A 6-monthly Update

Hi Everyone,

 

It has been a very long time (for some of you, since last August), since you heard from me. I apologize for the long delay. As you all know, I am in India, working on a two-year service project in the town of Bagar in the western 'desert' state of Rajasthan. I am looking to see how computer technology can benefit the population of the rural town that I'm working in (and how I can play a part in that).

 

I tried to keep a blog to send in updates, but that hasn't worked out too well. Some highlights so far:

 

• After struggling long and hard to figure out what I need to get working on to benefit this town, I realized that the people needed to understand the practical applications of the Internet in their daily lives. It took me till December to figure out what I wanted to do: Start a computer class for high-school students, that focused on the application of computers. My hypothesis was that if I taught the class in a project-based approach (rather than theoretical/rote learning), these kids would start thinking application themselves. Well, I finally got the class going on Feb 26th of this year, and got the computers about 3 weeks after that. Clearly, getting the funding approved and the computers took time. Also to promote the class in all the schools in the town (there's a few of them as kids come from neighbourhing villages and far away to study here). And finally it took time to interview and select the kids. To accelerate the learning process, I wanted to take students who already had some familiarity in front of a computer (knew how to move a mouse, type some characters, open programs, save files, basic formatting in Word etc). Well, I was looking for around 24 kids for my class, and I would be happy even if I got 20 candidates to apply. Things took a turn for the better - about 140 kids applied, and even at around 20 minutes a kid, it took some time to interview all of them.

All said and done though, the class finally started, the computers got here (all very slick btw - with LCD screens and what not), and now looking to see how I can get these kids excited about computers. Any ideas and suggestions to get kids in rural towns in India to really get excited and see the value of using computers in their daily lives is much appreciated.

• Also started a campaign to clean up the trash situation in the town. Been on and off on it since September. On it right now, where we're looking to take one of the wards (neighbourhoods) of our town, and clean it up to make it a model ward. Doing some needs assessment right now, will be ramping up things on that soon. The particularly issue seems to be the gutters that get clogged up due to the trash, and the fact that due to limited resources, the cleaning of any ward only happens once every 15 days. Will keep everyone posted (I hope).

 

• Finally, as part of a case study, I am looking to bring about efficiencies in administration in a school through computerization. Its a classic Systems Analyst/IT consultant gig in my mind - find out where the inefficencies lie (in this case, every single thing is done on paper), see where the value is, find the best solution, design it, implement it, train the folks and let 'em at it. Due to time constraints because of a report due to Indicorps (and also since this is now the third concurrent project), I'm going to try and wrap up before mid-May. It'll be small changes then - but the amount of time they can now save with just Excel is unbelievable. If you guys truly want to see how MS Office can change your life, come here. For example, there is something called a Bill of Salary that takes a person one full day to update every month - something that will take 45 minutes to create in Excel, and 15 minutes to update every month. No joke. And the formulas would be straight from 'Excel for Beginners'.

I could use help with figuring out a decent school administration software though, especially one that makes sense in the INdian contexts. Would have to include school records, transfer certificates, results sheets, report card etc to make real sense in my mind. And Hindi language is a MUST. Which reminds me  - does anyone know if MS Access XP or later support Unicode data input (so that Hindi can be stored)?

 

There is obviously a lot more that happened in the last 3 months that I haven't captured here - for example, training for and successfully completing a half marathon, getting excited about Hindi language computing, the downs and ups, working on a virtual tour of the Gandhi Ashram, trips to other NGOs in India, future plans about beaming broadband from a town 15KM away into Bagar by setting up towers, and then wi-fing all of Bagar etc etc. One thing that I do have to capture is the fact that my phone got stolen, and I finally do have a replacement number:

 

Ashish New Mobile in India: +91 9828 73 6464

 

I'm 9.5hours ahead of East Coast, 10.5 hours ahead of Mid-West and 12.5 hours ahead of West Coast.

 

If you prefer writing by snail mail (and sending in all sorts of goodies, hehehe), here's the address:

 

Ashish Gupta

Guest House

Piramal Boys Sr. Sec School

Piramal Nagar

Bagar, District Jhunjhunu

Rajasthan - 333023

INDIA

 

Take care, and hope to hear from you soon.

 

- Ashish

Summer In India

www.SummerInIndia.org

Applications are due on March 14!

 

Are you trying to figure out what to do with your summer? Are you trying to figure out what to do with your life?

 

Become InSPIRED.

 

It's about stepping out of your comfort zone… so you can discover the world, so you can discover yourself.

 

It's about connecting with India , with its culture, with its people.  

 

It's about finding your passion, and the strength and courage to follow it.

 

It's about sharing genuine, real experiences with those of a similar mindset. 

 

It's about figuring out your role in shaping this world.

 

It's about service. It's about adventure. It's about connecting. It's about education. It's about wisdom. It's about reality. It's about lighting the fire. It's about YOU.

InSPIRE 
India Summer Program Inspiring Reflective Exploration

InSPIRE is a non-partisan, non-religious 5-week long immersion program that reconnects young Indians and South Asians from abroad to India. The program is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 24 who is of South Asian decent.

 

InSPIRE is about exploring and experiencing India , to get a better understanding of ourselves, India , and our relationship with the world. The program will consist of exposures, interactions and sessions, readings, cultural immersion, service work, exploration of development, and adventure. All of these will be used as instigators for each participant to look within and grow as a human being.

 

For more information, go to www.SummerInIndia.org .
Check out the trailer --> click here
Check out the facebook group  --> click here

INDICORPS - FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS DUE APRIL 1, 2007

If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do pass it on.

A lot has happened/is happening. Will update everyone on this later.

- Ashish

---

INDICORPS - FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS DUE APRIL 1, 2007

Apply now to August 15 class of the Indicorps fellowship program at http://apply.indicorps.org

Indicorps seeks committed individuals with the experience, conviction and leadership potential to find constructive solutions to India's most pressing problems. As an Indicorps Fellow, you will join a community of individuals who constantly push their limits for both individual performance and collective impact. Although you may work in some of the most challenging circumstances, the
Indicorps fellowship is a rewarding and transformational personal journey. Visit the Indicorps website ( http://www.indicorps.org) for detailed information on the Indicorps vision, program, and application process.

Applicants must be of Indian origin (by the definition of the Government of India) and have, at minimum, a university degree or five years work experience. Individuals must make a minimum commitment of one (1) year and are required to apply specifically to projects of their interest. The application deadline is April 1, 2007.

A Happy New Year

A Very Happy New Year to everyone. Its definitely happy for me - I'm starting with a very positive outlook on the year, knowing exactly what I'm going to do, and chockful of ideas every day to excite me. The going's good.

And on this new year's day, there was an impromptu visit to nearby village. One of the guys who works in the mess (aka cafeteria) had invited me over to his village (RamswarupJi), and we'd been making plans for over 2 months, but he'd never get off. And so this day, he's like, I'm going. I keep making plans, its been months, I'm going today, in an hour, will be back in 3/4 hours, come with me if you can.

So I did. Along with Pintu ji from the mess (in blue). Here's a picture of Ramswarup JI and I in his little backyard/sideyard/frontyard. They had a few veggies and flowers growing. That's mooli (radish) in my hand. Nothing like yanking a vegetable out of the ground and eating it right there.



So here's a happy new year from the three of us (From L to R: Pintu Ji, Ramswarup Ji and yours truly). I love the expressions that came out in this, especially the variety thereof. And the face that I took this picture with my left hand too.I like taking photos I've realized. Its my only creative outlet, and it keeps me quite happy.



So on that note, a toast to this very new year. May there be many more like the year past, and many more like the year that's to be.

Cheers.

A long awaited update

Wednesday, Dec 27 2006 6:24am IST
Bagar, Rajasthan


Its 6:24 in the morning on a very very cold night (day?). And I find myself sitting in my bed, writing a journal entry after quite a wait.

The cold yes – its cold here! It used to go down to 6 degrees C (low 40s) at night – tonight its quite a bit lower. It rained yesterday during the day, which dropped the temperature. And this morning it is still raining. And the fog has come in quite thick.

This effectively puts a halt to my plans of getting out and finally running after over a week’s break. Well, I could tough it out - the bijli (electricity) will go out at 7, and not much happening this early in the day during the winter times (even the shops start opening at 8 in the market).

I digress – lets get back to the topic at hand – what HAVE I been upto in the last couple of months (I think it has been that long since my last update):

Ah yes, I believe my last late night excitable post was around completely switching my focus area here from computer utilization to solar power. There were quite a few reasons behind that – mainly that in the weeks preceding it, I’d been trying to assess the needs for computer utilization in the community. And maybe it was my lack of skill in doing a needs assessment or applying technology to rural India, but there weren’t too many areas that I was coming out with where technology could be applied to a certain audience to reap some great benefits. And from all my ‘research’ – i.e. looking at papers and cases studies – the greatest need that computers tended to address in a rural setting was that of connectivity. A VSAT link to the Internet can provide remote communities the kind of access to information that can make significant impact on their lives: the weather forecast for a fishing village, the mandi (market) price of agricultural produce for a farmer, ability to quickly and cheaply communicate with loved ones, suppliers, buyers, doctors, government officials, specialists in the bigger towns and the bustling cities.

And for a rural setting, Bagar is quite well connected. On the Jaipur-Pilani state highway, it is exactly halfway between two major town: 15kms east from Jhunjhunu, the district headquarters, and 15kms west from Chirawa. Pilani, another major town (famous for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science – BITS) is another 15km from Chirawa. Buses ply to these cities every 15 minutes or so, throughout the night, and also to Jaipur and Delhi every hour or so.



If road connectivity is decent, telecom connectivity is even better. There are 5 cellphone towers in this town of 15,000, as well as landline phone connectivity. Commercial internet is available at dialup (and a bit faster) speeds via the landline or the cellphone (we use the Reliance cellphone – twice the speed of dialup).

A decent percentage of the populace reads the newspapers quite regularly. It also helps having 3 newspaper agencies in town, as well as a library that stocks 11 dailies (including 3 in English).
Now the picture isn’t all that rosy either – there may be access to Internet, but almost no one uses it. And the nearness to the major towns keeps the local businesses from expanding (there is just better price, quality and choice to be found in the bigger towns).

And computer utilization itself? Surprisingly, there was some. There were 2 computer centres (1 a real permanent centres, another was a guy with two computers, now closed) providing basic computer education. Most of the schools also had computer labs (built when the Rajasthan government made computer education mandatory – and abandoned when it reversed that decision a couple of years later). The private schools do continue to teach computers though. The photo studios, printing and music guys all had computers for their own uses. And by most estimates, there were around 50 private computer owners in town.

What it all boiled down to, in my mind, was that I couldn’t find a burning ‘need’ for computer technology in this town. It just didn’t seem like a development priority – there just were bigger issues e.g. a consistent supply of power in the adjoining dhaanis (little villages).

Here’s how that obviously changed. Our team lead/manager/staff person here was convinced that I had zero/zilch/0 motivation to continue with the computer technology area, and recommended I just focus on something of my liking (hence solar power). Two days later though, we had a visit from the founder/director of Indicorps – Anand. He made a couple of simple yet powerful observations (yet again highlighting the power of the outside perspective):

1. We had a lot more resources than we’d anticipated/assumed (it was way comfortable living compared to village life, we were well connected, we had the funds and influence to back us, the population had money to support some sort of commercial venture etc). However, instead of being more empowered because of the resources at hand, we’d managed to make ourselves feel less empowered because of this.
2. There are still tremendous opportunities to develop this town. He put it in a way that still rings with me: “Ask yourselves – would you live in this town? Then let’s work to make this a place that you’d want to live in”. Our task here then was not to take this town from 0-30, it was to take this from 50-100, a place that can compete with the best of India.

These two facts had quite an impact on my thinking about my project – I have the money, I had commercial Internet, I had a basic seed of a computer literate population – let me use it! And yah, there is so much more that I did with computers back in the US, there has to be tremendous potential here for the same. And so what if this maybe something that is not needed – its something that raises the bar. A few weeks later I would come up with an analogy: Just because there are a few students behind in a class, the teacher cannot ignore the ones who are ahead. We can’t wait to only focus on the kids that are behind and bring everybody upto a basic level. We have to continue to move the class ahead, and continue raise the standards for everybody.

My experiment here then was not that of need. It was of potential.

A few things came out of that visit – I decided to stick to computer tech utilization as my project. There was yet another cycle of project planning and proposal writing. As mandated, we travelled to seek answers and much-needed inspiration from other organizations in India doing similar work.

And I managed to make peace with what I’m doing here.

युं हीं (Just like that)

हीरालालजी सैनी बन रहे थे सेठ

हीरालालजी सैनी का मोटा हो रहा था पेट

पेड़े खाए अनेक, जिन पर लग रहा था गुलाब

खाते ही गए भय्या, लग गया जोरों से जुलाब

फिर दूसरा दिन जब आया, तब दबा के खाए पकवान

पेट पकड़ कर बोल उठे, "हाए रे मेरे भगवान"

ये क्या किया तुमने, कैसा यह कमाल,

तेरे ही चाहने से तो हुआ है, मेरे पेट मे यह धमाल

"मूरख", क्रोध मे आए भगवन, यह तो तेरे लालच का है प्रमाण

अपने पेट की ही सीमा को भूल गया, बनने में तू धनवान

 

- आशीष

(Heeralalji is the guy who takes care of the guest house where we stay. He's actually really fit. I'm kind of teaching him how to type both in hindi and english, and I was showing him something. and then ended up making a sentence. and another that rhymed. and then typed this thing up in 20 mins.)



UPDATE - Nov 7


By popular demand, here's the transliteration of this poem. It's really a very simple foolish rhyme, but now you know for yourself:

Heeralaji Saini ban rahe the seth
Heeralalji Saini ka mota ho raha tha pet
Pede khaye anek, jin par lag raha tha gulab
Khate hi gaye bhaiyya, lag gaya zoron se julaab
Phir doosra din jab aaya, tab daba ke khaaye pakvaan
Paet pakad kar boil uthe, “Haaye re mere bhagwaan”
Ye kya kiya tumne, kaisa hai kamaal
Tere hi chaahne se to hua hai, mere paet mein yeh Dhamaal
“Moorakh”, krodh mein aaye bhagvan, yeh to tere laalach ka hai pramaan
Apne pet ki hi seema ko bhool gaya, banne mein tu dhanvaan

- Ashish

So much to write, so little time

Alright - it's 12:58 in the night here (which is really really late for me). And I owe everybody a whopping humungous post (or many many many others), because so many things have happened in the last 6 weeks that I've been here in Bagar. And probably the biggest of all them happenings happened tonight - my project has been completely changed. From looking at computer technology utilization, I'm considering solar power. Again, many many reasons for it (project related and personal).

Anyways - I'm really excited about working on solar power. Really really.

BTW - today is Nov 2nd so, Happy Birthday Alvir!!!

(Alvir is also a fellow this year with Indicorps, probably doing great things in Jaisamand - district near Udaipur - south of Rajasthan, but more importantly, a great guy to meet in person).

Now back to typing up the rest of that documentation