Indian Entrepreneurs Selected for Rural Innovation Funding: International Development Research Centre

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Indian Entrepreneurs Selected for Rural Innovation Funding

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IDRC and Microsoft India have selected five companies to receive funding through the Rural Innovation Fund, launched last September to help rural communities in India reap the benefits of technology.

Chosen from 700 applicants who presented solutions to various challenges faced by rural areas in India, the following entrepreneurs will share the fund, totaling US $200 000 (Rs 8 million):

The Aravind Eye Care System, Theni, Tamil Nadu, offers online consultation with ophthalmologists through Vision Centres in the hopes of eliminating avoidable blindness;
ARUNTEC will develop an e-Com Web portal to provide online market information for villagers;
Janastu, Bangalore, proposed open source school management software to allow teachers and other staff to better administer schools, as well as create a community for discussion among educators;
The Society for Participatory Research and Integrated Training (SPRIT), Tamil Nadu, will introduce market information and trends solutions to two fishing communities as a pilot project; and
Vritti Solutions, Mumbai, proposed to set up a disaster response network to collect information about likely disaster threats and available resources at the village level.

India’s Minister of State for Women & Child Development, Renuka Choudary, announced the five winners August 6 in New Delhi, India.

The solutions and applications will be delivered through knowledge centres in villages and small cities across India.

“The Rural Innovation Fund was established to helping communities with limited access to technology in realize their potential,” said Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, Microsoft India. “The response in the first year of its existence has been tremendous – every one of the 700 applications submitted tells a story of achievement.”

“[The Rural Innovation Fund ] 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,” said Basheerhamad Shadrach, a senior program officer at IDRC, and Secretary for Mission 2007.

The joint partnership between IDRC and Microsoft India is managed by a committee, set up under the National Alliance for Mission 2007, an initiative that promotes the use of information and communication technology in villages in India by providing knowledge connectivity to rural citizens. Its goal is to give villagers in all 600 000 Indian villages access to ICTs.

The committee includes representatives from industry, academia, and the Indian government. IDRC, through its telecentre.org program, and Microsoft India, through its Project Saksham, each contributed US $100 000 to the fund.

2007-08

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