Day 4 - Monday 13th Nov

Submitted by Matthew Farmer on November 15, 2006 - 09:04.

(This entry is also published on the author's personal learning journey blog, which can be found at http://matthewinindia.typepad.com/indian_learning_journey/).

Today was a fascinating day of contrasts. Contrasting in that our visits were to very different organisations with fascinating approaches but also similar in that they both dealt with issues of the rural poor in India.

The day started off with a briefing and for the first time, all of us on the learning journey were together – the last participant, Martine from France had joined us the night before, flying in from Paris the previous day – her flight landed at 3am so we understood how she was feeling!

Our first visit was to an organisation called CART (The Centre for Appropriate Rural Technologies). CART was run by a man named Ravikumar who was a total enthusiast. An engineer by training (the centre was located at the local School of Engineering in Mysore), he and his team had developed an amazing array of intermediate technologies that were designed to be used to address issues of water collection and filtration, efficient energy production and eco-friendly construction. The issues seemed very relevant to all of us as many of the climate issues that they addressed are as pertinent in Europe as they are in India. Indeed many of the technologies he had developed appeared to be fantastic ways of addressing problems back in the UK. The difference in the Indian context however is that the purchasing power of people is so much less and so this has to be a major consideration when developing products and distribution systems. read more | add new comment | india