Tech to tackle India's poverty

Villagers in India are turning to technology to lift them out of the deprivation that keeps 280 million people in the country below the poverty line.

Change is stirring in the heart of rural India as computer-filled business process outsourcing (BPO) units spring up next to rough shacks, and village patients receive diagnoses from doctors hundreds of miles away via satellite link.

With the average rural Indian family of five living on less than $1.5 per day, 220 million malnourished children and 300 million illiterates in the Indian countryside, these opportunities are desperately needed.

More on outsourcing…

♦ Gov't stung by 'rip-off' outsourcing deals

♦ Shell signs $4bn IT outsourcing contract

♦ Cloud computing – the data centre of the future?

♦ Tough bargaining forces outsourcing price cuts

♦  Profile: Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman, Infosys

♦  India losing status as offshore king?

♦ Productivity gains driving IT outsourcing

♦ Tax payer still owed millions by EDS

♦ Cheat Sheet: Offshoring

♦ Special Report: Inside India

The Unesco-recognised scheme to revolutionise rural education, healthcare and sanitation through technology and business acumen, is the work of the Byrraju Foundation - a not-for-profit organisation set up by chairman of Indian outsourcer Satyam Ramilinga Raju.

Among the 191 villages who have been adopted by the scheme, 141 have reached 100 per cent literacy, fuelled by e-learning for adults and children via telecommunication links and 263 new schools.

More than 22,000 jobs have been created in villages, from BPO employees earning $150-a-month to entrepreneurs starting book binding or tailoring businesses.

The foundation's chief integrator Verghese Jacob says it takes between three to five years for a village to become self-reliant after being adopted by the scheme.

He said: "We want to achieve dramatic change in a very short period of time. We are aiming for state-of-the-art solutions to be made available at a minimum of cost.

"We have had people who have left jobs in the city and come back to the village because they can be with their family and have a better quality of life."

Every adopted village has a health centre, some with remote diagnostic capabilities, tending to more than six million patients and treating more than 40,000 for diabetes and hyper-tension.

Water treatment plants provide clean drinking water to more than one million people and more than 76,000 toilets have been built.

The foundation relies on 1,100 employees, 11,000 volunteers and 120 commercial, state and organisational partners.

It is now reaching out to westerners to help fund the redevelopment through rural tourism, where people can stay in an Indian village.