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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Sand Castles in South Africa

Every year, Cape Town’s Design Indaba conference draws together high-profile architects from around the world to muse about the power of contemporary design. In 2007, Indaba’s organizers decided to use that concentrated creative energy to address a problem in their own backyard: the thousands of impoverished people living in makeshift shacks in South Africa’s townships. Looking to create low-cost houses that could serve as models for the future, they launched the 10×10 Housing Project, which paired 10 leading international architects with 10 local architects, and tasked each team with developing an appealing house that could be built for about $7,000.

Luyanda Mpahlwa, a partner in the firm MMA, and his team decided to build theirs with an unlikely but abundant source: sand. “African industry usually uses bricks and mortar, or clay brick, or concrete block, which is more expensive,” says Mpahlwa. “As architects and professionals, we should be leading the search for different ways of building. Not everyone can afford the normally available material.”

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Husk Power for India

Many of India’s cities have become bustling centers for high technology and heavy industry, but hundreds of millions of people in the countryside remain off the grid. Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. So after earning an electrical engineering degree at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and working for the Intel Corporation, he began exploring ways to turn farm waste into electricity, with the dream of building village-scale generators.

Last year at the University of Virginia, where he is studying for a master’s at the Darden School of Business, he and a fellow student, Charles Ransler, teamed up with another engineer from Bihar, Gyanesh Pandey, and Husk Power Systems was born.

Read more in The New York Times, Dec 24, 2008

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

How sex workers are buying cars, investing right

Malthy never thought loans could be issued in 30 minutes flat. Or that she could ever shop in a supermarket. Or own a car.

Her past experience of insult and ridicule created a sense of fear in Malthy. But now she walks confidently, deposits her savings and draws at will, asks for loans and gets them in quick time too. She’s also a partner in the supermarket business and will soon buy Tata Sumos to rent out.

Read more in the Hindustan Times, Sep 09 2007

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Inspiring Story of Suresh Kamath

Suresh Kamath, the managing director of Chennai based Laser Soft Infosystems Ltd is an unusual man. Unlike most other entrepreneurs, he does not aspire to create a business empire; his sole ambition is to provide employment to 10,000 people. He also plans to reserve 40 per cent of the jobs for the disabled.

Suresh started Laser Soft in 1986 with just Rs 200 and five people. Today, the company is a force to reckon with in the banking software arena.

In recognition of his commitment to the disabled, President of India A P J Abdul Kalam felicitated Suresh with the Best Employer award in December 2005. He also won the Best Employer award from the Tamil Nadu government. He has been awarded the NCPEDP shell Helen Keller Award for giving equal rights and gainful employment to persons with disabilities.

Monday, April 02, 2007

An Indian legend dies at 90

The Briton who turned the canons of conventional homemaking on their head and became one of India’s greatest living architectural legends, is no more. Laurie Baker, 90, passed away at his Thiruvanantapuram home this morning after prolonged illness. He will be buried tomorrow.

Read more in the Indian Express (Apr 2, 2007)

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Meet Inspirational Lal Muni Devi

For Lal Muni Devi, the challenge was to survive on her farming skills without having any land of her own to plough. So the poor, uneducated woman from Azad Nagar village in Patna district used her dank, thatched house to grow mushrooms.

And now she is in a Mexican gallery of top farmers from Asia. A photograph of Lal Muni and the story of her achievement have been put on the website of CIMMYT (www.cimmyt.org/english/wps/news/ 2006/feb/whats_wheat.htm), a well-known Mexican institute engaged in research for improvement of maize and wheat crop.

Read more, in the Indian Express, Mar 07, 2007

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Friday, July 07, 2006

Dr. Venkataswamy passes away

Dr. Venkataswamy, known as Dr. V, founder of the Aravind Eye Hospitals network, passes away at 87.

Read more in The Hindu.

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