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S. K. Agarwal
Thus, for traditional activities in the rural areas, there is a need to strengthen the
knowledge, skills, and infrastructure already available and scale them up in a business
model, in order to bring significant impacts in terms of better output and efficiency. A
range of skilled and unskilled employment opportunities for pre- and post-installation
services related to electricity supply and mechanical and civil work can be generated
as evidently found in the case of energy efficient devices developed by SEED, DA &
VA. If properly pursued, such emerging technology packages/products for effective
resource management and energy efficient systems as described above through case
studies would provide immense employment opportunities to people in rural settings,
who are currently migrating to bigger cities or industrial areas in search of jobs. Largescale replication and application of such emerging technology packages by CSGs at
the grassroots level can play a lead role to diversify rural economies, to improve the
productivity of rural areas and to reduce the existing environmental damages of the
eco-systems with clean energy access (UNDP 2012). In this endeavor, the Gandhian
concept of resource use for the local market with upgraded technology needs to be
properly synchronized by building local capacities with new wisdom of S&T for
resource use in decentralized way to transform rural livelihoods and ensure village
sustainability (Joshi 2008).
3.3 Innovations for Social Enterprises
Technology products and packages discussed here have shown strong replication
potential to solve various energy, waste management and livelihoods related problems of the rural society. Case studies clearly indicates that as social entrepreneurs,
S&T based CSGs can act as the “Change makers”for addressing society’s most
pressing problems through appropriate technological interventions, seizing opportunities to improve technology delivery systems, invent new approaches for technology
adoption at the users’ level, and provide innovative and affordable technological
solutions with strong social engineering component for societal benefits. Improved
Innovative solar cabinet dryer technology by SEED, Hyderabad, Energy Efficient
Cooking Device by TIDE, Bengaluru with benefit of reduced carbon footprints and
waste paper recycling for effective resource management by DA are some of the innovative technology products and services for improving quality of life and livelihoods
of rural and marginal communities.
Thus, technology as such creates innovative options to scale up for social enterprises ensuring social, environmental as well as economic sustainability (Swaminathan 2008). In this process, these groups have been able to build capacities and
engage rural youth to innovate and provide such need-based services by opening
opportunities in the social enterprise domain as found in all the cases to find innovative solutions to social problems with creativity for change. Thus, need is to trigger
a sustainable social enterprise ecosystem to make a more meaningful contribution to
rural society through technology driven developmental initiatives (GOI 2015), which
S. K. Agarwal
Thus, for traditional activities in the rural areas, there is a need to strengthen the
knowledge, skills, and infrastructure already available and scale them up in a business
model, in order to bring significant impacts in terms of better output and efficiency. A
range of skilled and unskilled employment opportunities for pre- and post-installation
services related to electricity supply and mechanical and civil work can be generated
as evidently found in the case of energy efficient devices developed by SEED, DA &
VA. If properly pursued, such emerging technology packages/products for effective
resource management and energy efficient systems as described above through case
studies would provide immense employment opportunities to people in rural settings,
who are currently migrating to bigger cities or industrial areas in search of jobs. Largescale replication and application of such emerging technology packages by CSGs at
the grassroots level can play a lead role to diversify rural economies, to improve the
productivity of rural areas and to reduce the existing environmental damages of the
eco-systems with clean energy access (UNDP 2012). In this endeavor, the Gandhian
concept of resource use for the local market with upgraded technology needs to be
properly synchronized by building local capacities with new wisdom of S&T for
resource use in decentralized way to transform rural livelihoods and ensure village
sustainability (Joshi 2008).
3.3 Innovations for Social Enterprises
Technology products and packages discussed here have shown strong replication
potential to solve various energy, waste management and livelihoods related problems of the rural society. Case studies clearly indicates that as social entrepreneurs,
S&T based CSGs can act as the “Change makers”for addressing society’s most
pressing problems through appropriate technological interventions, seizing opportunities to improve technology delivery systems, invent new approaches for technology
adoption at the users’ level, and provide innovative and affordable technological
solutions with strong social engineering component for societal benefits. Improved
Innovative solar cabinet dryer technology by SEED, Hyderabad, Energy Efficient
Cooking Device by TIDE, Bengaluru with benefit of reduced carbon footprints and
waste paper recycling for effective resource management by DA are some of the innovative technology products and services for improving quality of life and livelihoods
of rural and marginal communities.
Thus, technology as such creates innovative options to scale up for social enterprises ensuring social, environmental as well as economic sustainability (Swaminathan 2008). In this process, these groups have been able to build capacities and
engage rural youth to innovate and provide such need-based services by opening
opportunities in the social enterprise domain as found in all the cases to find innovative solutions to social problems with creativity for change. Thus, need is to trigger
a sustainable social enterprise ecosystem to make a more meaningful contribution to
rural society through technology driven developmental initiatives (GOI 2015), which