I happened to meet an 8th std student, 2 yrs back in a remote village in the outskirts of Chennai. He pulled me aside and showed me a picture he had drawn.

A road heading towards a village, lush green paddy fields on either side, a medical center at the village and a Information Kiosk. He said this is how every village would look like in 2020 in India.

RURAL INNOVATION NETWORK


Driven by dreams of a wealthy rural India, RIN defines its vision in the following terms:



"The key to wealth creation is technological progress, which accounts for 50 to 75 per cent of the recorded income increase in history. In rural areas, wealth creation is more sustainable if rural needs are met through the fuller expression and application of local knowledge."
In fact, rural people intimately understand their environments and create thousands of innovations that have immense potential to improve the well being of the rural population. What rural innovators don't have though is access to the skills, networks and other resources needed to take their innovations to the market.

RIN believes many rural innovations can be successfully commercialized as micro-enterprises that benefit rural consumers and contribute to sustainable wealth creation. Once a model is established to transform ideas with potential into reality, a virtuous cycle comes in to operation, encouraging further innovation and wealth creation in rural areas. As an incubator, RIN impacts all aspects of this cycle - innovation, rural enterprise, rural users and wealth creation. .

Mr. Basil is founder and CEO of RIN. Prior to founding RIN, he worked with the marketing department of the Kerala Horticulture Development Programme, a project of the European Union and the Government of Kerala. Mr. Basil has also worked with the tree grower's project of the National Dairy Development Board. He is a mechanical engineer and postgraduate in management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. Mr. Basil has been awarded the Ashoka Fellowship for his outstanding social entrepreneurship in setting up RIN.


Contact: Rural Innovations Network Foundation, #9, 2nd Floor, Kanakasri Nagar, Cathedral Road, Chennai 600 086 Tel. no : 91 44 2811 2108 / 4210 5447 E-mail:info@rinovations.org www.rinovations.org

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Food for Thought...

It's good to have money and the things money can buy,
but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make
sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
                                                    - George Horace Lorimer