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The M S Swaminathan Research
Foundation (MSSRF), in association with Microsoft India and
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), felicitated nine
rural entrepreneurs who received funding under the Rural Innovation
Fund (RIF) in Chennai. The fund is a a collaborative effort between
Microsoft and IDRC, managed by a committee set up under Mission
2007, comprising eminent people from the industry, academia and
government. In 2004, MSSRF and IDRC
consolidated the concept of Village Knowledge Centre & Village
Resource Centre in the form of creating multi-stakeholder
partnership called 'Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre'.
By 2005, this network had more than
200 partners and has support from national (including government)
and international agencies. In early 2007, this network/movement was
renamed and converted into a movement called 'Grameen Gyan Abhiyan
(Rural Knowledge Network)'.
As envisaged by Mission 2007, one
of the major obstacles in the way of emergence of rural knowledge
societies across India is the lack of cost-effective and adaptive
technologies that can address area specific needs and demands and
can function effectively in varied rural environments. It
necessitates "innovation" of new technologies and "adaptation" of
existing ones in such a way that they operate efficiently under
prevalent rural constraints and conditions.
Mission 2007 is an initiative led
by Prof M S Swaminathan, set up to help local software application
development vendors to create and provide localised application and
solutions customised for the needs of the rural communities. To
address this problem, Microsoft and Telecenter.org (a collaborative
initiative of Microsoft, International Development Research Centre,
Canada, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation)
constituted a fund called 'Rural Innovation Fund (RIF)'.
The main aims of the fund are:
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Helping communities with
limited access to technology to realise their potential
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Promoting local IT-based social
entrepreneurial ventures
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Fostering ICT-based
entrepreneurship in the rural areas among the youth
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Encouraging organisational,
individual and local software entrepreneurial endeavours towards
developing cost-effective, practical and innovative applications
and solutions benefiting society
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Collaborating & supporting
organisations specialising in service development and offering
services that lack distribution channels to reach poor
communities
The nine award recipients were
chosen from among 950 applicants with solutions focusing on
enhancing livelihood and agriculture practice, education and
literacy, rural health and telemedicine, e-commerce, local content
management applications and village-level administration tools; and
disaster preparedness and management.
The nine Rural Innovation Fund
winners are:
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Aravind Eye Hospital, Theni,
Tamil Nadu: With a modest beginning of 11 beds in 1976, today
Aravind Eye Hospital provides the entire range of eyecare
services. Its proposal of VISION 2020 is a global initiative
that prioritises five key problems and suggests various
approaches. Based on a low-cost telemedicine approach that
reaches out to the rural population, a Vision Centre blends
information technology innovatively, facilitating online
consultation for each patient with ophthalmologists. This
approach helps patients acquire right treatment advice directly
from ophthalmologists, saving a lot of time and money. The
objective now is to develop an appropriate model to increase the
uptake of eyecare services at the Vision Centres.
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Aruntec, Chennai:
Conceptualised by V G Ram Kumar, Aruntec seeks to create and
deliver innovative info-tech solutions, including for the rural
community. Their proposal is e-com web portal to facilitate flow
of funds up to village level, the portal to help the villagers
solicit information from the Internet as well as facilitate
selecting/buying goods or availing of services; and create
e-identification of villagers and their activities.
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Janastu, Bangalore: Core
strength is developing software and providing support for NGOs
for their needs, enabling non IT-savvy users to be pro-active.
They propose to build open source school management software
that is aimed at the teachers and staff of a school, for
configuring it to their needs. This is a result of observing
that teachers at schools get proactive if the bottleneck of
depending on their computer support departments is minimised.
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Society for Participatory
Research and Integrated Training (SPIRIT), Tamil Nadu: SPIRIT
has been implementing community development activities among the
hill tribes and Dalits in 40 villages in lower Kodaikanal hills
since 1996. They now propose to introduce the fishing sector
there to information technology in the form of e-commerce, by
apprising them of benefits in areas of catch, market trend of
pricing and post-harvest technologies of fisheries.
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Vritti Solutions Limited,
Mumbai: Vritti works in the focus areas of e-goverance, training
and manufacturing ERP. Their proposal is a disaster management
system where the proposed application will act like an ERP and
knowledge management solution for disaster prevention,
mitigation, preparedness, rescue and rehabilitation and relief
work.
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Rajiv Gandhi College of
Veterinary and Animal Sciences (RAGACOVAS), Puducherry: Their
proposal involves preparation of Knowledge kit for goat-keepers.
This involves scientific ways of goat rearing such as young kid
management, feeding management, breeding management, common
diseases of goats, etc., which will explain the important
scientific practices to be adopted by the goat-keepers.
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Manipal centre for Information
Science, Manipal: is part of Manipal University. Their proposal
is the creation of BMDScan, which is a tool for bone mineral
density. It provides a cost-effective method of evaluating bone
mineral; density by the use of image analysis applied on
radiographs for better results. This method could make one of
the primary healthcare procedures accessible to the poor.
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Andhra Pradesh Dairy
Development Co-op Federation, Hyderabad: is an apex body at the
state -level, involved in focused development of dairy value
chain. Their proposal is an Integrated Rural Milk Procurement (IRMPS)
project which is an Internet-based application wherein milk
collection details are captured on to the server at headquarters
straight from the village using GPRS to ensure transparency and
instant payment to the farmer through bank.
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School of Communication and
Management Studies, Cochin: Their proposal is a Patient
Logistics Management system for hospitals which aims at
developing software for gathering and storing information on
patient logistics in the area of communicable diseases – a
scientific compiling of patient data for combating the
most-likely-to-recur phases during the next season. The project,
hence, tries to concentrate on the formally listed communicable
diseases prevalent in Kerala.
Commenting on the initiative, Prof
M S Swaminathan, chairman, MSSRF, said, "The Rural Innovation Fund
has lived up to its promise of supporting rural IT-based
entrepreneurs and independent software vendors to innovate and
propose localised solutions. I congratulate this effort which will
go a long way in fostering indigenous innovation. Such initiatives
are important for making IT relevant, accessible and cost-effective
for all sections of society and converting scientific know-how to
field-level application."
Ram Narayan, director, Unlimited
Potential Group, Microsoft India, said, "The Rural Innovation Fund
was established to help communities with limited access to
technology in realising their potential. The response in the first
year of its existence has been tremendous. We hope that the fund
will continue to encourage local, IT-based social entrepreneurial
ventures; as well as help organisations, individuals involved in
local software entrepreneurial endeavours to develop cost-effective,
practical and innovative applications and solutions benefiting
society. We believe technology has a prominent role to play in
securing rural livelihood, and RIF is a step in the direction of
making technology affordable, relevant and accessible to the rural
masses."
Dr Basheerahmad Shadrach, Senior
Program Officer, IDRC, and secretary, Mission 2007, said, "In
partnership with Microsoft, I am glad to showcase the innovations by
winners for RIF. It is a momentous step towards bridging the digital
divide, where the typically underserved rural citizen becomes not
only the consumer of software application relevant to their needs,
but also the producers. RIF is significant not just for the richness
and relevance of the applications but also for catalysing a platform
for grassroots-level entrepreneurs of independent software vendors
to innovate to meet urgent rural needs."
R Rangaraj
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