Harnessing Connectivity and ICT for Rural Development

BAIF Development Research Foundation organised a one-day consultative meeting for ‘Harnessing Connectivity and ICT for Rural Development’ in hybrid mode on 30th August 2022, in collaboration with Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

?Mr. Bharat Kakade, President and Managing Trustee of BAIF expressed the need and opportunity to tap the digital ecosystem for the benefit of both farmers and urban consumers. He also spoke about BAIF’s digital integration with government mega programmes such as e-NAM as well as the private sector through applications like mKrishi along with TCS and also briefed the audience about BAIF’s success stories in cloud telephony in the form of Sanvadini.

Dr. Anand Deshpande , Founder Chairman and Managing Director at Persistent Systems and Trustee, BAIF, graced the occasion as the keynote speaker. He spoke about emerging technologies that can be harnessed for rural development and gave 6 key mantras: A- Artificial Intelligence, B- Biotechnology, C- Cryptocurrency, D- Digital and Data, E- Energy F- Fintech.

Mr. Shrinivas Kulkarni , Group Vice President (Finance) BAIF, concluded the plenary session on an optimistic note of better connectivity in the coming days as state policies are responding to changing times.??

Dr. Sarbani Banerjee Belur , Asia Regional Coordinator for APC and Senior Research Scientist at IIT Bombay, elucidated the evolution of the paradigm of development as being centred around connectivity.?

The major points that emerged from the discussion were the persisting digital divide between urban and rural India even today and the need for multi-stakeholder partnership and better connectivity to bridge this gap. This connectivity should be affordable, sustainable, gender-inclusive and empowering, both online as well as offline. There is a need to make good use of connectivity to achieve the goal of rural development. Moving forward, the need for technology to be human-centred and to be built upon renewable energy sources, was emphasised upon.?

By bringing together academia, industry leaders and other domain experts, this consultative meeting can be seen as a stepping stone towards a multi-stakeholder partnership for bringing forth more inclusive rural development through better connectivity.?

The day-long consultation had presentations under various sub-themes such as unleashing potential of digital ecosystem, best practices in digital technology applications and relevance of connectivity. Even youth from colleges and startups participated in an open session called’’ DIGI STORM’’. There were speakers from diverse domains who have done stellar work in the field of digital technology applications and communications.?

?1.??????Association for Progressive Communications (Sarbani Banerjee Belur, Mike Jensen)

2.??????Indian Institute of Technology Bombay ( Kannan Moudgalya )

3.?????? Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) ( Shraddha Gotkhindikar )

4.?????@MarketMirchi ( Pragati Gokhale )

5.?????? Reliance Foundation Information Services ( S Senthilkumaran )

6.?????? University of Petroleum and Energy Studies , Dehradun ( Dr. Neelu Jyothi Ahuja )

7.????? Servelots / @Janastu (Shalini A)

8.?????? Keystone Foundation (Ranjani Prasad, Faisal Rehman)

9.????? Digital Empowerment Foundation (Saurabh Shrivastava)

10.?? MIT WPU

11.?? Tarana Wireless

12.?? Digital Green (Ankita Singh)

13.??e-Dost and Sanvadini from BAIF?

(contributed by Santarpana Choudhury , Rajashree Joshi ; Header graphic created by Kalyani L. )