INDIA Future of Change : Panel discussion on Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
by Shagun Singh
A Luncheon Panel Discussion on Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship : Change Drivers for India’s Inclusive Growth was held in Davos, Switzerland by ‘India Future of Change‘ on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2011. The panel that featured experts from the field of innovation and design discussed how the synergy between design [...]
Panel discussion on Parallel Urbanism
by Shagun Singh
Panel discussion topic – Parallel Urbanism : local people editing local spaces Panelists – Lina Srivastava, Jyoti Hosagrahar, John Gerarci Date – Feb 28th at Wix Lounge NYC The panel on Parallel Urbanism : local people regulating local spaces addressed the topic of involvement of community in the decision making processes pertaining to their environments. [...]
Government, open data & design
by Shagun Singh
The Union Cabinet in India approved a “National Design Policy‘ on 8th Feb 2007. The step was taken realizing the strategic importance of design for national and industrial competitiveness. The vision behind initiating the ‘National Design Policy’ is to have a design enabled Indian industry. The government initiated a consulting process with designers and industry [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Planner : Deepa Mehta
by Shagun Singh
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 [...]
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 [...]
Digital Green – bettering farmers’ livelihoods via technology
by Ria Rajan
Image – Digital Green website 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 [...]
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 [...]
Just Dial
by Kirti Goel
JustDial maintains a large and updated database of all local businesses and services not only for metro cities but also for all small towns in India. Just Dial’s service came into existence in early 1990s when VSS Mani, founder and CEO, identified a user need . In a news channel interview he mentioned, “Things never [...]
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 Better India – Positive news. Happy Stories. Unsung Heroes.
by Ria Rajan
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
