Indian Solar Power Pack Powers Villages

Developments in India are showing the way forward for low-cost solar power for the poor. The Duron Solar Home Power System (http://www.duronenergy.com/product_info/) is now enabling the rural poor to generate and store solar electricity. It is powerful enough to charge gadgets and appliances and run LED lights. It allows people to do their household chores into the dark hours and to study or earn extra income.

As the company says, it “allows ample light for cooking, for children to study at night, and for shop owners to stay open later to earn more money.”

The system removes the need for polluting and dangerous kerosene lamps, which are used by an estimated one million families for lighting in India.

Kerosene lamps are a major contributor to indoor air pollution, which itself claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year. Kerosene lamps have also caused countless deaths by suffocation, burns and fatal fires.

The United Nations Environment Program says kerosene fumes are responsible for around 64 percent of deaths for children under the age of five in developing countries.

More than 1.7 billion people around the world have no domestic electricity supply, of whom more than 500 million live in sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank). Some 400 million people in India do not have access to electricity, according to the World Bank, and 600,000 villages lack an electrical supply. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pledged “power for all” by 2012. Without electricity, many development goals remain dreams that will never be achieved.

Being able to see at night unleashes a vast range of possibilities, but for the very poor lighting is often the most expensive household expense, soaking up 10 to 15 percent of income.

According to Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/), India could generate 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030.

The Duron package comes with a five watt solar panel, a cell phone charger connection, three LED (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_lamp) lights, and an AC grid charger. After a day of charging, the Duron can power three hours of bright lighting or 10 hours of dim lighting.

The Duron system sells for about 5,999 rupees, or around US $130, and the typical user to date has been small businesses and schools.

Duron is selling several thousand units a month and the company is currently scaling up its sales efforts.

Duron’s approach is to provide a market solution to the huge problem of providing electricity to India’s rural poor.

The company was launched in 2008 with the goal of providing electricity to those without around the world. It was developed out of the Idea Lab (http://www.idealab.com/), a Pasadena, Californian incubator of technology companies.

Extensive field research was conducted across India to determine what was the best solution and what were the needs of rural dwellers. Duron moved its headquarters to Bangalore, India in 2009 to be closer to its customers and expand sales. The company operates in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

By August 2009, more than 2,100 people had light because of the Duron system. The company calculates this translated into 172,500 hours of light.

One customer, Anil Singh, lives with his family in the unelectrified village of Narainpur. His family used kerosene lamps and was paying US $4 a day for unreliable lighting. But after seeing his neighbour, Santosh Singh, with bright, powerful lights at his home, he was curious as to why. When he found out about Duron’s system, he installed a system to light his front porch and two rooms in his house. His family now enjoys two-and-half hours of reliable light in the evening to do things.

“The Duron has made my life so much easier,” said Anil. “It’s a much cheaper (lighting) option compared to kerosene lamps, and I now have a reliable source of power on a daily basis,” he told the company’s website.

Another innovative start-up with offices in India and Africa, is the d.light company, which also has a new, highly-efficient solar-powered product available. The Kiran LED lamp (http://www.dlightdesign.com/products_kiran_global.php) stays lit for eight hours on a full battery and is four times brighter than a kerosene lamp. It illuminates 360 degrees and produces an even, bright white light.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: February 2010

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Cool Food for the Poor

A whole wave of hi-tech, innovative products are now being developed and marketed for the world’s poor. These products are designed to raise the quality of life of poor people and treat them as a market with real needs, rather than a mass of people to be ignored.

One of the major challenges of the 21st century is finding ways to make these products affordable for the poor – bringing significant development gains in health and quality of life – without increasing the burden on the world’s environment. In India, this vast new market is rapidly coming alive, with new marketing channels reaching deep into the country’s slums and aided by a lively media scene turning people on to new products.

India is turning its large number of well-trained engineers and product designers to the task of making relevant products for the country’s millions of rural poor.

An Indian refrigerator – the ChotuKool fridge (http://www.new.godrej.com/godrej/godrej/index.aspx?id=1) – is designed to stay cool for hours without electricity and to use half the power of conventional refrigerators. Priced at US $69, it is targeted at India’s poor – a population of over 456 million, almost half the total Indian population (World Bank).

Manufactured by Godrej and Boyce and weighing just 7.8 kilograms, it is designed around the stated needs of the poor, who wanted a fridge capable of cooling 5 to 6 bottles of water and 3 to 4 kilograms of vegetables. Portability was crucial as well, since it needed to be moved when large family gatherings take place in small rooms.

As a video shows (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCRlynp0bM), the fridge looks more like a drinks cooler than the typical large refrigerator. It works by replacing the standard compressor motor found in most fridges with a battery-powered heat exchanger.

A group of village women was involved in the design process from the beginning. The fridges are being distributed by a microfinance group.

While people in developed countries take it for granted they will have both a refrigerator and a steady supply of electricity, the world’s poor have few options for keeping food cool.

There is a strong economic advantage to refrigeration: many farmers have to throw away vegetables or sell at high discounts because they are quickly spoiling in the heat. By refrigerating, they can keep them fresh and get the higher price. For somebody living on less than US $2 a day, this is a big economic boost.

Keeping food cool also comes with health advantages: it slows bacterial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria) growth, which happens at temperatures between 4.4 degrees Celsius and 60 degrees Celsius. This is called ‘the danger zone’, when some bacteria double in just 20 minutes. But when a refrigerator is set below 4 degrees Celsius, most foods will be protected from bacteria growth (USDA).

Through refrigeration, the poor not only can avoid food poisoning, but also benefit from better quality foods, more dietary variety, and better take advantage of buying and storing food when prices are lower. For example, eggs in a refrigerator can last for up to five weeks. Fresh fish can be stored unfrozen for up to two days.

The quality of life improvements from refrigeration are obvious. But with conventional refrigerators costly and dependent on a steady supply of electricity, the poor will not buy them.

An Indian government survey in 2007/08 found daily pay in rural areas ranged from 45 rupees a day (US $1) to 110 rupees a day (US $2.40). This means the ChotuKool fridge costs between one and two month’s wages for a rural worker.

Some argue even the cost of the ChotuKool is still too prohibitive to many poor people. And there are other initiatives out there to offer low-tech solutions to cooling food.

In Nigeria, grassroots inventor Mohammed Bah Abba has designed a cooler called the Zeer (http://practicalaction.org/?id=zeerpots). It works like this: two ceramic earthenware pots of different sizes are arranged one inside the other. The space between the pots is filled with wet sand and kept moist. The user then places their drinks or vegetables inside and covers with a damp cloth. As the water from the moist sand evaporates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation), the air inside the centre pot is cooled several degrees, enough to preserve some foods and drinks.

Another Indian innovation is also targeting the rural poor consumer: a water filter. Called the Swach water purifier (http://www.tata.com/article.aspx?artid=TtOdcdNuSRk=), it is aimed at households and stands just less than 1 metre (just over 3 feet) in height. The filter is designed to do bulk water purification and is the result of 10 years’ research. It is aimed at the one billion people in the world who do not have access to clean water. It will sell for 1,000 rupees (US $21.50).

It is very slick and modern in design, with a mix of white and clear plastic, resembling the commonly used Brita (http://www.brita.net/) water filters found in many homes. It works by using ash from rice milling to filter out bacteria. The ash is impregnated with silver particles to kill germs that cause diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid. It is able to purify 3,000 litres of water before the cartridge needs to be replaced.

It is manufactured by the Indian industrial giant Tata.

“It was the pressing need of people trapped by the effects of natural disasters such as the (2004 Indian Ocean) tsunami that saw the deployment of one of the earliest versions of this product,” said Tata vice chairman S. Ramadorai. “A key part was the insight that a natural material like rice husk can be processed to significantly reduce water-borne germs and odours when impure water is passed through it.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: January 2010

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Grassroots Entrepreneurs Now Have Many Ways to Fund their Enterprises

In the past, African entrepreneurs were extremely limited in the options for funding their plans. They had to rely on often ineffective national banks or local networks based on political, tribal or family connections to secure funding for enterprises. That has now changed, and there is an explosion in new thinking on business start-ups and how best to help grassroots entrepreneurs.

Concepts such as socially responsible investing, social enterprises and fair trade have opened up new frontiers for business development. All focus on the so-called triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. Economist Milton Friedman’s refrain that the only social responsibility of business was to increase profits, is being proven wrong. Some even go as far as to say social enterprise is the model for the 21st century.

“There’s lots of money to be made here,” said James Baderman of What If, an innovation company in the UK that employs 300 people and devotes 10 percent of its profits to helping social enterprises develop and grow. “There are huge opportunities; just look at the double-digit growth in fair trade and organic goods over the past decade. Consumers are increasingly making choices based on the ethical nature of products.”

Many in the social enterprise movement believe breaking the cycle of poverty and economic stagnation requires more than charity; it requires the creation of sustainable businesses that will pay local taxes and employ local people. They have also adopted and adapted the techniques used by multinational companies to improve the desirability of their products. A key part of these new socially responsible businesses is branding and marketing.

In Kenya, the UK’s Traidcraft (www.traidcraft.co.uk) – an organization that fights poverty through a wide range of trade-related activities combining a development charity with a trading company – is working with the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network to develop markets for Kenyan herbs, spices and related products in local and international markets. These include gums, resins (e.g. frankincense), herbs such as coriander, oregano, garlic and lemon grass; spices such as paprika, chillies, rosemary, lemon balm, and essential oils such as pepper tree oil, sinoni oil, and megalocapus oil – all grown in marginalised, arid areas.In another development focused on Kenya – but applicable across Africa – is being led by the UK-based Mark Leonard Trust (http://markleonard.net/). Called the Mainstreaming African Crafts project, it seeks to boost demand for Kenyan craft products in the UK market. It will build demand by focusing on growth areas (such as baskets, jewellery, leather), emphasizing the distinctiveness of African craft products and support product development in line with identified market trends. The aim is to launch a branded Kenyan product range at an international trade fair in 2008.

Along with improving the branding and marketing of social enterprises and fair trade businesses, funding options are becoming more varied. One new source of funding for budding social entrepreneurs is the William James Foundation’s 4th Annual Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition. It awards winners who develop business plans that blend people, planet and profit together with over US $40,000 in cash and expert advice to make sure it is spent well. Past winners have included business ventures as varied as an Afghan company that sends SMS text messages on security alerts, to others making hand-made organic clothing and portable vaccine packs for remote areas.

“We’re at a tipping point wherein the entrepreneur who builds in long-term values of sustainability is the one who will be successful,” said Ian Fisk, executive director of the William James Foundation and a long-time sustainable business activist through Net Impact (http://www.netimpact.org/index.cfm). “Most of what people think of as environmental and social activism in business is simply long-term thinking about energy costs and human resources. There are thousands of good ideas out there. The foundation wants to find those that are attached to solid business plans and help them succeed.”

The success of this approach has also attracted the attention of multinational companies like the oil company Shell. At the Shell Foundation (www.shellfoundation.org), they look at all the enterprises they support from a hardnosed, business perspective. Rather than seeing a producer who needs to produce, they look first at the market and the consumer, and then work backwards to get the producer to make the appropriate products that will sell. “No micro-enterprise is sustainable unless there is a viable route to market,” said Sharna Jarvis, Programme Manager for the Shell Foundation. “The problem with the standard model for micro-finance is that it begins with the producer, not the consumer. It is all about what someone wants to make – there is not enough emphasis on whether anyone will buy it.”

A new internet search engine has also been launched that is seeking a new way to create a steady flow of funds to nonprofit enterprises working to reduce poverty. Called GoodSearch (www.GoodSearch.com), it plows 50 percent of its advertising revenue (about a penny a search) back into nonprofits selected by its users. Powered by the well-known portal Yahoo!, if for example 1,000 supporters just searched twice a day, it would raise US $7,300 a year for an organization.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: February 2007

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Illiterate Get Internet at Touch of a Button

Quick access to information is crucial for development. The remarkable spread of information around the world via the Internet has been one of the greatest achievements of the 21st century. The astounding take-up of mobile phones is another. For those who can afford it or get access to a computer and electricity, the new technology is a powerful tool for economic and social advancement. But what about people who are caught in the technology gap, or who are illiterate?

What about those who have a mobile phone, but are too poor to own a computer – or live in a village without electricity? Or those who can’t read or write? In India, there are 42 million Internet users, 3.7 per cent of the population. But the country is also home to the largest number of illiterate people in the world: 304.11 million (Human Development Report).

A unique solution in rural India is developing a way to connect the illiterate to the Internet. The Open Mind Programme’s Question Box Project, opened its first Box in the village of Phoolpur in September 2007.

The idea is brilliantly simple. An intercom-like white tin box with a phone inside is placed in a village’s public areas. Using the existing phone networks, the user just has to hit a simple button to get an operator at the other end. The operator sits in front of an Internet-enabled computer. The user just asks their question, and the operator turns these questions into search queries. When the computer’s search engine gives back answers, the operator selects the best one and then replies in the user’s native language and in layman’s terms.

The operator’s role goes beyond simply typing questions into Google – the operators use intelligent software that aggregates frequently asked questions (FAQs) to speed up time. FAQs include: school scores, job opportunities, football/cricket scores, and definitions and terms. Operators will also send emails for the users.

The service also has a role to play for the literate who lack Internet access. Students once had to travel to get their exam results, but now they can just ask the Question Box.

The Question Box operates in normal business hours for now. A second Question Box was put into operation at the beginning of 2008 in the village of Ethida, several hours’ drive from New Delhi, and there are plans to expand the Question Box to 30 units connected to 20 operators.

At present, organizers are looking into raising revenue for the service by advertising and sponsorship. Operators are typically homeworkers and well-educated. Mostly female, their parents are happy to have them work from home.

During this first phase, the project team analyzed the results and refined the structure of the service. They are also exploring viable business models to be able to take the service across India and keep it sustainable.

Professor of Psychology Ritu Dangwal from the NIIT Institute, is in charge of working with the villagers to monitor the project. She is also involved in a start-up called Hole in the Wall, which provides Internet kiosks to rural villagers. Dangwal’s research has starkly correlated the relationship between distance from a big city and decreasing quality of education, a graphic example of the damage done by being cut off from good information resources.

The Question Box is based on an idea from Rose Shuman, a business and international development consultant. Shuman had become frustrated that with all the clever people and vast sums of money going into information technology, few were developing low-cost ways to take the power of computers to the people.

“The best thing about this project is that it’s very tangible,” she told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “It’s not a big infrastructure. You have a box you can see and touch, and a call log of every question.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2008

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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