IT-based innovation to transform rural sector by Sharat Pradhan, Indo-Asian News Service
Lucknow, Feb 3 (IANS) A premier Indian technology institute is working on an IT-based innovation that is expected to revolutionise the rural economy and boost output. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kanpur, an industrial town about 100 km from here, are developing what they describe as "info-thela", or cyber cafe on wheels. IIT Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande disclosed this while delivering a talk on "Economic advancement using information and communication technologies", organised by the Club of Lucknow here Saturday evening. "The idea is to provide battery operated IT services on tricycles which can reach even the remotest of areas," he said. The mobile cyber cafe will enable village people to get information about weather forecasts, market rates of agricultural products and inputs and even entertainment, all at one place and just by one click of the mouse, he said. He said the first version of the info-thela would roll out in the next 10 months. The innovation is being developed as part of Media-Lab-Asia, a project aimed at boosting economic activities in the informal sector by using modern technologies. Media-Lab-Asia is a collaborative venture between IIT Kanpur and the U.S.-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and will cover the Kanpur-Lucknow region, he said. "We felt the need for revitalising Uttar Pradesh's informal sector - largely the rural-based handicraft industry, whose true potential cannot be exploited simply because of the lack of application of modern technologies," said Dhande. He said the lot of the chikan embroiderers of Lucknow, the carpet weavers of Bhadohi, the wood carvers of Saharanpur and the stone carvers and inlay artisans of Agra had not improved as they had limited database of designs and dearth of innovations. Giving example, he said an info-thela would make new patterns and designs for the chikan artisan in the villages right at his doorstep. The info-thelas will be built using the Wireless Local Area Network technology and can be operated with rechargeable batteries, Dhande said. "Handy portable devices are being developed to serve as scanners that can reproduce a design, lifted through the Internet, in no time." He said that application of IT would provide the desired professional input to give the much-needed boost to the otherwise rich handicraft industry that accounts for about 60 percent of the state's industrial production. He gave the example of Kanpur's saddle industry, which had grown into a Rs.2 billion business after IT helped it make innovative changes in design. --Indo-Asian News Service ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
