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
Yesterday I attended the final presentation of the International Development Design Summit at MIT – the brainchild of Amy Smith, MacArthur Fellow and lecturer in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department. This, now yearly, event brought together nearly 60 students from 20 countries around the world to work together with a team of mentors and staff to tackle a number of design problems facing NGOs and non-profits in developing countries. Continue reading
Posted in Agricultural Development, BOP, Education, international development, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, sustainable development
Tagged Agricultural Development, Amy Smith, BOP, design, engineering design, IDDS, innovation, international development, invention, MacArthur Fellow, mechanical engineering, MIT, Rural Development, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, social Innovation, sustainable development
The Gates Foundation has made some major investments in the area of finance over the past few years. Now, based on their findings and experiments, they are making a big push into the area of micro-savings. Traditionally rural finance has focused on providing micro-credit services to the poor. Only recently have some of the micro-finance organizations started extending their services to include savings and insurance. In most cases the issue has been local regulations and banking controls.
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal – Giving a Lot for Saving a Little – the author points out several issues why savings schemes for the rural poor have not taken off. Among the issues identified:
Posted in BOP, Information Technology, international development, micro-finance, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, social Innovation
Tagged Ethiopia, Gates Foundation, Information Technology, Kenya, M-Pesa, MFI, micro-finance, microcredit, microfinance, microsavings, Opportunity International, Poverty, rural banks, Rural Development, rural savings, Vodafone, Wall Street Journal
I had the opportunity to visit Vigyan Ashram in February. Vigyan Ashram is a residential rural education center founded 25 years ago by Dr. Shrinath S. Kalbag in a hamlet outside of Pune. I was fortunate to have gone to school with his son Ashok Kalbag, who took me on a tour of the place. Over the years, Vigyan Ashram has significantly changed the local economy, providing livelihood to many in the region while training scores of youth and making them self sufficient. More importantly, it has now been formalized as a regular course on Rural Technology and taught at 25 schools in the state of Maharashtra. An article I wrote about the place appeared in Lokvani in March. You can see more photos about the Ashram by clicking here.
Vigyan Ashram – A Hidden Rural Education Jewel, Raj Melville, Lokvani.com, 03/17/2008
Three hours from Mumbai and an hour off dusty side roads from the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, lies the tiny village of Pabal. Here, twenty five years ago Dr. Shrinath S. Kalbag ventured forth to setup Vigyan Ashram an experiment in teaching rural youth through a curriculum of non-formal education. Today, Vigyan Ashram stands as a shining example of an organization that is helping revitalize the rural Indian economy through appropriate training and education.
After completing a Ph. D from the University of Illinois, Dr. Kalbag returned to India and pursued a successful research career eventually heading Hindustan Lever’s Engineering Sciences Department. In 1982, hoping to apply his scientific training to help India’s rural population, Dr. Kalbag quit his job and began to look for a place where he felt he could make a significant impact. He chose Pabal as it was a drought prone village lying in the ‘rain shadow’ of the Western Ghats. He hoped by living and working with the villagers, he would be able to understand their needs and to help them improve their livelihood. When he first moved to the area in 1983, the village consisted of a dirt road and a few farm houses. He setup Vigyan Ashram on a barren hillock on some land donated by the Government of Maharashtra.
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