476
S. K. Agarwal
• Consumer Finance: Loan schemes of Banks and MFIs needs to be compatible
with the needs of the sector—Developing financial mechanisms in support of
inclusive innovation initiatives and related intermediary institutions.
• Challenges for Social Inclusion: Engagement of CSGs for social inclusion in a
country that is extremely diverse and to be constantly engaged with the people at
the grassroots level for better quality of life and livelihood gain as evidently found
in all the case studies is itself indicative of CSG’s commitment for inclusive growth
to address the needs of diverse population. They have capability and creativity to
provide scalable technological solutions as per location specific needs. However, it
is equally important to strategize the management support system (technical, sales,
servicing and HR) to address the needs of diverse ecosystems’ and communities.
• Inclusive Innovations: Need is nowadays being felt for inclusive innovation
for delivering better quality services/products for improving the welfare, creating livelihood opportunities, and empowerment of lower-income and excluded
groups/marginalized population, and to support the scaling up of successful initiatives as evidently seen in above discussed case studies of business process
innovations to benefit larger section of excluded population to serve local needs
and also to adapt them to specific rural context. Certainly, such technologies and
innovative delivery processes have the potential to achieve scale and wide scale
utility like ICT use in health care and other support services to facilitate inclusive
innovations. This requires inclusive policies for inclusive growth as also advocated
by Heek et al. 2013; Mashelkar 2014; OECD 2014, 2015 that will contribute to
social inclusiveness.
• Address the problems of Start-up: Creation of Rural business incubation facilities to provide the client with an ecosystem to support institutions and the facility
to serve its purpose to become a full-fledged entrepreneur.
4 Conclusions: Technology led Scalable Solutions
and Services for Rural Growth
Though there are many entities interested in doing related action research work
for the development and dissemination of technologies for rural transformation, the
spread of rural technology has been diffuse, uneven, and slow and its full potential
for generating a rapid multiplier effect in rural economy has remained unrealized.
The main constraint preventing advances in technologies for rural application from
reaching most villages in rural areas seems to be the lack of local technology action
groups who can assist in the assessment of the technology needs and the current
technology status/gaps of different rural occupation groups, i.e. farmers, rural artisans
and the landless, to enable them to add value to their products and services with
upgraded technology of appropriate scale.
Comprehensive analysis of above discussed case studies clearly show the ways
that attention is required to embedding the results of such field level action research
S. K. Agarwal
• Consumer Finance: Loan schemes of Banks and MFIs needs to be compatible
with the needs of the sector—Developing financial mechanisms in support of
inclusive innovation initiatives and related intermediary institutions.
• Challenges for Social Inclusion: Engagement of CSGs for social inclusion in a
country that is extremely diverse and to be constantly engaged with the people at
the grassroots level for better quality of life and livelihood gain as evidently found
in all the case studies is itself indicative of CSG’s commitment for inclusive growth
to address the needs of diverse population. They have capability and creativity to
provide scalable technological solutions as per location specific needs. However, it
is equally important to strategize the management support system (technical, sales,
servicing and HR) to address the needs of diverse ecosystems’ and communities.
• Inclusive Innovations: Need is nowadays being felt for inclusive innovation
for delivering better quality services/products for improving the welfare, creating livelihood opportunities, and empowerment of lower-income and excluded
groups/marginalized population, and to support the scaling up of successful initiatives as evidently seen in above discussed case studies of business process
innovations to benefit larger section of excluded population to serve local needs
and also to adapt them to specific rural context. Certainly, such technologies and
innovative delivery processes have the potential to achieve scale and wide scale
utility like ICT use in health care and other support services to facilitate inclusive
innovations. This requires inclusive policies for inclusive growth as also advocated
by Heek et al. 2013; Mashelkar 2014; OECD 2014, 2015 that will contribute to
social inclusiveness.
• Address the problems of Start-up: Creation of Rural business incubation facilities to provide the client with an ecosystem to support institutions and the facility
to serve its purpose to become a full-fledged entrepreneur.
4 Conclusions: Technology led Scalable Solutions
and Services for Rural Growth
Though there are many entities interested in doing related action research work
for the development and dissemination of technologies for rural transformation, the
spread of rural technology has been diffuse, uneven, and slow and its full potential
for generating a rapid multiplier effect in rural economy has remained unrealized.
The main constraint preventing advances in technologies for rural application from
reaching most villages in rural areas seems to be the lack of local technology action
groups who can assist in the assessment of the technology needs and the current
technology status/gaps of different rural occupation groups, i.e. farmers, rural artisans
and the landless, to enable them to add value to their products and services with
upgraded technology of appropriate scale.
Comprehensive analysis of above discussed case studies clearly show the ways
that attention is required to embedding the results of such field level action research