Honey I Unearthed a Gold Mine in Rural India!!!!

I am back to blog after a long time. For all of you who missed me (I wish!), in case you thought I was upto something exciting, hmm well yes. I and Senthamil (Our resident Tech Geek) were going through the final submission of the winners of Rural Innovation Fund. In case you are new to this blog let me run through briefly on what I have been upto for the last 3 months.

The reach of the ICT movement needs a lot of technological innovations and many a support for the successful implementation. It is time that we folks in ICT 4 D arena move from testing proof of concept projects to implementing them on a large scale (Then what is the whole point of proving them in the first place). The major role of the Grameen Gyan Abhiyan (Rural Knowledge Movement) is to establish a linkage between scientific know-how and field level do-how. One of the major obstacles in the way of emergence of “Rural Knowledge Societies” across India is the lack of cost effective and adaptive technologies that can address area specific needs and demands and can function effectively in varied rural environments. It necessitates “innovation” of new technologies and “adaptation” of existing ones in such a way that they operate efficiently under prevalent rural constraints and conditions.

To address this problem Microsoft and telecentre.org (a collaborative initiative of Microsoft, International Development Research Centre, Canada and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) constituted a fund called “Rural Innovation Fund (RIF)” along with M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF). Rural Innovation Fund is designed to encourage organizational, individual and local entrepreneurial endeavours towards developing cost-effective, practical and innovative applications and solutions to reach the rural communities, for knowledge empowerment and poverty alleviation.

Now that you have a brief idea of what we have been upto let me continue. As Senthamil and I were going through the projects I was quietly contemplating on how a lot of small developers with the potential to develop innovative applications have not been visible for the past few years especially when all the venture fund in the world were directed to Information Technology and Product Innovation firms all large medium and small in India. Yet these guys were completely missed. On deeper introspection one thing that ran in my mind from morning 8.00 am to 11.00 PM late at night when we both switched off the computer after going through all the projects in depth “Yes we have succeeded” Yes We Can !! (Could be the Obama effect) , succeeded in identifying those innovators who had been completely missed by the big IT wave and yet have managed to hold together and provide innovation in the rural segments.

The projects were varied in nature starting from a Bone Mineral Density Scan for cheap and effective osteoporosis diagnosis to a Digital kit on effective goat rearing. As I complete the compilation of the final report on Rural Innovation Fund I will be hearing with you my fellow telecentre managers on some of the interesting projects and digital solutions that the winners have produced this year. Let me start of one project that I think is a potential life saver during any disasters. Vritti Solutions Ltd a tech startup presented to us their rural innovation project named SOS – Incident Command System. The term SOS will be a give away for readers of this blog on the nature of the application. It is a innovative Village Centric Disaster Management System

Now let me take you through the workings of the system. The project has a database template for profiling the complete village for its natural resources, the human and animal beings and the assets and landmarks. It has information on Men, Material, Machine, Money (Funds), Method (Standard Operating Procedures).
For implementation we have to define a Standard Operating Procedure for handling Disasters (a Natural Disaster, Flood, Earthquake, Cyclone and other Man-made Disasters like Stampede). This application has a role in pre-disaster, during disaster and post disaster in the form of prevention, mitigation, preparedness, rescue and rehabilitation and relief work. It has an Early Warning System which runs using an SMS Server. It is a support mechanism for search and rescue and has automated SMS from the computer. The database map will help us in post disaster assessment of the losses of lives and assets. Interestingly the project was tested in The Collector’s Office in Pune for preparation of the local community on floods and The Temple Endowment Office of the Pandharpur Temple where it was tested for managing manmade disasters such as stampede.
Incidentally MSSRF has a complete module on the preparatory work for moving onto this application platform. MSSRF will shortly run a workshop on pre preparation to this application installation using Jamsetji Tata Training School.

Come Tsunami or any new taller stronger wave we wish to assure every vulnerable Indian that life will not be lost. We have to peck a few more rural innovator brains to overcome loss of assets. That day will not be far away as Indian brains do know how to face obstacles!!!

Submitted as an entry to the telecentre.org blog contest