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Digital Green catalyses a quiet revolution in India
Farmers are improving crop yields, using new technologies besides learning video-making skills - thanks to Digital Green which is catalyzing a quiet revolution in the little hamlets of India. Its founder, Rikin Gandhi, has been named as a top young innovator by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Delhi-based Digital Green focuses on educating farmers about farming techniques through locally produced videos in which local cultivators are featured. The project works in over 200 villages across Jharkhand, Orissa, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh with seven NGOs, helping famers improve their living standards and productivity.
"We do not produce the videos ourselves but rather facilitate the process of training people from the community in the production of locally relevant videos," Gandhi, 29, told IANS.
"We intend to extend the Digital Green system to 1,200 villages in the next two years across South Asia and Africa. We will also be exploring closer collaborations with ministries of agriculture as well as with private sector agri-businesses," said Gandhi.
He was recently named one of the world's top young innovators under the age of 35 by Technology Review, a publication of the prestigious MIT, for his non-profit setup.
"Gandhi demonstrated that for every dollar spent, the (Digital Green) system persuaded seven times as many farmers to adopt new ideas as an existing programme of training and visits," the Technology Review said.
Gandhi, originally a native of Vadodara in Gujarat, founded Digital Green in Bangalore in 2006. Under the initiative, more than 500 videos have been produced - documenting more than 300 farming practices - and screened over 5,000 times. It has been viewed by over 16,000 farmers.
Gandhi, who aspired to be an astronaut as a child, realized that spacemen, after orbiting the earth, wanted to connect with the planet more closely and make it a better place. This
Farmers are improving crop yields, using new technologies besides learning video-making skills - thanks to Digital Green which is catalyzing a quiet revolution in the little hamlets of India. Its founder, Rikin Gandhi, has been named as a top young innovator by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Delhi-based Digital Green focuses on educating farmers about farming techniques through locally produced videos in which local cultivators are featured. The project works in over 200 villages across Jharkhand, Orissa, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh with seven NGOs, helping famers improve their living standards and productivity.
"We do not produce the videos ourselves but rather facilitate the process of training people from the community in the production of locally relevant videos," Gandhi, 29, told IANS.
"We intend to extend the Digital Green system to 1,200 villages in the next two years across South Asia and Africa. We will also be exploring closer collaborations with ministries of agriculture as well as with private sector agri-businesses," said Gandhi.
He was recently named one of the world's top young innovators under the age of 35 by Technology Review, a publication of the prestigious MIT, for his non-profit setup.
"Gandhi demonstrated that for every dollar spent, the (Digital Green) system persuaded seven times as many farmers to adopt new ideas as an existing programme of training and visits," the Technology Review said.
Gandhi, originally a native of Vadodara in Gujarat, founded Digital Green in Bangalore in 2006. Under the initiative, more than 500 videos have been produced - documenting more than 300 farming practices - and screened over 5,000 times. It has been viewed by over 16,000 farmers.
Gandhi, who aspired to be an astronaut as a child, realized that spacemen, after orbiting the earth, wanted to connect with the planet more closely and make it a better place. This