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
A couple of related articles in the past months have got me thinking about the trash streams we generate and its adverse impact in the developing world.
The National Geographic in an article “High Tech Trash” estimates that over 70 per cent of high tech trash winds up in landfills creating a toxic time bomb. The EPA estimated that between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of electronic junk was discarded in 2005. The future looks even bleaker as millions of TVs will be rendered inoperable with the switch to digital transmission next year. Already the US discards nearly 25 million TVs and 100 million cell phones every year. Continue reading
Posted in environment, Recycle, Social Ecosystem, sustainability, Waste
Tagged Businessweek, Carnegie Mellon University, computers, electronic waste, energy, environment, ePanacea, materials, National Geographic, Recycle, recycling, Trash, TV, Waste
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
Several outfits, that I am counseling, are looking at the traditional VC route to raise funds. Sometimes people find this at odds with a socially focused business. The term Social Entrepreneur provides a broad umbrella that covers a number of different types of organizations – ranging from non-profits, to socially focused businesses (as defined by Yunus) to for-profits that have solutions that address a social issue in a major way. Continue reading
Posted in Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, Venture Capital, venture philanthropy
Tagged angel investor, Early Stage Funding, for-profit, foundations, grants, new business model, non-profit, philanthropist, Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship, Social Investment, startup, Venture Capital, venture fund, venture philanthropy, Vinit Nijhawan
Maximizing Progress Acumen Fund Blog Ashoka Tech
The Social Ecosystem 