Chennai

Last week in Chennai, India Ashoka Fellow, staff and investors met to discuss experiences reaching rural populations in India.  One of the discussions centered around best practices, and thoughts about what "reaching rural populations" means to each Fellow. Some highlights:

• Vijay P. Singh mentioned that no one imagined that one could leverage villagers' interest in ringtones to teach them about SMS use.
• Paul Basil talked about how the poor should be better segmented--not to treat them as a group but a set of groups, some easily accessible and some not, and that it should be taken into account. 
• Kalyan Paul and Ravindranath touched on examples when a technology was not adopted: In Kalyan's case, he said that the need for understanding how different communities may use the same technologies, which may not make it appropriate. E.g. a wood stove that may require one tree type that may not grow in certain parts of the country. And Ravindranath said that servicing was just as important as the launch of the technology.

You can read the full transcript of their discussion here.

This post contributed by Ashoka' Robin Bose.

In the morning session of the Chennai gathering, we asked Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Ravindranath how technology has impacted his work. Here is his answer:

"I work with flood-affected communities in the Northeast of India. To understand my work, you need to understand a little bit about the topography and geography of the region. We share a 1080km border with China. The flood waters that descend from the mountains don’t  have the characteristics of river water; it is more like a moving ocean, which descends upon the place where I work, and becomes a huge body of water heading for Bangladesh.

"I come from a village that lies in the flood-affected area. As I was growing up, floods became more frequent, and now have become perennial, which is disastrous for the local population. Each time the flood ravages the river basin, the local economies are pushed backwards by a factor of six. If the floods come constantly, it is almost impossible to move forward.

AshokaTECH goes to Chennai Sunday through Tuesday to  meet with a group of Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows to discuss how to reach the most isolated populations in rural India. We will be covering this event here on AshokaTECH, so stay tuned! Make sure to visit often and follow us on twitter @AshokaTech.