WGF’s Livelihood & Sustainability Council’s (LSC) mission is to enhance rural economy through co-creating and advancing rural enterprises, using technology innovations and scientific processes, sharing best practices and developing techniques to foster trade and employment for rural populations.

Improving the Lives in Rural India by Technology-enabled Solutions

Along the way, we hope to facilitate India’s goal of becoming $ 5 trillion economy by 2025 by increasing the contribution of the rural economy.

 

This Council is focused on enabling successful models of co-creating sustainable livelihoods that can be scaled to various parts of India, US, and other countries.These models will integrate the following four main pillars:

  • Science & Technology Innovations for Rural Applications
  • Training and Skill Development
  • Co-Creating successful Rural Enterprises
  • Scaling to other parts of the country, and thereafter globally

Each of these pillars involves partnerships with Rural Technology Centers and RuTAGs (Rural Technology Action Groups) at IITs, other engineering and management schools, and partner institutes of the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA), national laboratories, NGOs, Foundations, and pertinent state and federal organizations. Examples include:

  • IITs – e.g. Gandhinagar, Delhi (CRDT), Madras, Mumbai (C_TARA), Tirupati, Guwahati, BHU …
  • Rural colleges and engineering institutions – e.g. Shamlaji College, SVERI
  • NGOs – e.g. MaganSangrahalaya Samiti (MSS), IEEE-ISV, SOBUS, Mission Samriddhi, SEVAK, Pratham, Ekal and TIE
  • Foundations – e.g. AIF, BOSCH, SBI
  • Government Agencies – Niti Aayog, NIRD-PR, USAIDetc

The WHEELS Smart Village concept is the guiding framework for the LSC, and is being deployed through two main projects currently:

  • Digital Entrepreneurship
  • Sustainable Livelihoods models with rural entrepreneurship
  • Business proposals developed by students of IITs (e.g., IIT Gandhinagar and IIT-B) by fostering more visits

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