RIDING THE HIGH TIDE

Svati Bhogle, of TIDE, won the Energy Champion Ashden Award in 2008 for TIDE's work with biomass stoves and this year she has been nominated as TED India fellow.

In this interview she speaks her mind on how technology can be taken forward to develop rural areas, the hurdles she has crossed in taking them to the end users and so on.


Me: Svati, Could you give us an idea about yourself?

Svati Bhogle(SB): I think I am temperamentally an academic. I have ventured into socially sensitive science and now into social businesses as an academic exercise to create and share knowledge of how institutions for social transformation are created and nurtured.

Me: A Masters in Chemical engineering from IIT-Bombay and work experience at Hindustan Lever Research Center for about a year what was the inspiration that shifted your interest to research in technology for development?

SB: This is also an extension of the research experience. I think I had great mentors during my formative professional years who gently nudged me to think differently such as Dr. S S Kalbag at the Hindustan Lever Research Centre, and then Prof Amulya Reddy at the Indian Institute of Science. Their vision of a socially engaged scientist and their commitment to their conviction was highly motivating and inspiring.



Me: Many congratulations on being awarded the Green Oscar (i.e.) the Ashden award for the year 2008 and being nominated as a TED India fellow. Could you give us a brief background about TIDE and on the work for which you received the award?

SB: Thank you. TIDE was conceived as a link organization between technology generating institutions and end users of technology who are usually the neediest people. We developed a social enterprise model where we transferred fuel efficient technology to small town entrepreneurs completely and helped them to set up small businesses in fuel efficient stove dissemination for artisanal industries. We also supported them to build markets and enabling mechanisms for adaptation and acceptance of innovative technology. These small enterprises have sold over 10,000 stoves, dryers and kilns to informal industries like areca boiling, silk reeling, herbal medicine preparation, textile dyeing etc. which has helped save more than 30,000 tons of firewood every year because of which the rural industries have been able to increase their productivity and profitability.

Me: With the city limits fast expanding what do you think would be the best option to meet the dynamically changing water demand?

SB: We need a more equitable distribution of water. We must reduce the water wastage by the rich and also increase access and availability of water to the water starved people. We need to tackle this both on the demand side and the supply side, through policy, technology, information and effective implementation.

Me: Any bottlenecks that you see while taking forward technology to bring about transformation in rural areas. Is there a project which initially showed poor user participation but was a huge hit later?

SB: Yes of course there are bottlenecks all the way and all the time. They choke and slow down the development process, very similar to traffic jams. The development jargon says identify barriers, develop barrier removal strategies and implement them effectively. We normally classify them into information, technology, finance barriers etc. But the bottlenecks are evolving and dynamic and by now we are able to visualize and anticipate bottlenecks and plan for them.

We were struggling with a fuel efficient jaggery making stove so that use of very polluting automobile tyres as fuel could be eliminated and surplus biomass could be created for over a decade. The field trials were successful but encountered bad roads and speed breakers all the way. We are not yet at a huge hit situation but local masons are building 5 stoves every month in the Belgaum region. The worst is over I guess.

Me: When would you deem the goal of a rural technology mission successful?

SB: This again has been a dynamic definition for us. We first believed that a successful prototype demonstration defined success, then went on to say, commercial exploitation of a technology or a product. Our current definition is rapid adoption of technology and the search and research continues.

Me: How best do you think the concept of entrepreneurship can be taken to the rural women?

SB: Women’s entrepreneurship in the rural context is more complex. It requires, changing of conventional gender roles as the first step. This means that women must first free themselves from their routine tasks and create time and space for them to learn and to change. The family also has to accept the process of empowerment. We need to first create a level playing field for them. Family consent and support is extremely vital because women’s entrepreneurship is also about managing domestic and professional complexities. Beyond this the challenges are similar but rural women tend to prefer conventional enterprises like food processing etc. They need to venture into less crowded options.

Me: “Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” said William Ruckelshaus. As responsible world citizens what should be done by each one of us to make the earth a good place to live?

SB: May be just concentrate on the need and give the greed a good bye.

Me: Any other interests you are passionate about.

SB: Yes of course but one at a time.