Rikin Gandhi made it to Technology Review’s Young Innovators list 2010. And rightly so – his NGO – Digital Green aims at educating farmers of developing countries using innovative, simple technologies.  The seed of Digital Green was sown while Rikin was working at Microsoft Research Labs, India, a few years ago.  At Microsoft, the Emerging Markets department wanted to find ways to use simple technology to better the lives of marginalized communities.  Eventually, his group broke away and became an independent organization with advisory support from Microsoft. The group wanted to develop a way for farmers to share effective farming techniques with each other, to increase each farmer’s knowledge and skill-set.   Thus, they developed a method for training farmers: they taught them how to use video cameras and simple editing technology to produce their own films.

The philosophy is behind the intervention is simple – Seeing is believing. Using video as a tool to share information between farmers, generated by the farmers itself .Thereby reducing the disconnect between technology and the people and ensuring the quality of the content too. The Digital Green system provides structure to a traditional vocation of farming. It improves the efficiency of informal knowledge sharing by delivering targeted content to a wider audience and enabling farmers to better manage their farming operations with reduced field support. This system sustains relevancy in a community by developing a framework for participatory learning. It includes a digital video database, which is produced by farmers and experts. The content within this repository is of various types, and sequencing enables farmers to progressively become better farmers by learning from others and sharing information.

The main principals of Digital Green are –

• Cost realism, essential if we are to scale the system up to a significant number of villages and farmers
• Building systems that solve end-to-end agricultural issues with interactivity that develops relationships between people and content.

With content that touches upon agricultural practices across seasons to focused videos on techniques and practices, along with testimonials from other famer viewers; Rikin and his team have been working towards building the capacity of the farmer. Some other subjects that Digital Green has probed into include looking into different economic demographics and how it relates to the farmers community along with better sustainable practices and inspiring change in the behaviors of the farmer.

‘Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and logging accounted for 16.6% of the GDP in 2007, employed 52% of the total work force and despite a steady decline of its share in the GDP, is still the largest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic development of India.’ < source – Wikipedia>

Given these statistics, the intervention spearheaded by Rikin and his team can only mean good things. Currently operating within 400 villages with 7 partner organisations, Digital Green hopes to extend its services to Africa. One of its immediate goals is to streamline and structure the process. The challenges lie on two levels – the human resource side and the technological development. On one hand they deal with training the trainers at a local level, and on the other – how to share video content? Especially in remote areas where there is no access to the internet.

 All videos produced are available to the public on their main website.

For more information, visit – http://digitalgreen.org/

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 in the countryside. Primary health centers and sub centers rely on trained paramedics to meet most of their needs. The main problems affecting the success of primary health centers are the predominance of clinical and curative concerns over the intended emphasis on preventive work and the reluctance of staff to work in rural areas. -(Source – Wikipedia)

This is where the Low cost self-diagnosis tool comes in.

Winner of the International Design Excellence Awards 08 (http://www.idsa.org/IDEA_Awards/gallery/2008/award_details.asp?ID=35918307), this is a mechanical self-diagnosis tool was created to help patients in rural India capture symptoms and provide them basic information about their disease. Made with recycled materials to maintain low costs, it aims to empower patients and aid doctors with accurate diagnosis and efficient recovery throughout the rural parts of the country.

Designed at Honeywell Technology Solutions in Bangalore by Ankur Sardana (NID) and Parag Trivedi (IDC), this tool displays relevant information. With simple rotation of rings & mapping on the chart, the tool provides -

1. Criticality of disease, basic suggestions (like – ‘how soon to meet the doctor’)

2. Kind of diagnostic tests would be done on them (this is based on the research finding that the villagers are quite suspicious of blood being used for testing & also unprepared for the expense which tests might require)

3. Cases in which they should meet a specialist directly instead of going to a general practitioner

4. Information & contact numbers of healthcare providers

The tool consists of a set of Rings (symptoms), a disease chart & other information. These rings could be made of cheap but durable cardboard. Each ring has set of symptoms. The patient rotates the rings (starting from smallest) & chooses his symptoms by bringing them in one line, below the marker. Each symptom has a number printed on it. The user maps the disease code (set of numbers, 1 from each ring) on the chart. The chart provides tentative result –disease name, severity, next steps, diagnostic tests required to confirm disease, doctor they should meet (i.e. which specialty) & contact information of doctors &hospitals. Made out recycled plastic/cardboard, it is easy to be produced locally in the villages.

The low-cost self-diagnosis tool was born out of the need to provide rural Indian patients with a method to help themselves. Healthcare has not been a priority of rural dwellers in India & they have been used to taking ‘over the counter drugs’ or getting quick relief in the form of a steroid injection from the unregistered medical practitioners- URMP’s (in villages there are usually no qualified doctors). Though an immediate solution, it is not a proper one, disease symptoms resurface & the patient is rushed to a proper registered doctor in the city, who now administers an emergency case where it could have been a case of normal diagnosis. With the tool, the rural dwellers can be empowered with basic knowledge about their disease & can avoid the mistreatment by URMP’s. This tool can also be used by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and self-help groups (in cases of illiteracy) to increase awareness & help make disease symptoms more understandable to the patients. There is also a mutual benefit for healthcare providers and patients. The patients save the money and side effects of self-medication and time, while the doctors have increased inflow of patients and thus more usage of their services.

Currently, in its present form it has not been tested on a large-scale. Most of the feedback has been gathered from the villagers. The educated villagers usually becomes excited, as they understand that they can get empowered if they have some idea of what disease they have. What has been tested in the field (in UP) is a variant in which there are no results, just collection of symptoms. The results have been mixed. Literacy is by far the biggest problem.

While this tool doesn’t aim to act as the messiah of the rural health care problems in the country, it certainly is a step in the right direction. One hopes that it inspires other creative practitioners and problem solvers to delve deeper into this space. It certainly needs more such social innovations.

For more information about more the tool, contact: Ankur Sardana: ankur.sardana@honeywell.com

More on Honeywell at – https://www.honeywell.com/sites/htsl/

Tired of the sensationalized reports and negative journalism of Indian newspapers and magazines, Bangalore based husband and wife duo – Anuradha and Dhimant Parekh decided to set up a platform that focuses only on happy stories. Thus The Better India was born.

It was an honest attempt to celebrate and bring together those unsung heroes and heroines, the small deeds that were making a difference and filtering out stories of scandals, gossip, murders and other such morbid doing that made their way to mainstream news. The Better India consolidates material relating to the incremental progress being made by industrious people of the country who actually care about change. Focusing on developments being made on the social and economic front, and hoping to inspire people to create an impact, The Better India does something quite simple – it makes one believe that not all hope is lost.

The Better India began as a blog because of its low cost of delivery and easy accessibility. Acting as a filterblog, by posting relevant links of stories, after scanning through loads of materials from newspapers, magazines and other blogs; it started primarily via reader contributions and soon gained traction through individuals and social networks. While it is currently a self-funded initiative, Dhimant hopes to make The Better India a commercial, for-profit venture.

Nearly two years old – The Better India now publishes original content. With a new post every week – Dhimant and Anuradha are on a constant look out for stories. Each article is well researched, people interviewed and facts verified. They even recently began an internship program and currently have two interns working at The Better India. The interns are very involved with the news coverage and reporting and publish their own articles on the blog. The main objective still remains in letting people know of the good things happening around them, and connecting like- minded people. It also hopes to be a good resource base for people wanting to make an impact but not knowing what or how to go about doing it. Providing the readers with real life examples helps in illustrating the possibilities of various acts – however small, to create a larger impact.

With adequate press coverage and tie up’s with NGO’s, The Better India has gained large visibility in the city of Bangalore and throughout the country. Dhimant was even invited by IIM – Ahmedabad to give a talk on Positive Journalism.

Aside from spending most of his time with The Better India, Dhimant is also a writer. His foray into writing began when he was introduced to a friend’s blog, which led him to start him own. He began writing short stories as part of his blog. When his stories were well received by his readers, he decided to take ten favorite stories and put them together in a self – published book. His collection of short stories called “Neumonia and Other Sketch Stories” is also available as an e-book, can be downloaded at – http://www.sketchstories.com/

One can read more of Dhimant at – http://www.dhimantparekh.com/

The Better India at – http://www.thebetterindia.com/

]]> http://www.designwala.org/2010/04/the-better-india-positive-news-happy-stories-unsung-heroes/feed/ 1 http://www.designwala.org/2010/03/bambike-a-bamboo-bicycle/ http://www.designwala.org/2010/03/bambike-a-bamboo-bicycle/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:52:12 +0000 Ria http://www.designwala.org/?p=523

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 far from the truth. Well, at least, the latter. Today I had the opportunity to talk to Vijay Sharma – creator of Bambike- India’s first bicycle made of Bamboo. After accidently being enrolled at the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, Vijay’s foray into manufacturing bamboo bicycles began nearly two years ago, when his wife Niyatee bought herself a cycle to commute to work. Currently located in Bangalore, He began researching cycles online and came across the trike design. A trike (abbreviation for tricycle) is a three-wheeled vehicle, different from our very own cycle rickshaws in its placement of two wheels in the front and one at the back. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school children, adults also use them for a variety of purposes. In Asia and Africa, tricycles are used primarily for commercial transportation, either of passengers in pedicabs or of freight and deliveries.

The idea of trikes were far too irresistible for Vijay and soon he began to design his own. After a brief stint at a furniture design company, since he always wanted to have a workshop of his own, Vijay began his own workshop called ‘6mm Designs and Furniture’ along with two friends. It was in a rundown garage in a small alley of one of the crowded areas in Bangalore. Slowly they expanded and reached out to a bigger clientele, mass-producing furniture for them. The workshop provided Vijay with the space to continue his experiments with bicycles. The trike took 6 months to come to life – from the drawing board to execution.  Last year, a friend suggested he design a bicycle using bamboo. Armed with months of research, and with a few ideas of his own, Vijay made his very first Bambike in 3 days.  The first prototype was made with raw bamboo with metal sleeves on junctions. This resulted in a little fishtail wobbliness at high speeds. The second prototype was made using thicker bamboo sections and this time with a jig to hold all members and important junctions like bottom brackets, rear drop out, head tube and seat tube.  Here the parts were glued together without metal sleeves and using hemp fiber. A more streamlined and ergonomically superior one followed. After making the first prototype of the Bambike, Vijay met Arun Katiyar. Arun is involved with the Ride-A-Cycle Foundation that promotes biking and going green – a small way to give back to the environment. He was instrumental in encouraging Vijay to develop his bamboo bike further. While Vijay made more prototypes, Arun tested them out and gave him relevant feedback to improvise on the designs.

Bambike then went on to associate itself with TFN – Tour of the Nilgiris. The TFN is a challenging mountain bike event and would be a great avenue to test out the endurance of the bamboo bicycles as well as get it more endorsements. Vijay decided to create a bambike for the event, that would be awarded to the most sporting participant of the 8-day 900km cycling rally.

At 12 kgs, it weighs 3 kgs less than the first prototype and does not compromise on features, functionality or aesthetics. Bamboo serves as an apt material given its tensile strength and tubular structure. The fact that it is eco friendly doesn’t hurt one bit. Using Bamboo also cuts down the energy consumption as compared to steel, aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber. Bamboo has better shock- absorbing power for rough roads, and Vijay is working on a stiffer version for smooth roads.

Given the story so far, one would think that Bambike would have more buyers. This query led us to a discussion about the notion that most people have about Bamboo being a poor man’s timber. This notion tends to result in an expectation that given the material replacement, the cost of the bicycle should be tremendously cheaper. However what people seem to forget is the amount of effort that goes into the creation of a single handcrafted Bambike. While the idea of the bamboo bicycle has gained popularity in the country, it has had very few buyers. This doesn’t seem to deter Vijay’s spirit. He believes that he has achieved what he set out to, when he decided to design and create Bambike. While an increase in the sales of Bambike would definitely be a plus, he hopes for more people to start cycling for its health benefits and as an attempt by people to reduce their carbon footprints. It’s a hope for more environmental consciousness in an age of mass consumption.

For more information visit – http://handcraftedbikes.blogspot.com

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 on existing good practices to develop a resource base and understand what works for deaf children and their families in India.

In conversation with the Founder Director of VAANI - Brinda Crishna

RR:  So what’s the story of VAANI? How did it begin?

BC: VAANI was started by me after I had done a study which showed that although services for deaf had existed for over 150 years, it only catered to children who had already grown up and there was no understanding of childhood deafness or the role that parents played in the healthy development of their children. There was no communication as parents did not know how to communicate and children did not know how to express themselves.

RR: Who are the stakeholders of VAANI?  And who are the partners at grass root levels?

BC:  The beneficiaries are families of deaf children, deaf children themselves; community workers and other professionals including teachers. As far as the partners go – small NGOs who work at field level, possibly in community development projects or community based rehab projects.

RR: So VAANI’s services aren’t location specific. It is made available anyone who needs them? Vaani uses existing infrastructures to provide services? VAANI has designed a programme/services that can be emulated by smaller communities/NGO’s etc

BC: Yes and builds the capacity of the local NGO to carry on even after we are not there. The logic behind our model of work is that it addresses the issue of providing quality services to the thousands of deaf children who have yet not been reached, is cost effective, remains an active learning situation for both parties as VAANI and its partner NGO, build on each others strengths and ensures ownership and sustainability of the work. We have developed a whole lot of needs based training material and training curriculum to meet local needs. All our stuff is available in the vernacular.

RR: So does VAANI ever approach a group/NGO/community? Or do they come to you? As in – does VAANI identify a community that needs an intervention or does another smaller NGO approach you first for the liaison?

BC: It works both ways. The thing is that we are careful to choose our partners as there are a lot of organisations that work in the field who still believe in very traditional means of teaching or developing communication in the deaf child. What makes us unique is that we are the only organization in India that focuses on childhood deafness and believes that parents and children must learn to communicate in whatever means works for them; and that parents have the right to make decisions about the future of their children.

RR : But isn’t that the case with all parents? They have the right to make decisions about the future of their children? How is this any different?

BC: When a child has a disability then you allow the professionals to take over because you don’t know what to do. Most professionals in the deaf sector in India still suggest therapy and speech as the primary mode of communication for deaf children, but the reality is that communication is about connecting and understanding. Speaking requires very high quality hearing aids, which has to be given at the right time. Most children are diagnosed very late because deafness is an invisible disability and by the time parents realise their child is deaf, many of the language learning years have passed.

Fundamental to VAANI’s vision for deaf children and their families is the principle of informed choice. We believe that deaf children need to develop fluent language skills in order to understand and influence the world around them, by whatever means is the most appropriate for the individual. Deaf children do not gain access to language in the same way as hearing children. It is therefore very important to ensure that the means are available for deaf children to learn to communicate and that families receive clear and balanced information to help them make choices that are best for their child.

RR: (feeling rather foolish about the previous question) Right. Which is why the parents need to be educated about the possibilities like sign language etc. Why is it hard to identify deafness in a child? Are there non-medical methods that Vaani has developed to help identify child deafness?

BC: Because they look normal and many can hear a little or some sounds. It’s also because in India most parents don’t have long discussions with their children. Parenting revolves around nurturing, and often the child get by initially by using basic gestures. Yes there are definitely non-technical methods; VAANI has not developed them but we do use them to train community workers especially in urban slums and rural India.

RR: Since its inception 5 years ago, how far has VAANI come?

BC : Well, VAANI has worked in Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Maharashtra. In these states we have provided services to over 1000 deaf children and families, conducted training courses and sensitisation meetings for teachers, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) workers and families. Along with this we have conducted seminars on emotional and social needs of deaf children and their families.We are partnering with the government to provide training to teachers so that they can improve the quality of education of the government run deaf schools and are supporting an NGO to set up an early intervention programme for young deaf children.

RR : Thank You, Mrs. Crishna for taking the time to engage with me. It was a pleasure talking to you. I wish you all the very best with VAANI and its endeavours.

For more information you can visit – www.vaani.in

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 and like most desis in the US, came here to study and then work. Her concept for the Uniform Project is simple. She has decided to wear one dress for a whole year as an exercise in sustainable fashion.

She has 7 pieces of the same black dress designed by her friend and fashion designer Eliza Starbuck, one for each day of the week [incase you were wondering when she does her laundry]. But she wears them in different ways everyday. Every day she reinvents the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which are vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies either donated or bought on ebay. The point of this entire year long exercise is to raise funds for a charity called Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots non-profit founded in Mumbai in 1990 through the volunteered efforts of college students devoted to bringing education to children living in the slums.

She is on her 270^th day today and has already risen over $53,000 in funds. And you can check out her daily outfit updates and make a donation at

http://theuniformproject.com/home/daily/Transverse-planes.html?month=January

Part of this entire adventure which I am sure Sheena had intended was to raise awareness about education of underprivileged children in India. And using design and sustainability to do it, worked perfectly well in the whole realm of “doing the right thing”. But the idea is so fabulous that the awareness has spread wide and how? Interview with BBC, appearance at the London Fashion week, fund raisers in Ireland, New York and now our very own Mumbai, India.

A week ago Sheena was in India, traveling to check out Akanksha projects, meet the children in person, and she where her project funds are actually going to be used. The trip turned out to be an opportunity for Vogue India, Bungalow 8 and Akansha to collaborate with Sheena on yet another fundraiser to help the cause. And what is amazing about this fundraiser is that it is still in tandem with the entire concept of Sustainable Design.

Six of India’s cool fashion designers took on the challenge to convert old saris into fabulous new modern-day wear, accessories and footwear. I mean how cool is it to have zardozi on your ballet slippers? All the proceeds from the sales at the event go to Akanksha’s cause. The designers included Little Shilpa, Miriam Sterhlau, Dadablui, Xylem, Sanchita and the amazing Indian couture guru, James Ferreira. I really wish I were visiting Bombay soon to check out the goodies and instantly add them to my wardrobe. What better way to get some retail therapy than at the cost of good karma?

For more information on the Uniform Project visit http://www.theuniformproject.com/

Actor Aamir Khan’s voter awareness campaign for the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch. The campaign comprises three ad films, print ads, internet and mobile communication. The ad campaign is being aired in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese and Oriya so that it can reach out to the masses.