Last Week’s Time magazine had an article written by Jeffery Sachs titled “Safety in Numbers” that highlights programs that are recruiting community workers to provide basic health services in rural communities. By investing in basic health care training of community workers, these programs provide a safety net for thousands of poor people who would otherwise be unattended.
The article highlights a couple of innovative efforts in India. Continue reading
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “India’s Poor Get Health Care in a Card”, outlines a program being launched in India to provide affordable healthcare to the masses. The key component of the program, which is targeted at those earning less than $100 per year, is the use of a secure smart card to store the beneficiary’s personal data and fingerprints.
By bringing together insurance companies and hospitals to address this segment, it hopes to providing healthcare to a target population that has seldom been able to afford it. The government is going to underwrite part of the costs while hospitals and insurance companies see it as an opportunity for them to extend their customer base. Continue reading
Posted in BOP, Information Technology, international development, Politics, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, social Innovation
Tagged BOP, Health, Health Insurance, hospital, ICICI, India, Information Technology, National Health Insurance Program, Poverty, Rural Development, smart card, Wall Street Journal
For those who are tracking the progress of OLPC in India, here are few tidbits gleaned from the web: A fairly in-depth description of the OLPC pilot and a recent update on Nick Negroponte’s visit to Mumbai in August.
Here are some interesting photos from the wiki of thier initial pilot in Khairat village, in Raigadh district, Maharashtra. It is on the OLPC wiki and makes for interesting reading.
One room school house at Khairat (from OLPC wiki)
Posted in Education, Information Technology, Politics, Poverty, Rural Education, Schools, Social Ecosystem
Tagged classroom, computers, Digital Bridge Foundation, Education, Goa, India, Information Technology, internet, Johny Joseph, Khairat, Laptop, Maharashtra, Negroponte, OLPC, Reliance, Rural Education, Satish Jha, Schools, Teachers, XO laptops
Paul Polak is a physiatrist by training but has spent the past 25 years working to alleviate poverty in the developing world. His non-profit, International Development Enterprises, has come up with innovative low cost technologies that have improved the local livelihood of people at the bottom of the pyramid. For example the simply designed bamboo treadle pump has sold over 1.7 million copies and generated over $1.4 billion in farmer revenue in Bangladesh.
Paul has encapsulated his learnings in a book Out of Poverty that describes a number of these technologies. More recently, Paul has posted an interesting video on You tube that summarizes his Twelve Steps to Practical Problem Solving.
Some of the observations are commonsense ones but it is remarkable how often people forget them in their eagerness to push technology.
Posted in Agricultural Development, BOP, international development, non-profit, Poverty, Rural Development, Rural Entrepreneur, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, sustainable development, Water, Water resources
Tagged appropriate technology, bangladesh, BOP, innovation, international development, Paul Polak, Poverty, poverty alleviation, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, Social Impact, social Innovation, treadle pump, youtube
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit the Deshpande Foundation’s Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in the Hubli/Dharwad area. The Foundation was established by Desh Deshpande, who is well known in the US as a serial entrepreneur, and his wife Jaishree. In India, they have focused on their home town of Hubli/Dharwad in Northern Karnataka to conduct an innovative experiment in accelerating social entrepreneurship in rural India. Continue reading
Posted in Agricultural Development, Hygiene, non-profit, Philanthropy, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, water and sanitation
Tagged Deshpande Foundation, Foundation, Hubli, India, Karnataka, NGO, Sandbox, self help groups, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, social Innovation, Social Investment, toilets, village life
Maximizing Progress Acumen Fund Blog Ashoka Tech
The Social Ecosystem 