Imagine a 3D printing shop in a small town or a farmer using a pilotless plane to monitor crop health in his remote village.
These are no modern fairy tales, but active ideas that have set some rural places in Karnataka abuzz in recent months.
In Gadag’s Nargund taluk, Prakash (28) is ready to invest Rs. 50,000 and be the first to offer 3D printing service at his hometown.
Cotton farmer S.S. Hatibada, from the same place, dusted his idling smartphone and learnt how to use Facebook and WhatsApp. He now checks commodity prices and weather forecasts on his phone.
It all started when the two, along with thousands of rural folk across Karnataka, were treated to a day-long ‘Internet Santhe’ at the local school auditorium a few months back.
They were among the 8,000 students, pensioners, self-employed, housewives, and farmers from 10 taluks of Gadag, Tumakuru, Bagalkot, Bidar, Yadgir, and Koppal districts who, in separate sessions, learnt basic computer skills and how to access the Internet, search, browse and e-mail.
Bengaluru-based social enterprise Head Held High Services, in partnership with Idea Cellular and Microsoft, hosted the programmes between November last year and March.
The participants got to dabble in social media and applications for e-commerce, fitness and finance on their phones. Not to mention their brush with digital games on the Xbox 360 Kinect, Google Goggles and new technologies like robots, agricultural drones or 3D printers.
Digital drive
“India has a digital footprint of 205 million users. However, only 60 million are from rural India,” Madan Padaki, co-founder and CEO of Head Held High Services, told The Hindu . “The idea behind the santhe was to take Internet to Karnataka’s villages and create a network of entrepreneurs, who can use technology to transform the way they live and work.”
Mr. Padaki, who wants to take the santhe across the country, said 700 of those who came to the programme were keen on taking the next step. “Prakash wants to start a 3D printing business by [renting] some space in the local grocer’s shop. A few want to start gaming kiosks. Some farmers are keen on selling agricultural drones that we demonstrated to control pests and monitor crop health,” he said.
His next target — covering 200 taluks in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Orissa, Gujarat, and Rajasthan over the next 12 months, along with NGOs and corporate partners.