Ashden awards 2007 for sustainable enrgy

This years winners include SELCO,BIOTECH, SKG Sangha from India. SELCO showed the way for diffusion of solar lamps with a sustainable commercial model with over 70,000 installations, mostly by street vendors. BIOTECH showed the way to use food waste thrown into the streets for producing cooking gas, with an installation base of 12,000 domestic plants. SKG Sangha demonstrated utility of bio gas plant slurry as fertiliser by combining the slurry with straw and leaves and then adding worms which re-digest the mixture to produce vermicompost.

Research grants for Sustainable sanitation

IFS/ SIDA invites proposals for sustainable sanitation and grey-water reuse in developing countries. One major component of the global water crisis is the contamination of drinking water supplies with human faeces. The future puts new demands on sanitation solutions as conventional sanitary approaches including the “water based flush sanitation” create serious environmental problems. A promising solution is instead offered through “dry, urine-separating sanitation”. This method is water saving and recycles nutrients back to agriculture, why it is often referred to as ecological sanitation (or “ecosan”).

Sustainable sanitation also includes the reuse of grey-water. Grey-water is identified as the waste water generated in households, excluding the water containing human excreta or urine, but including water from kitchens, bathrooms and washing rooms. Such water can be used as source for additional supplies of water available for irrigation and it often contains the necessary nutrients. In dry regions of the world such waste water is very important, thus treated waste water is already being used for crop production in most peri-urban areas of the developing world.

last date 30th June 2007

Protyping new ideas

For independent innovators located near Tumkur in Karnataka, Vijaya Vittala offers protyping facilities. He converted few innovations of grass root innovators into working, sallable products. Contact:

Mrs Shylaja Vittala
Chief Executive Officer
Dharma Technology
Sanjeevini, Mudala Khodi Palya
Palasandra Village
Tumkur- 572 102
ph: 9886737260(M)
email : shylaja_vittala@sify.com

Making Models with Turning Point kits

A school children's model is the first step in converting idea into a product. Turning point offers MAKIT , using which innovators can create models of mechanism for better understanding of principles. Contact address:


G Venkata Reddy
Managing Partner
Turning Point
#47/1, 3rd Main Road
Bapuji Layout
Near Chandra Layout
Vijayanagar
Bangalore-40
Phone: 9845293360(M)
emai: turningpoint_bangalore@yahoo.com

Indian Innovation Summit

TePP innovators Rajendran, Mohan Kumra, Sreedharan patil, KVKLN Rao, Balaji Sowminarayan, Ajee Kamat and Dr Suthikshn Kumar participated in the Indian Innovation Summit held at Bangalore on 15th & 16th June and displayed their work. Their innovations- Steel melting by exothemic reaction, Hydroponic device, Tem indicating chalks, Sleep apnea correcting device, Book tagging device, RVCR technology for IC engines and PC based Oscilloscope- showcasing the creative face of India excited the delegates and several suggestions were given by friends of innovators.

Chinese farmer inventor Wang Heng

Global GIAN was inaugurated by Wang Heng, an outstanding farmer innovator. As a poor & hungry person, it pained him to see people using food grains (beans) to plug the leaks in roofs. With 23 years of efforts, he created a waterproof cement-like material, which becomes solid in six seconds when mixed with water. This material has been widely used in key construction projects, including a Beijing subway station, Beijing-Kowloon railway and the Three Gorges Dam. His waterproof technology was also introduced to other countries such as Bangladesh, the Republic of Korea and Morocco.

Grass root innovators go global

Anil K. Gupta is the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, the co-ordinator, SRISTI and Honey Bee Network, and the Executive Vice Chair, National Innovation Foundation (India).Honey Bee network has facilitated over last two decades people to people learning to learn from existing solutions and explore collaborative solutions to the ones not solved as yet. These grassroots innovations developed by common people unaided from outside, can extend the frontiers of science in some cases and make new applications apparent which may have been ignored for long.Participants of the International Conference on Global GIAN ( Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, Canada and America met at Tianjin , May31-2, 2007 to launch an online platform to recognize, respect and reward green grassroots innovators and traditional knowledge holders.

Root Bridge

Recd from Supratik, IITB

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I was recently in a tribal area of Meghalaya, and was completely stunned by the ingenuity of the indigenous people who have "trained" living roots of a species of rubber tree (Ficus elastica, we were told) to form bridges, complete with railings, over small, but fast flowing, mountain streams. In brief, this species of rubber tree has lateral roots that emerge from the trunk (above the ground) and can grow laterally for some distance before hitting the ground. Khasi tibals have been using hollowed out betel nut trunks/branches as guiding channels in which young live roots of the rubber tree (still attached to the trunk) are allowed to grow for years. The channels are used to direct the roots in specific directions across the mountain streams, and also to form railing-like support structures to help a person hold on to when walking on the roots.

Once a few roots have been successfully channelized to grow in the desired direction, it is easy to have other roots grow in the same direction by using the earlier roots as support structures and guides. The process apparently takes 25 to 30 years for a set of roots to cross the river and hit the ground on the other bank, and become strong enough to take the load of a few human beings. So this is indeed testimony to the patience and conviction of the Khasi tribal people -- waiting for 25 to 30 years to build a masterpiece of bio-engineering. Once the bridge is formed, it only grows in strength over years, as the roots thicken and further fresh roots join the bridge.