FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE $100,000 Development Gateway Award Goes to India's eChoupal Millions Use Internet Kiosks to Improve Farming, Health - and Now Education
Beijing, September 16, 2005 - eChoupal, a program of ITC Ltd., of India, has been chosen from a group of 135 nominees as the winner of the Development Gateway Award 2005. The $100,000 award recognizes eChoupal's impact in enabling millions of farmers in India to improve their livelihoods with access to information on growing and marketing their products. The award was presented today at the Development Gateway Forum 2005 in Beijing, where ITC Chairman Y. C. Deveshwar also described eChoupal's addition of health services to its network of Internet kiosks six months ago and announced the launch of a new educational services pilot in the coming months. "By delivering essential healthcare and educational information, we can extend the benefits of eChoupal more deeply into the fabric of communities across India," Mr. Deveshwar said. "And by recognizing programs like ours, the Development Gateway Foundation is spurring on the use of information technologies in communities worldwide, to build grassroots capacities and enhance the quality of life." Since June 2000, over 5,200 eChoupal Internet kiosks have been established to serve 3.5 million farmers in 31,000 villages. At the kiosks, farmers learn management techniques, order fertilizer and other supplies less expensively, check market prices and sell products online, with resulting increases in earnings of up to 20%. Last year, Grameen Bank-Village Phone won the Award (then known as the Petersberg Prize) for helping women entrepreneurs start small businesses providing wireless phone service in rural areas of Bangladesh. The Development Gateway Award 2005 is sponsored by T-Systems, of Germany. The Development Gateway Forum 2005 has been co-hosted by the Government of China, Development Gateway and the World Bank. More information is available at http://www.developmentgateway.org/award. About the Development Gateway Foundation The Development Gateway Foundation puts the Internet to work for developing countries, helping improve lives by enabling more effective development worldwide. Bringing hundreds of partners together with information-sharing tools, services and related grants, the foundation acts as a catalyst, enhancing aid effectiveness, improving government efficiency and building local enterprise. The Development Gateway is a public foundation based in Washington, DC, with activities in 60 countries. For more information, please visit http://www.developmentgateway.org. Contacts: Development Gateway Foundation Allison Scuriatti, in Washington, DC tel: (+1) 202.572.9232 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or Linli Huang, in Beijing tel: (+86) 13910199592 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ITC eChoupal S. Sivakumar, in Secunderabad , India tel: (+91) 40.2780.0363 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
