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 [...]
Sarvajal – Innovative technologies for distributing clean drinking water
by Shagun Singh
Sarvajal is a franchise that provides clean drinking water to India’s rural community. It is run by Piramal Water Private and was started back in 2008. Sarvajal is not only serving a social cause, it is a great example of systems thinking, brand development, franchise business development, data collection and sustainable design and technology. Sarvajal [...]
Mobile Innovation in India
by Shagun Singh
There are close to 850 million mobile subscribers in India. Mobile penetration in India is increasing every day but that does not come as a surprise. In the past we have looked into successes like Just Dial geared towards the urban Indian and innovations like MKrishi geared towards India’s rural population.
Designing ATM’s for rural India
by Shagun Singh
The new ATM machine that was recently prototyped by NCR truly disrupts the ATM space. The machine which is being called the ‘Pillar’ (since it looks like one) is probably the only ATM machine which can be used by people who are illiterate and cannot read or write. For starters, the ATM does not have [...]
Mobius – the SUV that will connect Africa and its entrepreneurs
by Shagun Singh
This is probably one of the first articles in Designwala that encompasses design thinking outside of India. It is tough to talk about design thinking in India without looking at what services and products Africa and China are creating. Design for the developing world cannot happen in isolation and as reverse innovation takes a hold [...]
The Design Clinic Scheme – A platform to connect designers and small scale industries in India
by Shagun Singh
I recently stumbled on an initiative called the ‘Design Clinic Scheme’ while doing research on the internet for an entirely different project. The government of India is spending close to Rs 73.58 crores to create design intervention and bring design awareness to the enterprises in the country that need it the most. The initiative that was [...]
Designing a criteria to count the poor in India for BPL cards
by Shagun Singh
India’s poverty line is sometimes called the ‘starvation line’ since this income based poverty line considers the bare minimum income to provide food and does not account for education and healthcare. An income of less than a dollar per person per day is defined as extreme poverty internationally. By that estimate, 40% of the Indians [...]
Fair trade comes to India
by Shagun Singh
As the buying power of the Indian consumer grows in the coming years, it is time that they start making educated choices about what they are consuming. The market is flooded with products from all kinds of producers that clumps mass produced industry made products with the ones produced by the fast dwindling race of [...]
Gaon Ki Awaaz – bringing hyperlocal news to rural India
by Shagun Singh
A big percentage of indian village population is illiterate. Traditional mode of transmitting news like newspapers are not effective for that demographic. Television as a medium to disseminate news are not effective in villages either because of unreliable electricity as well as the cost behind purchasing a TV unit. Transistor radios have been a cheap [...]
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 [...]
Rural Education System | GAME DESIGN
by Sarang Ganoo
Proposal for game design for rural education system – After doing a thorough research on how education system of primary schools gets implemented in rural areas of the state, I found out many opportunities to intervene and design games to teach student differently and interestingly. Key insights- 1. Need of a resource other than book, [...]
InteGreater – Networking for Social Enterpreneurs
by Ria Rajan
Following the conversation with Kalyan Akkipeddi about ProtoVillage, I decided to weasel a little more of his time and get him to talk to me about InteGreater. I reckoned it would help me understand the larger framework within with the ideas of social entrepreneurship; sustainable habitats and knowledge sharing are situated. One of Kalyan’s favorite [...]
PROTOVILLAGE – Adequate Village Cluster
by Ria Rajan
A Prototype, by definition, is a typical example of something. That is exactly what PROTOVILLAGE aims to be. An initiative of InteGreater and brainchild of Kalyan Akkipeddi, who, in a trend that is fast becoming popular with those who are opting to BE the change they want, quit his corporate job and went travelling across [...]
Empowering the deaf child – Vaani
by Ria Rajan
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 [...]
Chotukool – nano refrigerator for rural india
by Shagun Singh
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
by Shagun Singh
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 [...]
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 [...]
MobiGlyph: Phone concept for rural India
by Shagun Singh
MobilGlyph: Making Data Tangible from Adaptive Path on Vimeo. Adaptive Path, a product experience and strategy design company recently went to rural India to investigate the impact of mobile technology and developed concepts for new mobile devices for this market. Mobiglyph is one such concept that allows illiterate users to save contacts by using QR [...]
The Bio-Mass Breakthrough
by Shagun Singh
The Chulha is a cooking stove that uses bio mass like dung, wood, agricultural residue and coal as fuel. It is used widely in the rural villages in India. The gases produced are highly toxic and around 1.6 million people in India die annually from smoke inhalation. People from Philips Design Team in India designed [...]
