Along the lines of Pepsi Refresh Project and GE’s Ecomagination Challenge comes Mahindra’s ‘Spark the Rise‘ Competition which is a digital challenge geared towards creating change through innovation. The campaign that is focused in India aims to get Indians to create innovative projects around six themes namely energy, transport, infrastructure, agriculture, technology and social entrepreneurship. The top ideas in each category get funding from Mahindra which is 12.8 billion dollar company and the largest automaker in India. According to the ‘Spark the Rise’ website – Each month, 8 Sparks will receive grants of 4 lakh each. In total, 48 Sparks will receive 1.92 crore over the course of 6 months. Five of these monthly winners will be selected by public vote. Of these, the 2 most-voted will be eligible to participate in the Grand Finale.

The competition received close to 1000 entries in the first round which were voted down to 8 top entries that range from a  smart irrigation automation solution to a design that prevents suicides using ceiling fans.  Mahindra is the first Indian multinational to leverage what is being called ‘movement marketing’, a term coined by Strawberry Frog that means creating awareness of the brand using various platforms and means of conversation with a group. Mahendra is also known for its Corporate Social Responsibility programs and has received the Pegasus Award for CSR in 2007.

Some interesting ideas that came out of the competition are:

Kisan Raja that is a smart irrigation automation solution and uses a GSM based remote controller to stop and start irrigation pumps.

Technology for green air conditioning and refrigeration system in vehicles that consumes negligible amount fuel with close to zero emissions.

A design that can lock any wheel of your car by a press of a switch and hence help get stuck vehicles out of slush by powering the rest of the wheels.

KPF Rainwater harvesting system that gathers large amounts of rainwater underground using a plastic sheet that acts as a conduit and allows the water to seep into the ground thereby adding to the groundwater.

Last but not the least, a project aimed at reducing suicides by the means of hanging from a ceiling fan by introducing a safety rod which gets extended when someone attempts to hang themselves.

Links referenced

Fastcompany Article
The Economic Times Article
Yahoo News Article

Join us on Feb 28th for a panel presentation and discussion on “Parallel Urbanism – local people regulating local spaces”.

http://parallelurbanism.eventbrite.com

THE PANEL

Major decisions that affect design and planning of cities are made by urban planners, politicians, policy makers, real estate owners and the government. The local people who inhabit the city usually don’t have much say in how their city is being planned, designed or restructured. These design decisions may include planning out services like healthcare, education, transportation and other urban infrastructure for the city dwellers. The panel hopes to explore the middle ground between local people and decision makers. How can the decision makers tap into the grassroots level community activism to come up with better decisions regarding urban living? On the other hand how do the local people get access to the decision makers to get their voices heard with regard to the city? These are some of the questions we hope to answer through this panel.

THE PANELISTS

Jyoti Hosagrahar | The Urbanist

Jyoti is faculty at Columbia University, New York and Director of Sustainable Urbanism International at Columbia University, and Bangalore, India. Architect, planner, and historian, she advises on urban development, historic conservation, and sustainability issues in Asia. Her research interests include urban heritage, cultural and environmental sustainability of cities focusing on the intersections of nature, culture, and the built environment, and postcolonial perspectives in design and planning. She serves as an expert for UNESCO on historic cities.

Lina Srivastava | The Strategist

Lina 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. The former Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, and the past Interim Executive Director of the Association of Video and Filmmakers, she is currently the strategist for Three Generations and a partner in the social change strategy team for the Resist Network. Trained as an attorney, she is based in New York City.

John Geraci | The Technologist

John has spent the last six years making life in cities better with the use of web technologies. His latest project, DIYcity.org, has web developers and urban planners all over the world teaming up to create open source tools for residents of cities everywhere. Prior to DIYcity Geraci co-founded the hyperlocal news network Outside.in. His earlier work, which includes web-meets-real-world projects Neighbornode, Foundcity and Grafedia, has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Popular Science and other news sources. You can visit his website at johngeraci.com.

THE ORGANIZERS

Shagun Singh

Shagun is an interaction designer and founder of designwala.org. At present she works for frog design in New York City. In the past she has worked for design shops like Antenna design, 2×4.org, C&G partners, Method Inc and SOM. She also coordinates the Architecture for Humanity NY Chapter Studio initiative that promotes architectural and environmental design-driven social change in New York and abroad by empowering design activists with the tools of collaboration and open forum.

Sonali Sridhar

Sonali has been the board member of SAWCC from 2008-2011. She is currently an Interaction Designer using web, print and mobile electronics to explore the connectivity and psychology of design. She spent two years as an Interaction Designer for The Open Planning Project where her work focused primarily on web applications that fostered citizen engagement with government entities. In her spare time Sonali also works with wearable technology, designing objects that interact with daily life, form addictions and provide comfort.

Ruhi Shamim

Ruhi Shamim is a social media marketer and blogger, specializing in corporate social responsibility, urban planning and sustainable transportation, and cultural diplomacy. She has worked with Sosauce, Justmeans, Sparkseed, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and is currently developing a Green Network for JobThread, a New York based technology startup.

The event is co-sponsored by SAWCC, Designwala.org & Wix Lounge

A lot of affordable housing work in developing nations like India is handled by the government. Government of India is not exactly known for its taste in architecture and design. An interesting story that I read in the Knowledge Wharton blog goes like this – the Tamil Nadu government built low income housing for milkmen who were squatters and without housing. Once the houses were ready and the milkmen moved in, they came to a realization that the buffaloes gave a lot more milk when they were housed in the quarters and were cosy and comfortable which meant that the milkmen went back to being homeless and the buffaloes lived in the low income housing. Not the scenario the government had envisioned while cutting the ribbon on this not so cheap housing project.

The government is trying to build upon public private partnerships by getting partners to deliver affordable housing units after repeated failure to understand this sector. Some huge Indian corporations like TATA are getting into the mix and proposing affordable housing as well. Inspite of all these initiatives, there is still no talk of design and the needs of the community that these houses are being built for.

Here is where the Micro Home Solutions comes in. mHS is a for profit social enterprise that wants to use an interdisciplinary approach to create affordable housing for the 62 million people in India who either live in slums or are without homes. It was started by a husband wife duo – Rakhi Mehra and Marco Ferrario in August 2009. Their organization links together architecture, finance and community to create a housing approach for the urban poor. The two projects they are working on as per a recent article on mHS in fastcompany is a sanitary shelter for India’s homeless and poor and an inter-disciplinary collaborative approach that would allow slum dwellers to organize and plan their homes.

Recently, the Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited (BSFL), the flagship company of the BASIX group entered into a strategic partnership with micro Home Solutions. BASIX will act as the microcredit arm for the mHS wherein it will be providing financial and technical assistance to compliment its housing loan products for the low income/informal sector households. The housing and urban development corporation (HUDCO) had disbursed millions of dollars in loans to the poor of the country. This initiative was fraught with corruption and inefficiencies. Microfinance institutions have an advantage in this area because they know their customers and how much credit risk they are. This alliance shows how mHS is leveraging partnerships to deliver the most efficient product and services to the low-income households.

Affordability should not compromise design. The low income housing being developed for the poor comprises their sense of community, space and social life. A lot of such housing is given out to rent by its owners and the inhabitants go back to living in slums. The housing solutions that mHS provides are affordable, viable and scalable and their portfolio is diversified according to the need to family. As stated in their website – they want to bring about basic changes like better lighting, ventilation and efficient use of space. Their aim is to bring design where it is needed most : to India’s low income urban communities. The idea is to work on strategic ways to allocate resources and bring about better living conditions. The solution is not just one pit stop where the government gives out lower income housing to the poor for cheap but creates a tiered system of affordable self selection options from rentals to dormitories to buying a house. Multiple housing options with and strategic partnerships with housing boards, developers and associations can bring about a flexible plan that will benefit everyone and save government funds as well as bring about a slum free future for India.

mHS blog

In this interview, Deepa Mehta who is an urban planner living in San Francisco, talks about heritage, modernity, technology and urban design. She explains how the integration of modern tools and technology with traditional arts and crafts will help carry these age old techniques to the next century. Deepa mainly works in cultural heritage planning and sincerely believes that community, culture, and design are catalysts for sustainable development. She likes to test out this hypothesis by engaging in relevant projects.  One such project is Shipyard Community Arts, spearheading the development of a new arts center and cultural district through innovative partnerships at Hunters point in San Fransisco.

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/

Supertable (previously called the Mobile Activation Station) is a project  by Holobiont (Haruka Horiuchi & Frank Hebbert) . It was  selected as the winner of the ‘Grand Idea Competition‘ organized by Designwala this summer. Haruka and Frank won a grand or $1000 to make their idea come to life. Supertable is a portable reconfigurable table with built-in power distribution, lighting and storage. It turns empty stores into communal spaces. Once built, the Station will be available for short-term use in vacant storefronts along Rogers Avenue in Crown heights, Brooklyn.  Supertable will be built off of an easy set of instructions with easily available kit of parts. It follows the idea of hackable and DIY culture of building structures that are flexible, adaptable, reusable and community driven. Stay tuned for the Holobiont’s other community and urban planning projects in the upcoming second part of this series.

Photo courtesy Danish Siddiqui for Reuters

A few years ago who would have imagined that the most expensive house in the world would be in Mumbai. But then India is full of surprises – on one end you have the most expensive house in the world at the same time 42% of India’s population is below the poverty line. In the past few weeks Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector enterprise has been in the news for his new billion dollar plus house that he will be moving into soon. He is touted to be the richest man in the world by 2014 as reported in Forbes magazine.

The house which is the world’s first billion dollar house is located on Altamont Road in an upmarket residential neighbourhood of Mumbai. The house which is 27 story’s high and believed to have a floor area larger than that of the Palace of Versailles is designed after consulting design firms Perkins+Will and Hirsch Bendner Associates.

A vertical palace; the first six-levels of which are dedicated for parking and an additional level for car maintenance, three helipads, a health spa, a fifty seat theater, multiple swimming pools, hanging gardens and a ballroom are a few of the included amenities in the building. It has been widely reported that the house will be occupied by Mr. Ambani, his wife and three children but managed by a support staff of six hundred.

Is such lavish display of wealth necessary and sustainable? The Guardian recently reported Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh calling on business leaders to “eschew conspicuous consumption” and “be role models of moderation.” Reactions to the house have been mixed as how much Mr. Ambani spends on his house for himself and his family should not be anyones business as that is truly subjective. But many people also feel that an expensive house like that in a city where millions live in slums without basic ammenities is a criminal offence.

Mr. Ambani is ranked just two ranks below Bill Gates in the Billionaire’s list of Forbes magazine. Many people feel that he should follow in Mr. Gates footsteps of philanthropy. Mr. Ambani has defnitely created jobs and is looking to invest millions in the agricultural sector to help farmers and give them better returns but his investments are not contributions, they are calculated risks with gauranteed returns.

The house is named after Antillia a mythical island located in the Atlantic ocean. The irony here is that the house does not stand alone but instead stands tall overlooking downtown Mumbai. The house is not independant but is just as dependant on Mumbai’s neglected infratructure. I however do appreciate that Mr. Ambani chose a vertical structure over a horizontal one as land in Mumbai is sacred. The house boasts of multiple hanging gardens and it’s walls are covered in folliage – the living walls are intended to increase green space and combat heat island effect.

Photo courtesy Jasem Pirani

A friend of mine that lives in the same neighbourhood feels that the building is an eyesore. The building stands tall and does not relate in scale with it’s surrounding buildings. Another building in the same neighbourhood located on Peddar Road that runs parallel to Altamont Road is Charles Correa’s Kanchanjunga. This building also stands tall and has 32 luxury apartments and boasts of terraced gardens but has been adapted to fit in it’s surroundings. Correa’s Kanchanjunga is by far one of my favourite buildings in the city. In the case of Antillia contextual and cultural relations have been sidelined in the need for an iconic structure.

Antillia definitely puts Mumbai on the map of expensive homes but are we proud of this achievement? Everyone is entitled to luxury and comfort but living sustainably is crucial. A diverse design approach is also appreciated but not when it intervenes with pre-existing patterns within the local framework. Sustainability is not just about green roofs and hanging gardens it is also about integrating responsibly within an existing cultural context.

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 the country over the period of a year.

During this time, moving from the south right up to the north, Kalyan found that apart from the obvious poverty around; the statistics available on poverty was extremely dis-empowering. He found himself asking the question – Why is this number so important?  He also discovered that one of the main problems was the lack of access to expertise to come up with solutions and make them possible. Thus began InteGreater (more about it – coming soon). The main idea behind this venture was to bring together people with expertise, identify committed NGO’s, and serve as a common thread that brings them together.

Prototype began as a question posed in Kalyan’s mind – How does one define an ideal village? This began the quest to define this ideal village using a multi-dimensional approach which also looks at the definition of the desired state of being and more importantly, the word, enough. Another interesting route this project took was to create an “opportunity” get to that desired state and have sufficient access to factors that ensure dignity of life. While there is an infinite scope of extending this “desired state of being”, ProtoVillage decided to limit the possibility to ADEQUACY – which is achieving the desired state while maintaining the basic dignity of the people. The 12 dimensional approach to create a sustainable state of ADEQUACY have been defined as  -

Food Security

Water Conservation & Management

Shelter

Clothing

Healthcare

Energy

Income Generation

Education

Connectivity

Eco – Conservation & Disaster Management

Socio – Cultural Equality

Public Domain.

The force behind this idea being that “ If a multi-dimensional approach can comprehensively define  the poverty line, and effectively measure the population below it”, then team Proto believes that “ the definition of a desired state of being can be developed as a function of the same dimensions.” It is important to note that the idea isn’t merely about the supply of the above-mentioned dimensions but also the quality.  The 12 dimensions were arrived at from research and studies conducted by the team and the idea of ADEQUACY came from involving the residents of the chosen village-cluster.

One of the main objectives of this project is to document the development process into a robust theoretical framework that can be broadly replicated across the country. Having said this, there cannot be a formula-based approach and the proportions of each dimension cannot be defined. What Protovillage hopes to achieve is to define an outline, a broadly replicable framework of these dimensions that can be further tweaked and molded to suit each village-clusters individual requirements. This project also hopes to create a rural leadership model that will gradually take form and create an avenue for sustainable incomes for the villagers.

The village-cluster, currently being worked on, in situated in Andhra Pradesh. On asking Kalyan, how the village was selected, he said that they travelled to over 166 villages and chose this one primarily because he is familiar with the language. Given that they are currently in the experimental phase, it makes sense to chose a space that it more familiar than alien. It helps that this cluster has huge forested area in close proximity, giving them an opportunity to introduce the idea of social forestry to the villagers.

While Protovillage began as Kalyan’s idea and vision, he now plays the role of a gatekeeper. In his own words,  “I’ve brought people in, sent those who weren’t meant to be out and didn’t let the others leave”. The Protovillage team currently consists of peoples from various disciplines and with unique set of expertise, all of who are living of their savings and living their dreams. A small bunch of enthusiastic volunteers, who are more than happy to have people passionate about social innovations and participatory practices, on board.With 1091 days left to build the prototype of an Adequate Village Cluster, here’s wishing the project all the best with its endeavors. Anyone interested and willing to help can get in touch with the team at – kalyan@integreater.org or fra@integreater.org

To know more , visit – www.protovillage.org

Jyoti Hosagrahar is faculty at Columbia University, New York and Director of Sustainable Urbanism International at Columbia University, and Bangalore, India. Architect, planner, and historian, she advises on urban development, historic conservation, and sustainability issues in Asia. Her research interests include urban heritage, cultural and environmental sustainability of cities focusing on the intersections of nature, culture, and the built environment, and postcolonial perspectives in design and planning. She serves as an expert for UNESCO on historic cities.

Hosagrahar is the author of Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism (Architext Series, Routledge, 2005) awarded a 2006 book prize by the International Planning History Society. At Columbia she teaches courses on urban sustainability and postcolonial perspectives on non-Western architecture and urbanism. Recently, Hosagrahar has been extensively involved in the conservation and sustainable development of historic cities in India in partnership with UNESCO. She is directing the preparation of an integrated site management plan for the conservation and sustainable development of the heritage of the Hoysala towns in Karnataka.

Sustainable Urbanism International’s minimalist design and planning interventions aim to enhance local economic development, while enabling local populations to express their historically derived placed-based identities. SUI is involved in a range of studies, policies, and design interventions for historic townships through extensive community and stakeholder consultations. With Sustainable Urbanism International in partnership with The Energy Resource Institute, India, Hosagrahar has coauthored, ‘An Exploration of Sustainability in the Provision of Basic Urban Services in Indian Cities’. (TERI, 2009).

Stay tuned for Part -2 of Jyoti’s video where she discusses Indigenous Modernities. We will release that shortly.

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 which she journeyed across India to explore how innovation within India drives socio-economic development on the sub-continent and beyond. Meetings with CEO’s of multinational corporations as well as grassroots entrepreneurs heralding bottom up, small scale innovation gave her a holistic, on-the-ground look at the methods of innovation employed in India and the mindset behind it. The Center for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, served as a knowledge partner for the series. Indique – Big Ideas from Emerging India is currently airing in PBS markets across the US.

Dr Ahuja currently serves as an advisor to the Center for India and Global Business and has served as an Associate Fellow at the Asia Society, NYC. She provides consulting services to trade delegations, academic institutions and Fortune 100 companies and regularly contributes to a Harvard Business Review Blog on HBR.org, including a recent post about innovation mindset entitled Jugaad: A New Growth Formula for Corporate America. Her pending book, Leading in a World of Scarcity:New Strategies for Doing More for Less for More, will be available in 2011.

Blood Orange Media is based out of Minneapolis, USA with affiliates in Mumbai, India and across the globe.