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.
Some villages have taken charge of ensuring the growth of the community in a sustained way after understanding their community thoroughly and working hard to address different issues with care and passion. One such village is Barabanki located in Uttar Pradesh.