Rural India

When Kannan Lakshminarayan completed his engineering from IIT, he wanted to do something that could leave a positive impact in the rural sector. On seeing the plight of the small cotton farmers in Vidarbha, he came up with an idea to help them get an alternative source of income and increase their value proposition. He started Microspin Machine Works that in 3 years has doubled the revenue of many farmers by allowing them to also become producers of yarn! Read more to know about his brilliant idea and how he executed it with a little professional help.

Once struggling to get basic electricity like most villages in India, Dharnai has now changed its fate and become the first village in India to completely run on solar power. The project by Greenpeace not only powers residential homes but also street lights, hospitals, schools and commercial buildings. Read the story of Dharnai to know how they did it.

Even as a kid, Gurmail Singh Dhonsi wanted to invent things. He discontinued his studies to learn the art of invention and joined a workshop. From repairing high quality tractors and military equipment to modifying bikes, he has managed to innovate many machines and even got patents for them. Read one man's story of passion for machines and where it took him.

A lot of energy and time is spent in the tile-making process. What makes it worse is that the effort, energy and time consumed is far more than the outcome. Sukhranjan Mistry thought to solve this issue and invented a machine that could help tile makers prepare 300 tiles in a day. That too of various designs!

Want to contribute to change, literally? You can help Skilled Samaritan raise funds to install solar lights in a village in India. A team of highly qualified members who have left their jobs to help the much ignored communities in villages. Read their story and how they are making a difference - and how you can too!

Girish Badragond, a 28 year old from Bijapur District in Karnataka, came to Bangalore in 2006 with a laptop, a wireless router and a 1-way bus fare. Read the story of how this same man is solving Indian farmers' irrigation problems through his interesting innovations. All that without even having a degree!

It’s unique. It’s for women. And it’s rural. Enough reasons for all of us to be proud of initiatives like Sakhi Unique Rural Enterprise (SURE) – a rural distribution and marketing company working with rural women entrepreneurs (sakhis) and markets clean green products like improved cook stove, solar lantern, biogas, solar water heaters etc.

D. Paul Sathianathan, CEO of GUARDIAN, a microfinance institution and a not-for-profit organisation with no capital, talks about their work of providing loans to the society to ensure access to clean water and toilet facilities in every household.

Head Help High is an organization started by a group of social reformers who see literacy and employment as the route for improving the lives of rural youth. With their unique program, they transform an illiterate person into a BPO employee in just 6 months,and create some real impact.

RuralShores was started keeping in mind the problems associated with mass migration of rural youth to the cities in search of jobs, both to the individuals and to society as a whole. It focuses on enabling these youth to have access to jobs without leaving the villages. On the whole, this is positively impacting the development of rural parts of India as well as giving stable jobs and incomes to the people.