Nurturing Social responsibility
TIDE strives to empower communities using sustainable technological interventions;this program's goal is to target students and nurture environment evangelists
About You
About You
First Name
Sumathy
Last Name
Krishnan
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
TIDE (Technology Informatics Design Endeavour)
Organization Website
Organization Country
India, KA, Bangalore
Country where this project is creating social impact
India, KA, Bangalore
Is your organization a
Non‐profit / NGO / Citizen sector organization
Your role in Education
Other.
The type of school(s) your solution is affiliated with
Public (tuition-free)
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Established (past the previous stages and has demonstrated success)
How long has your solution been in operation?
Operating for 1‐5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
The world that the next generation will inherit is NOT going to be green, literally and metaphorically. Environmental issues would be one of the top most concerns. Tomorrow's citizens (Today's students) will have to own them up and come up with solutions. Unfortunately, majority of the students' exposure to growing environmental issues (which morph into social issues gradually) are limited to hearing and reading about them. They remain mute spectators. And currently the powerful medium of education system plays a limited role on nurturing environmental responsibility. It mostly stops with some abstract coverage in the syllabus. Neither are students sensitized about the need to take responsibility for these issues nor are they are taught the required skills to tackle them.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
The solution is to sensitize students about the impending environmental issues and their impact on our future, followed by live demonstration of plausible solutions to some of these issues. At each of the identified school, TIDE will talk about various sustainable technologies that are environment friendly and interact with the school community to identify their pressing concerns in the immediate environment (say, water scarcity). Then with the participation by the student community, TIDE will narrow down and install some environment friendly technologies within the campus (say, rain water harvesting, solar panels for alternate energy). The students will own, maintain and operate the structures and the school will be able to reap the resulting benefits (say, reduction in water bills, electricity bills). The USP of this solution is that the students become part of the problem as well as part of the solution. The solution not just creates empathy but empowers the students to act.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
TIDE proposes to convert the participating schools into 'Eco Friendly Zones' by setting up live environmental labs. These labs are actual installations of environmental friendly technologies like rain water harvesting systems, grey water treatment facility, solar panels, vermi composing, waste segregation and management, medicinal / aromatic plants nursery, etc. The actual installations at each premise will be decided with the student and school community, to address local needs and by tapping local resources. TIDE will install these technologies and involve the students in each and every step, including data collection, operation and maintenance. The size and scale of these installations will be decided based on the available infrastructure and the local demand. All the models will be completely functional and real life working installations. To impress upon the students on their benefit, a planned data collection effort will be undertaken to establish quantitatively to demonstrate the impacts. For example, the number of litres of water harvested will be monitored through water meters, the electricity saved will be monitored through the meters, amount of money generated through waste sellng will be recorded, etc. Awareness creation will be an important component and TIDE intends to do this through interesting ICTs including quiz, model creation competitions, interaction with experts, exposure visits, interaction with community around the campus, information boards in local languages near the installations, encouraging visitors from other schools and public, etc.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
Schools themselves take the students on exposure visits to places with environment friendly installations. These just remain visits as most of the students do not identify either with the problem or with the solutions, as they are not connected to their every day life. Whereas this solution directly impacts them by doing something in their immediate environment (in their campus) and with their participation. Not only does it make them understand and appreciate the issues, but also instills in them a sense of responsibility towards the larger society.It trains them to be sensitive to the societal needs, apply their scientific thinking to come up with solutions in a participatory manner. Compared to reading or visiting such solutions, participating in it makes a big difference.
Now that you have thought out your entry, help us pitch it.
Define your company, program, service, or product in 1-2 short sentences [136 characters]
TIDE promotes sustainable and environment friendly technologies for addressing everyday issues, in a participatory manner.
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences [136 characters]
Nurturing Evangelists for Environment Conservation
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
TIDE's work with one school campus converting it into an eco friendly zone has directly impacted about 1400 students and about 150 faculty members; in addition it has impacted about another 1000 students and general public who have either visited the campus, or were an audience in inter-school events where the project was show cased. The impact has primarily been in waking up the students to the stark reality of environment degradation, to show them how they can be the change makers, to empower them to come up with solutions and implement them, to nurture evangelists out of them who will take up the cause of spreading this awareness and knowledge to the larger world. In addition, the solutions has created a new pedagogy in teaching, where the learning is in tune with the needs of the society and in a participatory manner. The experience is rewarding to the students and faculty in terms of an interesting exercise, tangible effects, sense of achievement, and better academic performance
What is your projected impact over the next 1-3 years?
The environment friendly installations will start yielding tangible results as years go by, and with a solid data collection set-up in place, the effects will be for everybody to see and verify. The indirect reach will increase through participating schools showcasing the project in various forums, visitors to the campus, and media coverage. The students also are likely to develop a taste for social entrepreneurship with the experience gained. They will talk about it at their homes, friends circle, etc and influence a circle of general public to start taking responsibility for the environment. They will also be able to guide on actual steps that can be taken to address any environmental issue. They will become 'Environment Evangelists' armed with the right tools to make a change.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Identifying educational institutes, interacting to understand the needs and resources, having a blue print for the eco lab
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Talk to public education institutional bodies like Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, and reputed private ones
Task 2
Freezing on campus and environment friendly technologies, in tune with the institution's needs, resources and interest
Task 3
Awareness creation among the student community
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
At least half of the installations to be in place, base line data collection to have started, awareness programs to be done
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Mobilizing funds and implementation partners
Task 2
Scientific thinking to be introduced, data collection to start
Task 3
Different ICTs to be planned and executed
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world [125 words]
After completion of the project, when the first visitors started coming to the campus, TIDE was floored by the students' understanding and involvement in the exercise. They not only spoke about it, including the technical details and practical issues, but also had holistic views on how these things can make a change in a small way, towards a better environment. This they did without any coaching. In the movie that TIDE made about the project (see movie here), the students participated spontaneously without a script showing their passion for the work they have done. Their pride in being a part of this unique solution shows on their face and quite a few of them are completely hands-on the components to run it by themselves. They have plans to monetise these technologies where possible, and coming up with ideas of entrepreneurship. Importantly, they look for every opportunity to showcase this work to their peers in various forums and actively encourage others to take up similar exercise
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
TIDE enjoys patronage from various academic institutions including Indian Institute of Science and University of Agricultural sciences, at Bangalore. We have also worked with various international organizations like UNDP (check http://tide-india.org/partners/). TIDE has partnered with other NGOs in programs with matching objectives / goals. For this project, TIDE has already trained and developed contractors to implement and maintain various environment friendly technologies. TIDE also has maintained a good relationship with the school board, prompting them to request for replication.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section? [75 words]
The students involved in the project will be ones primarily creating a social impact. This will happen naturally, as we have seen in the past work. The school community (board, management, teachers, etc) has a big role in supporting the project, in giving opportunities for the students to take it to a large audience, in inviting visitors to see the project and its effect first hand, in being vocal about the impacts. Implementing staff to play a significant role in coming up with interesting tools for awareness creation, those that catch attention and convincing enough.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
TIDE has the resources to implement a project of this kind. What is needed is publicity to reach potential funders. The project has wide reaching impacts including education, environment, empathy, etc. And it is completely sustainable and replicable. We see this project as having the potential to change the whole outlook of students' towards the world and the environmental issues.
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