In Delhi!

February 18, 2008

Things are well in Delhi. I arrived the day before yesterday and relaxed with Osama, his wife, and two kids. Osama is a software guru by training and now runs the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), his own brainchild. DEF helps rural Indians generate relevant e-content for them --> e-content by the people, for the people. DEF also runs the Manthan Award for best e-content and Osama spends most of his time generating publications for policy development, visiting villages, using reason (a much-needed trait in this world), and joining authors around the world to create ground breaking literature in the field.

Yesterday, Osama, the family, a family friend, and I went to Jamali Kamali mosque and tomb - some beautiful ruins (and not so beautiful surroundings, which are covered in layer upon layer of plastic bags and trash). We finished off the afternoon with a visit to the race course (which is no longer a real race course since the military took over part of it as training grounds, the bit that is left is a tiny straight-away + a bit of a curve). Horses are rarely raced there, but there were hundreds of people crowded around televisions betting on horse races going on in Mumbai, Chennai, etc. A hilarious site! Tons of spectators with every imaginable expression, gazing at televisions, now and again walking over the the bookie stands which lie in a circle around them. In the evening, we played around in the park outside Osama's house and Abeni (his little girl) and Abner (his not as little boy) had a grand time as we played monkey in the middle, with many modified rules!

Today, I went with Osama to drop the kids off at school - an interesting alternative school, where they learn everything by doing: Aurobindo Ashram and School. This week, Abeni is learning about bikes and they get to take bikes apart from handle bar to rear splash guard, design their own bikes (on paper), and learn how to ride them.

Then I went with Osama and Shaifali (his wife) to the Digital Empowerment Foundation and saw their office, which was buzzing with activity.

At 11, I had a meeting with Hanumant at AIF (American Indian Foundation) and had a crash course in where the project stands. In an hour, we're meeting with Pradip, who is the project founder to talk about the best method of scaling up and developing the project. There are many exciting threads that are converging and the project sounds like more than just "let's give the rickshaw drivers a slightly better income".
I'm wary in projects like this of giving them a rickshaw job for life, but AIF recognizes the dangers. Irfan, who works on the business side of one subsection of the project has really gotten a lot of corporate support for advertisements (on the rickshaws) and is helping the rickshaw drivers develop simultaneous businesses: selling cold water, providing self-selected radio, and newspapers to passengers. The rickshaw drivers also get to design their own uniforms and have higher respect than other rickshaw drivers. From the project impact analysis, they have found that their rickshaw drivers drink less, beat there wives less, and are earning more, which are some great achievements.

Now it's time to iron out the manufacturing chain -- centralized / decentralized - which parts to standardize. I'm going to find out this afternoon whether or not they have mechanical drawings of all the parts.

It sounds like they're going through all the growing pains we were experiencing in Sri Lanka. Their manufacturers are small, do everything by hand, and there aren't too many standard parts. Sound familiar? :-)

I'm ready to get down to business and see what solutions we can cook up in the next month and a half!