Ruben hails from Chirala, Andhra Pradesh. A few years back, he offered his premises to erect a wireless tower to provide internet connectivity to serve the fisherman community members of the Chirala district. His relationship with DEF went beyond and soon enough, Ruben became a digital entrepreneur.
Meet Ataiya, a remarkable woman resident of Bharatpur, who is breaking the barriers of patriarchy and gender-based stereotypes to become a beacon of change and women empowerment. As a coordinator of Smartpur centre, she not only runs a successful initiative but also inspires others to challenge gender-based biases and discrimination.
Smartpur is a rural entrepreneurship-based model designed to create ideal smart villages in India. The entrepreneurship-based model helped us to create a niche for sustainability from the beginning of the project. For the projects to be sustained, certain metrics and standards need to be set from project identification and implementation through baseline and feasibility studies, formulation, design, funding, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and the right amount of training and capacity building as and when required by the staff.
Healthcare is one of the primary needs of India and despite a lot of efforts being put in this sector, it remains one of the challenges and concerns for a developing nation like ours. Smartpur functions on the five pillars of governance, finance, education, livelihood and health. With special focus on health, efforts are made to provide health consultation and service both online and offline.
Smartpur is a digital village ecosystem, a project that is being implemented by Digital Empowerment Foundation and NOKIA. The project has its presence in Uttar Pradesh (Barabanki and Ghazipur), Haryana (Nuh), Rajasthan (Alwar and Bharatpur), Telangana (Choutuppal), Karnataka (Kollegal) and Andhra Pradesh (Vizag and Chirala). The project started back in 2018 in Nuh and soon, realizing its importance in the context of rural India, it expanded to other locations across the country.
Smartpur is a very proactive and large-scale project under DEF which also serves as a backhaul to many other new initiatives. Here is a glimpse into the journey of Smartpur in the year 2022. Smartpur is a model that has been conceptualised in a manner that challenges and redefines the existing idea of smart villages, which is based more on the availability of digital infrastructure but not as much on the integration of the infrastructure into the daily lives of people.
Often a bit of attention, empathy and consideration goes a long way in clearing obstacles that might look petty for a few while for a few others their livelihoods are at stake. Smartpur centres have understood this through and through and hence enabling smoother access to welfare schemes.
Smartpur hub and spoke centres are points where people from different age groups avail services and find solutions to their problems. The different beneficiaries of Bharatpur hub and spokes narrate their enriching experience as to how the centre has been a point of troubleshooting for them.
According to experts, an estimated half a billion women still lack access to education and tens of millions of girls around the world are unable to access education and unlikely to enroll in school, thus hampering the overall growth and development of the girls. And yet, there is sufficient evidence to show that educated women create a ripple effect. We face huge inequalities in the education system of our country. Despite many policies and campaigns taken up by the government, young girls and women still lack access to basic education resulting in exclusion from employment opportunities.
Alam Khan got an Appreciation Certificate for his constant efforts in providing Covid 19 vaccination. He helped in mobilising 8,473 citizens along with interventions of other development partners. He was awarded by the Deputy Commissioner of Nuh district Mr Shakti Singh. Alam Khan was also awarded by Deputy Commissioner Mr Pankaj Kumar, IAS for the excellent work in registration of beneficiaries in PM-SYM (Pradhanmantri Shram Yogi Mandhan) at the highest level in the district of Nuh.
Smartpur has been a very successful community centric initiative which has been very dynamic in the role it plays at the village level. The stories from the ground from this initiative motivate us to be more creative and bring about local sustainable solutions to bridge the digital gap. The Smartpur team is actively engaged with the beneficiaries and as part of reinforcing the vision of the project, a Refresher Workshop was conducted by the management team in Delhi. Pramod Verma, a SoochnaPreneur from Gazipur district of Uttar Pradesh provided a testimonial on his take on the workshop.