Where Art meets Science and vice versa.
In simple words, Synthetic Biology is about making living organisms do things which nature had not intended on them doing. Its about taking tiny bits of DNA, splicing them together and inserting them into bacteria. In effect, a bacterium could be made to change colour or made to be bright enough to be visible to [...]
Low-cost self-diagnosis tool for rural India
Primary health centers are the cornerstone of the rural health care system. In 1991, India had about 22,400 primary health centers, 11,200 hospitals, and 27,400 clinics. These facilities are part of a tiered health care system that funnels more difficult cases into urban hospitals while attempting to provide routine medical care to the vast majority [...]
Notes on funding for social change
On May 26th, I attended a workshop on ‘Funding for Social Change‘ organized by WorldStudio at SVA. Andrea Pellegrino is a business partner at WorldStudio with Mark Randall. She orchestrated the workshop and it was very useful for people who are taking baby steps towards building projects that are socially responsible and don’t necessarily have [...]
NyayaBhoomi – A Service Design Venture for Auto-Rickshaws
Ever had to catch one of those New Delhi auto-rickshaws? You know that you are being taken for a ride then. The rickshaw drivers are rude, they refuse to go by the meter, they always seem to be going the opposite direction to where you want to be going. I have questioned the local transportation [...]
The city and the internet
For some of us who grew up back home in India, we understand the perils of living in an unplanned city. Dodgy transportation system, consistent power cuts, inefficient waste disposal and sewage systems, gridlocked roads and a broken, corrupt bureaucratic government. People develop ways around problems. They adjust. The idea is to work the system [...]
Designing Chairs vs Changing the World
When I look back at my time in undergrad school, amongst the endless hours of work and play, I think of the time spent at the canteen. Canteen was the place where we drank tonnes of highly caffeinated chai, sketched design solutions with twigs on the loose soil and chatted about things that interested us. [...]
Kopernik : Connecting technology with people who need it the most
Incase you haven’t discovered the difference in the writing style – from well put together prose to someone writing a personal diary, here is the revelation. I am the person who does the videos and not the writing. That said, Ria is on vacation and will be back soon.
This morning I woke up and was [...]
FreMo: A BikeShare Initiative in India
I visited Paris in the summer of 2007. After spending a couple of weeks of learning french and reading the lonely planet, I was prepared for a week or two of intense historical, cultural and architectural overdose. Everything was pretty much as imagined except the law that allows one to open a bottle of wine, [...]
Mapunity – Social technology at work
Mapunity uses and develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges in India. They provide map based services and design geographical information systems along with mobile technologies mostly for government departments and civil society organisations. They are also extend their services to R&D initiatives of commercial ventures.
Of all the various project Mapunity is involved [...]
BPL StudyLite by Studio ABD
In India, power cuts during exam time is every child’s biggest anxiety. One breaks into a sweat, starts pacing up and down and even goes to the extreme of praying to the Almighty; promising reforms, pledging away a life of sin and the long dreadful countdown to when the lights will turn back on.
This very [...]
Bambike – A Bamboo Bicycle
Bruce Sterling’s short story The Interoperation , featured in the Technology Review published by MIT, (Massachusett’s Institute of Technology) can be briefly summarized as a tale of a future where robots build and tear down buildings based on pre-set programs and a future where people ride bamboo bicycles.
In present times, this story is not too [...]
Babajob.com – Connecting employers with informal sector workers
Babajob.com is a Bangalore-based start-up that uses the web and mobile technology to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) informal sector workers (i.e. maids, cooks, drivers, etc.) with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and profitable solution to combat poverty. Babajob aims to do this by creating greater market efficiency in the informal sector through [...]
Jaaga – Creative Common Ground
Having spent a long weekend with Archana Prasad –Co Founder Jaaga, National Institute of Design alumnus and Bangalore based artist, in Pondicherry, where she was performing with her group The Manjunauts, (she is also a VJ) at the Freedom Jam; I had the chance to engage in a dialogue with her about Jaaga.
Jaaga’s name has [...]
Empowering the deaf child – Vaani
VAANI is an organisation that works to empower the deaf child. Its role is to act as a catalyst. Rather than delivering services, VAANI supports the development of accessible sustainable services for deaf children and their families whilst working closely with the overall development strategies of the country. VAANI works with local organisations to build [...]
Uniform Project at Bungalow 8
Most people in the US of A, may have already heard about the Uniform Project. But for those few who still don’t know, here is a quick update. Uniform Project is the brain child of this quirky, fun and fabulous girl called Sheena Matheiken from Brooklyn, NY. She was born and raised in South India [...]
ReThink Waste = Thunk in India
India’s headcount of approximately 1.17 billion people consists of more than one-sixth of the world’s population. In a country as large as this, it is rather alarming that there is no Indian policy document, which examines waste as part of a cycle of production-consumption-recovery or perceives the issue of waste through a prism of overall [...]
An Introduction – Ria Rajan
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook [...]
Disposable mugs
Unlike the westerners Indians use water to clean themselves after going to the toilet. However while traveling in cramped trains, the toilets have running water, but dont have containers or mugs to store the water to clean with. This unique problem has been addressed by Paul Sandeep. He designed a sustainable, disposable mug that could [...]
Chotukool – nano refrigerator for rural india
The ChotuKool is like no other fridge. It does not have a compressor. It runs on a battery. Utensils and bottles need to be loaded into this 43-litre cool box from the top. It weighs only 7.8 kg and costs only Rs 3,200. A product of Godrej & Boyce, the fridge was co-created with the [...]
The Sun King Solar Lantern – Energy everyone can afford
Greenlight Planet is a startup based in Mumbai that sells affordable solar LED lights targeted at rural India. The sustainable solar design is a substitute for the kerosene lamps widely used in rural india. The lamp provides 16 hrs of electricity on a single days charge and is known to be twice as bright as [...]
Tata Swach – Water purifier for the masses
Another Tata venture after the Tata Nano car and the Tata low income housing. The water purifier is targeted at the lower income rural classes. The product has been named “Swach” that also mean “clean” in Hindi and doesnt require electricity or running water. The two versions of the 19-liter Swach container, priced at 749 [...]
Social Lending in India
dhanaX is an online-offline person-to-person lending platform that allows Indians to lend and borrow money from each other. For a lender looking for a social investment, or a borrower seeking an affordable loan, dhanaX provides and option by facilitating lending or borrowing of small capital using scientific, credible methods. dhanaX works in partnership with [...]