnered with Dean Kamen of Segway for manufacturing and distributing an energy efficient water purifier. Kamen invented a really cheap method to purify water through distillation, where the purifier can be efficiently powered by a generator that can run on cowdung. At manufacturing and distribution costs of under $1000, this could really be a new tool to put into the hands of local entrepreneurs because the job does not end at just making good water, but safe storage and bottling of water is important. Value addition like carbonation to make cold drinks or squash can further be relevant.

PCOs book 500 cr private call

2006-02-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

PCOs have certainly revolutionized telecommunication and reachability, and have been cited as one of the best examples of social entreprenurism, but things are not so hunky-dory with the whole thing. PCO owners are typically given 20 to 35% of their revenue as commission, but these owners use the PCO for making their own private calls, which actually translates to losses of over 500 cr for BSNL. What could be a solution to verify whether a customer is genuine or not?

Smart card based dialing could be one option, where each call is tagged with the customer ID on the smart card and monitored centrally, or cryptographic mechanisms are used to increment sequence numbers on the smart card to support prepaid or postpaid billing. This would however require changes in all the PCO instruments. A more practical option could be a phone card based approach, where customers will have to dial in a secret ID as a pincode before making a call, and the ID would get tagged on to the call for centralized monitoring and even billing.

Awareness about health and hygiene

2006-02-23T15:52:00.001-05:00

The Unicef is running a campaign to innoculate over 33.5 million children in Bangladesh against measles. Apparently, measles kills over 20,000 children in Bangladesh each year. But vaccination is not the only solution. Awareness about civic sense and maintenance of a hygienic environment are just as crucial. And various vehicles can be used for this:

- Microfinance initiatives can impose prerequisites about family health and hygiene habits, and use their activities as a conduit to reach out to the people with better developmental philosophies. The Grameen Bank is already doing this.

- Rural kiosks can be developed into active community centers, and educational videos or documentaries should be shown to the people through this channel. This is something we are trying to do in our research group with new location specific broadcast applications on the tetherless communication architecture.

- Existing distribution infrastructure like that of the PDS or retail agencies can be used to piggyback educative information to people about health issues. HLL is already doing this to some extent, by organizing teaching clinics in villages as part of its Shakti project.

Food crisis

2006-02-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

What could be worse than 2.5 million people in northern Kenya facing acute food shortages? Weakened by hunger, children are dying due to diarrhoea and malnutrition. Cattle and livestock have also fallen victims to the drought and dwindled the economic lifelines of many people. Even though there has been a bumper harvest in western Kenya, but poor governance systems have failed to convince the people to distribute their share of production to the famine stricken population. An exodus has already begun, but how far can these people with sunken cheeks and shrivelled legs walk in search for rain and water? What could be a solution? Irrigation? Rain water harvesting? Drought resistant agriculture? Food supply from the richer nations?

It is all of those. Irrigation is of fundamental importance, which is why the green revolution that helped eliminate famine in India, has so far been a failure in Africa. According to the report by Director-General of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, only 7% of the arable land in Africa is under irrigation, and over 50% of the sub-Saharan and 50% of the African population are suffering from hunger.

Scientists say that millions more could be starving by 2015 if enough research is not done on agriculture. Each dollar invested in argicultural research improves farm incomes by $6 and produces additional $15 of economic growth in the society as a whole. Therefore, not only is agricultural research necessary for eliminating hunger and poverty, but it is even more important for a healthy economy. According to Indian PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the second green revolution should be all about agriculture in drought prone areas, and catering to the needs of small and marginal farmers. His targets include watershed development, ground water replenishment, inter-linking of rivers, use of science for improvement in seeds, resilience to lack of water, productive livestock and poultry, soil enhancement, improved opportunities for marketing of produce, granting credit to farmers, and mechanization of harvesting and post-harvest grain processing.

Updates as of Feb 23rd, 2006: The crisis looks worst than ever. The UN says that there is no time now to make pledges of aid, but to send aid in the next couple of weeks. The crisis will not take time in turning into a disaster and then into a catastrophe.

Philanthropist Google

2006-02-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

Google.org has pledged $1.1 billion to promote ventures that try to solve the problem of global poverty. The Google Foundation supports a number of organizations:

- Acumen Fund, which is a VC to help non-profits develop sustainable business models.

- TechnoServe, which promotes entrepreneural talent to turn good ideas into thriving businesses.

- Water Research, which is researching into alternatives for water purification to provide safe and healthy drinking water in Kenya.

- PlanetRead, which seeks to improve literacy in India by subtitling movies and other educational videos.

They have appointed Dr. Larry Brilliant as the Director of the Google Foundation, who has had a very wide and varied successful career, from founding companies to funding companies, starting NGOs, and Time and Wired even called him a technology visionary. Worldchanging has a neat blog on his activities. Let's see how well Google and Dr. Brilliant can live up to the vision.

PCs for the poor

2006-02-23T15:02:00.000-05:00

An interesting article that compares various options to bridge the digital divide, including the MIT Media Lab's 100$ laptop and Microsoft's cellphone PC. I have 2 cents of my own to add.

I don't like the one-laptop-per-child idea too much because even 100$ is a lot of money, and the funding will come in through the government. If the objective of bridging the digital divide is to bring awareness to the rural people, and allow them to communicate, then the rural kiosk model is significantly better. Both in terms of lesser cost which leads to greater reachability, and in building a community around the kiosk for better collaboration and exchange of thoughts and ideas. Furthermore, I and many more can't possibly envision a mesh network of laptops working in a village in India!

Microsoft's cellphone idea seems more practical, but meeting the low costs will be a significant challenge. Even if this is done, it is hard to think of applications that need to be accessed by a personal device, instead of a shared kiosk PC. Cellphones are great for personal voice connectivity, but when it comes to data, I would always vouch in favor of a shared infrastructure for most services required in practice.

Of course, if the objectives are changed slightly, to not just bridging the digital divide, but making an entire digital sphere, then such initiatives would make sense. But that is way long term. There is much to be done to set up shared kiosks which can pretty much completely bridge the divide.

Plastic waste reclying

2006-02-23T14:48:00.000-05:00

This is a truly amazing story from GoodNewsIndia. Alka Zadgaonkar is a Chemistry Professor in Nagpur, and by running experiments in the college labs, she managed to figure out a way to recycle plastic and convert it back to fuel. IOC picked up the story and promised 6 crores for a pilot project, but corruption and red tape never let things move forward. Alka and her husband Umesh were not to be deterred however, and they managed to get funding from SBI. They now have a plastic waste recyclying plant that buys off almost 5 tonnes of cheap trash off the ragpickers daily, generates power, and sells it to the local factories. The plant itself is completely power sufficient. They are likely to replicate it in other cities, and even countries like Netherlands are interested in the technology. But technology is not the only thing really. It is the awesome story of dedication and perseverence that is amazingly inspirational.

On another note, WorldChanging has an interesting piece on manufacturing plastic from plants!

Udai

2006-02-05T04:57:00.000-05:00

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.

Telemedicine

2006-02-04T14:45:00.000-05:00

Quoting from Worldchanging: Hippocrates is a medical information search engine, providing one-click links to a variety of data sources about diseases and treatments. The search engine focuses on the "deep web," the dynamic content used to produce on-the-fly pages, which is generally invisible to traditional search methods. The data presentation is structured to make it easy for non-specialist users to find needed information quickly."

This can certainly be a first step towards delivering telemedicine to remote rural areas, but it is not a diagnosis tool as yet. The vision should be one of enabling nurses or operators partially trained in medicine to be able to query the search engine through rural Internet kiosks by specifying a set of symptoms, and get back instructions to administer first aid or quick medical attention to patients.

Citizen journalism

2006-02-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

Worldchanging has had a series a posts on how communications, and especially cellphones, can revolutionize media. The thoughts are amazingly similar to the Global Brain project that I am working on.

Organizations like Witness have been encouraging sousveillance since 1992 by supplying video cameras and communication gear to allow people around the world to document abuses of human rights, partnering with human rights groups in many different countries. Sousveillance is the opposite of surveillance, that is, to monitor things from the bottom through the people, rather than from the top through an elite group of a selected few. Finally, and not very late, Witness has realized that they need not supply video cameras to activists, because practically everybody now already has digital cameras and cellphones that can take pictures and record videos of their surroundings. Tools such ComVu are also available for live streaming of videos from cellphones. The daunting task that now lies ahead is to organize this information to present it well, plus to take care of security and privacy issues to prevent incorrect propaganda, all of which are the objectives of the Global Brain project. Technology can amazingly simplify a lot of such things in a decentralized manner. Witness has started a forum to discuss these issues. Here's a link to Jamais Cascio's article on the participatory panopticon that summarizes a lot of the philosophy behind all this. Other organizations with similar objectives are OneWorld TV, which hosts blogs about development activities in different countries and different languages; and OurMedia and Video Bomb, which are video blog sites where users can post videos, add tags, and collect RSS feeds on the tags. And the latest was the report of an African filmmaker, Aryan Kaganof, who successfully made a movie using only cellphone cameras!

Jamais then extends the same idea to what he calls the Earth Witness project, where he proposes to use cellphones to monitor the environment. This again, is exactly the same idea as what I am working on with wireless monitoring using cellphones! Interesting, researchers from UC Irvine have similar ideas with mounting stripped down cellphones on the backs of pigeons to monitor temperature and pollution data, along with photographs, all tagged with GPS locationing. More in a speech by Jamais.

And the applications do not stop here, but go into health care where SMSes can be used to alert people about disease outbreaks, information can be collected through Voxiva like mechanisms, aggregated into websites like globalhealthfacts.org, and even fed into project monitoring tools to prevent medical corruption. Sarah Rich, also from Worldchanging, reported about Garbagescout, which uses the same principles to create a Google maps mashup about recyclable waste or resale articles lying around in your garage or in the neighborhood.

Mobile phones for detection of breast cancer

2006-02-04T13:13:00.000-05:00

These infrared cameras mounted on mobile phones use two techniques, both of which have proven effective in diagnosing breast cancer: one which analyzes temperature differences in different parts of the breast, while the other analyses oxygen flow to areas of the breast. These pictures can be transferred to a processing center to determine if additional checks are required. Not only that, instantaneous biofeedback suggestions can be given to patients. Biofeedback is a therapy which trains a patient to control certain bodily functions which are usually unconscious, such as blood pressure or heart rate. Infrared cameras can be used to get data about the patient's physical state, and software can give immediate feedback on how to modulate the heart rate for example.

Even if such technology is not made available on a large scale, having similar diagnosis instruments in rural clinics, schools, and Internet kiosks, can certainly improve access to health care facilities.

Airborne wind power

2006-02-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

Again pointers from Worldchanging, some interesting projects under development are focusing on airborne wind power. The logic is that the higher up you go, the stronger and steadier the winds become. Sky Windpower plans to put power generators that are lifted into place much like propellors lift helicoptors, and then remain tethered to the ground to send back energy. Magenn plans to put helium blimps into the sky instead. And Laddermill imagines a series of kites strung together, which rotate around a pulley system to drive a turbine.

All the ideas are super interesting, but they can be useful only if translated into practically maintainable systems, which do not crash when storms come, or when the winds go silent.

India's first community power plant

2006-02-04T12:23:00.000-05:00

A 200 kWh hydro-electric power plant has been commissioned in a village in Nagaland. Running and maintenance of the plant has been left wholly up to the village councils - a surely positive move towards self empowerment. A gassifier unit has also been commissioned on a similar basis in another village, to produce electricity out of firewood. Gassifiers, although expensive, leave zero residue upon consumption of raw materials - another clean energy production method. Can the same techniques be used for gassifying garbage heaps, instead of the traditional methods for sludge treatment and biogas power production?

Sustainable agriculture

2006-02-04T11:56:00.000-05:00

Worldchanging has a story on how sustainable agriculture can be more productive than industrial agriculture. So, what's the difference between these two approaches? Industrial agriculture is the form we commonly know, that is, the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and power driven irrigation pumps. However, sustainable agriculture can improve productivity by 79% in 4 years! Researchers from the University of Essex have identified 7 key methods for this. Quoting:

- Integrated pest management, which uses ecosystem resilience and diversity for pest, disease, and weed control, and seeks only to use pesticides when other options are ineffective. Brazil has pioneered the use of bio-pesticides and inter-cropping for pest management.

- Integrated nutrient management, which seeks both to balance the need to fix nitrogen within farm systems with the need to import inorganic and organic sources of nutrients, and to reduce nutrient losses through erosion control.

- Conservation tillage, which reduces the amount of tillage, sometimes to zero, so that soil can be conserved and available moisture used more efficiently. For example, after harvest, the crop residues are left on the field as protection against soil erosion. Similarly, rotation farming is done to never leave the oil uncovered, and suppress weeds.

- Agroforestry, which incorporates multifunctional trees into agricultural systems, and collective management of nearby forest resources.

- Aquaculture, which incorporates fish, shrimps, and other aquatic resources into farm systems, such as into irrigated rice fields and fish ponds, and so leads to increases in protein production.

- Water harvesting in dryland areas, which can mean formerly abandoned and degraded lands can be cultivated, and additional crops can be grown on small patches of irrigated land owing to better rainwater retention. Various methods like contour grass barriers, contour ploughing, and green manures are used to prevent soil erosion.

- Livestock integration into farming systems, such as dairy cattle and poultry, to feed on crop residues and minimize wastage and waste management.

Not only are these methods good for environmental reasons, but even more practical with better productivity! A similar effort is on with the use of biotechnology for non-GM techniques. The report focusses on four types of non-GM biotechnology: tissue culture, molecular markers, diagnostic techniques and microbial products.

A related article about how the farming practices in Africa have led to a rapid depletion of the soil nutrients.

Ocean power

2006-02-04T11:48:00.000-05:00

One fifth's of UK's energy needs can be fulfiled by harnessing ocean energy. There are two broad approaches: wave based and tidal based. Wave-based devices generate electricity from movements of the sea surface, whereas tidal stream installations sit on the sea floor and use the regular ebb and flow of tides. The bigger problem however is to transport the energy into the grid, which currently requires power cables to be laid out on ocean floors all the way from the ocean power plants to the grid. Can fuel cells be useful here, with fuel-cell tankers (aka oil tankers) plying back and forth to store and forward the energy...

The South West England Regional Development Agency has initiated a project called Wavehub, that will set up a testbed for experimenting with different wave energy generation devices.

High tech mandis

2006-02-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

Complete with air-conditioning and cold storage, the private sector consisting of big names like Reliance, Tata, ITC, Adanis, L&T, Pantaloon, DLF, Rahejas, and Bharat Hotels have promised to contribute 75% of the costs towards the construction of these mandis. This certainly is a step in the right direction for the second green revolution because it will now be easier for the farmers to market their produce. Greater involvement from the private sector will also encourage faster infrastructure development as what was witnessed when ITC's eChoupal initiative became popular. I hope that plans are underway to use the same infrastructure for other food services like fish and poultry.

President Kalam at the CII Summit

2006-02-04T02:13:00.000-05:00

President Kalam gave this speech on the inauguration of the CII Summit. The point I found most interesting was his clear vision of how societal transformation and economic growth are interlinked, and what is needed to turn this linkage into a positive feedback.

"Knowledge societies enrich information society through innovation. Information society enriches agriculture and manufacturing through value addition. The whole purpose of education in a country is to develop and enhance the potential of our human resource and progressively transform it into a knowledge society."

Our society's steady (but slow?) move towards a knowledge society has been evidenced by a shift in the country's GDP from a predominantly agriculture based economy to a services based economy, and the decrease in agricultural employment. This decrease became possible with the availability of mechanised systems, better fertilizers, and more efficient pest control. To sum up, the move towards a knowledge based society was strengthened by the inter-connectivity between various sectors of the economy, that is, agriculture, manufacturing, and communication. To keep this going, President Kalam has identified four grids that have to be interlinked: knowledge grid, health grid, e-governance grid, and the PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) grid. These grids are as follows:

Knowledge grid: Interconnecting universities with socio-economic institutions, industries and R&D organisations.

Healthcare grid: Interconnecting the healthcare institutions of the government, corporate and superspeciality hospitals. Research institutions, educational institutions and ultimately, pharma R&D institutions.

E-governance grid: Interconnecting the central government and state governments and district and block level offices for G2G and G2C connectivity.

PURA knowledge grid: Connecting the PURA nodal centers with the village knowledge centres and domain service providers. Since this is the backbone for rural development, all other grids will infuse the knowledge into this grid for sustainable development, healthcare and good governance.

Interlinking these grids together will certainly improve the flow of information and accelerate new thoughts towards a better knowledge society.

GridWise

2006-02-04T01:46:00.000-05:00

Having more information about how, when, and where energy gets consumed in household devices, not only encourages people to use energy conscientiously, but can considerably reduce consumption when intelligent algorithms are used to turn devices ON and OFF. The GridWise project is under trial in Seattle and other areas, and will serve as the basis for differentiated pricing of electricity. It will also be useful for promoting green energy initiatives because green energy can typically be obtained more cheaply than buying it off the grid.

Book: Wireless Networking in the Developing World

2006-02-04T01:16:00.000-05:00

A group of enthusiasts have written this book about bringing wireless technology to the developing world. It contains a lot of information about setting up outdoor WiFi nodes, mounting them on cheap towers, supplying solar or wind power, aligning the antenna, and many other details. Although the book in intended to allow just about anybody to set up large scale wireless networks, but things can certainly not be so simple, and prior experience will be necessary. However, it is a step in the right direction by having experts assemble information and make this available freely to everybody. I hope that such initiatives will be taken for other aspects of social development as well, like setting up of solar panels, wind turbines, water purifiers, rural Internet kiosks, and other things.