Technology

Disrupting women’s hygiene in rural India through design thinking.

by Shagun Singh

Having grown up in a middle class family in India, this came as a shock to me – 88% of women in India do not have access to sanitary napkins. They resort to using rags, ashes, newspaper, dried leaves and husk according to a study by AC Nielsen. According to an article in Fastcoexist, girls [...]

Digital Narratives @ TechVista 2011

by Ria Rajan

TechVista is Micrsoft Research India’s annual symposium, that brings together and features people whose work defines new directions in technology and science.This year, TV was held at the Westin, in Pune, India on the 21st of Jan. I had the wonderful opportunity to actually be part of and work with a fantastic team whose project [...]

Movirtu’s phone sharing product for BOP users

by Shagun Singh

The past decade has seen a lot of work being done in the arena of development of mobile applications in the developing nations. A lot of them include mobile banking, inventories for agricultural products, education, healthcare etc. There has been extensive mobile phone penetration in places like India, parts of Africa, China, and a lot [...]

Gov 2.0 and India

by Shagun Singh

I heard Kiran Bedi talk recently at a fundraiser event for SEVA, a non profit organization, based in Richmond Hill, Queens, that facilitates immigration of South Asians to the US. Kiran Bedi is an Indian social activist and a retired Indian Police Service officer. During her riveting talk that included her work in Tihar jail [...]

The Technologists – Part 2 | Sonali Sridhar

by Shagun Singh

Sonali Sridhar currently works as an Interaction Designer in New York, using web, print and mobile electronics to explore the connectivity and psychology of design. She also works with wearable technology, designing objects that interact with daily life, form addictions and provide comfort. In this interview, Sonali outlines the framework for successful open source projects [...]

Indigenous Modernities – Jyoti Hosagrahar Part 2

by Shagun Singh

The second part of the video is titled ‘Indigenous Modernities’ based on the title of Jyoti Hosagrahar’s book with the same title. In this video, she talks about modernity in the context of the developing world. She brings up the perception of ‘Modern’ where it is equaled to western living vs it being understood as [...]

A Grand Idea | Inhabit – winners announced

by Shagun Singh

The Mobile Activation Station by Holobiont The Mobile Activation Station designed by Holobiont (Haruka Horiuchi & Frank Hebbert) has been selected as the winner by our three esteemed judges – Raul Smith Correa of ‘Faiscas‘, Soo-in Yang of ‘The Living’ and Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai. They win a grand or $1000 to make their [...]

Where Art meets Science and vice versa.

by Ria Rajan

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 [...]

The Technologists : Anab Jain

by Shagun Singh

Anab Jain is a designer and a TED Fellow, interested in creating stories that lead us towards new, alternate futures. Educated in India, Vienna and London, she is the Founder of Superflux, a design practice working at the intersection of people and technology. She created ‘The Power of 8’ a collaborative project to imagine alternate, [...]

Low-cost self-diagnosis tool for rural India

by Ria Rajan

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 [...]

The Indovators – Part 3 | Dr Simone Ahuja

by Shagun Singh

Dr Simone Ahuja is the founder and principal of Blood Orange Media, a multimedia production and design company that creates content in emerging markets, focusing specifically on examples of innovation with global relevance. Most recently she developed, produced and directed the Best Buy Corp supported television series, Indique – Big Ideas from Emerging India, for [...]

NyayaBhoomi – A Service Design Venture for Auto-Rickshaws

by Shagun Singh

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 [...]

Kopernik : Connecting technology with people who need it the most

by Shagun Singh

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 [...]

Technorati Claim Code

by Shagun Singh

WB4F5K7G8RG5

Mapunity – Social technology at work

by Ria Rajan

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 [...]

BPL StudyLite by Studio ABD

by Ria Rajan

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 [...]

Babajob.com – Connecting employers with informal sector workers

by Ria Rajan

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

by Ria Rajan

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 [...]

Designers as ChangeMakers – Part 4 | Ritwik Dey

by Shagun Singh

Ritwik Dey is an Interaction Designer. For “Designers as ChangeMakers”, he talks about the sad state of the Indian education system and his struggle with it. He comes from an engineering background and talks about his growth as a designer and his love for information design and data visualization. Amongst other things he talks about [...]

Jugaad – The spirit of indian innovation

by Shagun Singh

Flickr picture by lakshman_M. “Jugaad is a vehicle assembled by carpenters and low skilled people much like what the Flintstones did for their cars.  The basic form of the vehicle is a cart fitted out with a diesel pump used as an engine.  A big rod with a wheel at the end serves as the [...]

The next billion mobile users

by Shagun Singh

VNL | Meet the next billion mobile users from VNL on Vimeo. Vihaan Networks Ltd., an Indian telecommunications company known as VNL, won the Bronze award for a solar-powered base station to bring cellphone access to remote rural villages. The inexpensive base station can be quickly assembled and set up by unskilled villagers, and can [...]

The $10 Laptop by the Govt of India

by Shagun Singh

The laptop has been developed by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) & Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai. Though technology has been developed by IISc & IIT, laptop will be manufactured in collaboration with a private company. The laptop is expected to be launched in another 6 months (which should be right about now). The [...]

Solar Rickshaws – The green wheels of India

by Shagun Singh

The process of launching the soleckshaws – as solar rickshaws are popularly called – has been set into motion by municipal corporation, the UT-appointed nodal agency for the project. The venture is part of a central scheme being carried out in various cities of the country to promote the eco-friendly rickshaws.On a complete charge the [...]

Mera Nokia

by Shagun Singh

MeraNokia is an information phone service from Nokia providing localised information in Agriculture, Education. The Enertainment section caters to Astrology and Ringtones. Depending on the service, you either subscribe to it, or download content when needed. If you subscribe to a service, the service sends you content messages to your MeraNokia inbox. At present, customers [...]