Water Supply

CWS started supporting this community through a water project and worked with them to build a rock catchment to harvest rainwater, water storage reservoirs and communal water distribution kiosks. CWS further supported the community to start a Greenhouse (GH) farm and equipped them with skills on environmental-friendly agriculture. This community established a saving account that saves some of the profits from the GH harvest to build up an emergency contingency fund,so that whenever drought crisis hits the area , the local communities could be the first responders. The GH farms are also used by a local school as a teaching media. The agriculture teacher supports this community group on different aspect of GH farming.

Jason became passionate about development work through his involvement with Engineers Without Borders and Rotary International. He’s traveled to Peru, El Salvador, and Haiti to lead water and sanitation projects over the past 7 years. Jason received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Tufts University in Environmental Engineering. David currently works for Urban Green Energy in Manhattan, where he specializes in the design of hybrid renewable energy systems. As a mechanical engineer, he also has experience in construction and international development. In 2008, David led a team to Tanzania to teach craftsmen and communities the benefits of constructing renewable-powered manufacturing equipment from local materials.

The founder and inventor of Indoor Harvest's technology, Chad Sykes, had no prior horticulture background. After becoming interested in vertical farming, Mr. Sykes began researching various production techniques. After much research, Mr. Sykes found aeroponics to be the most efficient method for advanced crop production. With a back ground in mechanical trades and plumbing, Mr. Sykes began looking at ways to develop an aeroponic system that was both modular, mechanically broad in scope and would be affordable to use. After working on several prototypes, Mr. Sykes developed and has filed patents on a method that could be deployed for as little as $150 per square foot of production compared to the similar technologies that cost twice as much.

The story of Grundfos Lifelinks starts back in 2006 when the chairman of Grundfos, Mr. Niels Due Jensen, was travelling in Thailand and saw how poor people struggled to get clean water. Mr. Jensen declared that Grundfos should do something about this and established a team to develop a sustainable solution. Both the solar driven pump and the remote monitoring system were existing products, but now combined in a totally new solution with the water dispenser and the integration of the MPESA mobile payment system developed by Safaricom in Kenya.

Comparatively high costs of RO plants makes it inaccessible to most of the population in these north eastern parts of India. On further research and interrogation we found out that the absence of poisonous substances in the ground water makes RO redundant in these regions. Thus, a simple and cost effective technique like chlorination can effectively remove bacterial contamination from water and can be used as a cost effective solution.

Also, we found out that most of kirana shop owners have a well in their backyard that can be used to pump up ground water. Thus, this network of kirana shop owners can be leveraged to create a decentralized and cost effective water purification system, creating a win-win situation of everybody.

International Development Enterprises (IDE) was involved in the initial stages, while conducting pilot, to test the feasibility and viability of the idea.

Each year for my birthday, or Christmas, my mother would buy me a puzzle. The ones with a thousand pieces were, and still are, my favorites. The only puzzles that i enjoyed doing were of Norman Rockwell paintings. He was, and still is, my favorite artist. I would sit for hour upon hour studying the nuances of color and light, wondering how anyone could paint like that, all while putting the pieces where they go. This youthful penchant for puzzles has influenced the way I perceive the world and how it is I came to my "Aha" moment. A moment, which for me is still happening. A moment that is being built upon the momentum of a lot of hard work and years of wandering. In 2004 I went to study for a month with Paul Stamets as an internship, while working towards my degree in Biology (microbiology). I was touched by Paul's genuineness and sense of purpose.

As a conservation practitioner I have had the chance to participate in a number of processes where people are trying to protect species but are stymied but lack of resources. These include numerous species recovery planning processes, large scale marine planning processes and watershed level planning processes. This lack of funding at the project level means I am often looking for funding for projects but there constantly seems to be a scale mismatch. For instance Coca-Cola’s Replenishment program offers funding for ecosystem service provision associated with water resources but implementing such solutions without a market mechanism is often inefficient. I have also been engaged with programs to build means to measure and plan for the provision of ecosystem services such as WWF’s Natural Capital Project but again we have no means of compensating for services provided. I was recently at a small meeting discussing these challenges when someone mentioned the idea of reverse auctions they

The “Aha” moment for us was when we realized that if we want to make a difference in our watershed we could not do it alone. We could not continue to operate in our silo with our traditional partners. Instead, we would have to build bridges across to the various sectors of society. We decided to foster alliances between environmental groups, chambers of commerce, the Canadian Cancer society, local rotary clubs, all levels of government and First Nations. Without this type of non- traditional collaboration the success of the Lake Windermere Project would not have reached fruition. There is no, “them and us: there is “we” and “we” were able to get it done.

Problem: As a passionate 21 year old Bangalorean, I was disturbed by the changing landscape of the city - garbage strewn all over. The inhuman conditions of waste collectors and the deteriorating environment of the 'garden city' pained me. I realized the lack of applicability of my education was responsible for the damage despite the going-green rhetoric.

Disoriented after graduation, I was selected for a nation wide journey of 9500kms. I was taken aback by the high levels of awareness among my peers there but was startled when I realized that the lack of practical application of this knowledge was the root cause of the problem. After the journey, I conducted a pilot and was involved in collection,segregation,disposal of solid waste from 250 houses for 6 months. This unique opportunity exposed me to the realities of "like minded friends" who leave once their purpose is served. Yet I persevered.

When thinking about why I didn't give up, I realised it was because I believed.

Vinfinet Technologies is a leading firm based in Bangalore, passionate to bring fruits of technology to rural India thereby bring in change in the lives of – farmers and unemployed rural youth.Vijay Bhaskar Reddy Dinnepu is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Vinfinet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Vijay brings more than 11 years of design and development experience in various categories of networking and embedded software.Vijay holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Madras. He has won several laurels national and state-wide for outstanding academic performance throughout.
Hailing from an agricultural family and a person with entrepreneurial appetite Vijay envisions the benefits of taking technology solutions to the agricultural and rural markets. His passion is to get the best use of his technical experience to bring in a change in the lives of rural India.