Austrian couple Melanie Fritzer and Phillip Benedikt are on a very interesting year-long journey across the world. They wish to travel from country to another, trading their professions for life’s basic needs, and “basically reintroduce the barter system”. Melanie is a social worker and Benedikt is a photographer film-maker. In this journey, India was their…
“Jhini jhini bini chadariya; Kaahe ka tana,kaahe ki bharan; Kaun taar se bini chadariya?” In these lines, Kabir says , “I have run mere cotton threads for the warp and weft. But how did God, the Master Weaver, make this finely woven fabric we call skin that we wear all our lives? What is the…
“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” – George Bernard Shaw Bharat is an idea, a dream. It is constitutionally based on the principles of secularism and diversity. A lot of people declared that Bharat would never survive. How could a country sustain,…
On February 26, 2017, an all-India Soochnapreneur (SP) capacity-building meeting was organised in New Delhi. The agenda of the meeting was to follow up with the identified SPs, address their concerns, ease them through Mera App and design a mechanism for maximising participation. The meeting was attended by 100 SPs, representing local teams from Rajasthan,…
Project Musiri, an initiative of Mphasis and DEF, was officially launched at Hotel PL.A Residency in Tiruchirappalli (Tamil Nadu) on February 17, 2017 amid the presence of esteemed guests. The project aims to digitally empower the handloom weavers of Musiri who are known for making cotton sarees and veshti. The launch event was attended by…
Supported by Ericsson and DEF, Team Baank-e-Loom’s latest mission is to make 50 women digitally literate in Parsa village of Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh. Primarily engaged in farming, on their own land or as agricultural labourers, the women of the village have shown great interest in learning computers. One student, Savita, particularly enjoys typing her…
Usha Rani Deka (67) had been living with a regret almost the entire phase of her adulthood. When she had put her college dreams on hold due to various family and economic reasons, she had given up on the hope of achieving higher education. However, she’s set an inspiring benchmark for her community members by…
Forty-four-year-old Derilla R Marak is a self-employed woman now. However, there was a time when she felt as though there were no opportunities for her to grab. It wasn’t until her friends told her about computer classes at CIRC Tura that she began to see windows of opportunities for herself. At CIRC Tura, she began…
The year 2017 is an opportunity for the Integrated Approach to Technology in Education (ITE) team of DEF. Official permission has been granted to DEF to scale up ITE in 20 more government schools in Nagaon district of Assam. However, such opportunity also brings challenges which need to be dealt with sensitivity and tactically. Therefore,…
