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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
“A Grand Idea – Inhabit” Competition Brief
What is this competition about?
This competition is focused on design solutions that can change our immediate urban environment into places that we can truly inhabit. The first series of ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’ is called ‘INHABIT‘. The ultimate challenge of which is to create solutions that introduce fun, sustainable, and innovative ways people use public [...]
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 [...]
The Indovators – Part 1 | Lina Srivastava
Lina Srivastava is the Principal of Lina Srivastava Consulting, LLC, which focuses on employing strategy, innovation, engagement and the use of cultural assets to create and demonstrate social change. For our new feature ‘The Indovators’, Lina talks about opportunities for indian designers in the fields of service design, information design, systems design, climate change and [...]
Coming Soon – The INDOvators – Lina Srivastava
Lina Srivastava is the Principal of Lina Srivastava Consulting, LLC, which focuses on employing strategy, innovation, engagement and the use of cultural assets to create and demonstrate social change. She spoke with Designwala about the role of strategic thinking and design in India for the upcoming feature series ‘ The INDOvators’. Keep a look out [...]
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 [...]
Stopping open defecation in India by 2012
“This is the first toilet in the world — in the world — where you use the toilet and you get paid,” Nair says. Now India is trying a different kind of cash reward to encourage toilet use. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar, or “clean village prize,” gives 50,000-5 million rupees to local governments that end [...]
Justice on wheels
“We must take justice – fast justice – to people,” vowed Mr Singh. “When a verdict takes 10 or 20 years, it destroys their faith in the legal system.”
According to the government, Indian courts are bedeviled with a staggering backlog of 15.6 million cases. It is not uncommon for minor cases to drag on for [...]
Ideas and their roleplay in the future of India
TED talk by Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys. Nandan talks about ideas in India which include Ideas that have arrived, ideas in progress, ideas in conflict and ideas in anticipation. The talk essentially circles around the role of India as a global player and the role ideas play in this process.
Watch the talk on TED
Designing for effective education
Barefoot college in Tilonia, Rajasthan, is a system of education that believes in the capability, knowledge and skills of the rural community and trains them further in specialized fields like solar engineering, rain forest harvesting, health and hygiene, wasteland development, and traditional media to name a few. The education is practical and combines indeginious local [...]