12/4/03: John Cioffi, Electrical Engineering Professor at Stanford.

10/30/03: Andrew Keen, Santa Cruz Networks, and Tom Wu, TVFON Corporation, demonstrated their videoconferencing and related technologies.

11/25/03: George Vradenburg, Strategic Advisor for AOL Time Warner.

11/20/03: Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, Visiting Research Fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

11/13/03: Lee Thorn, Chair of the Jhai Foundation.

11/6/03: Claude Leglise, Vice President, Intel Capital.

10/31/03: Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute. “Bad technologies are worth more dead than alive.”

10/16/03: Svi2/Digital Vision Fellowship Program joint seminar with focus on Latin America.

By Jon Fortt
Mercury News

Brij Kothari was watching a subtitled film for a Spanish class seven years ago when he had an epiphany: Words on a television screen might help millions of people in his native India learn to read better.

Kothari’s idea — stripping subtitles along the bottom of popular Bollywood Indian music videos — was enough to earn him a nomination for the third annual Tech Museum Awards, which were presented at a gala Wednesday night in San Jose. Research has suggested that the Hindi-subtitled music videos improve the reading skills of barely literate viewers.

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10/13/03: Seminar with Raj Pingali, DV Fellow from 2001-02, visiting from India with updates about her COW project.

10/2/03: Seminar with Bill Davidow, founding partner of Mohr, Davidow Ventures.

9/16/03: Private tour of the Cantor Arts Center with Patience Young.

9/12/03: Reception with new and former Fellows.

By Lisa Tsering
India-West

In Rajasthan, a rural woman crafts a brightly colored, handmade cotton quilt in return for a handful of rupees. Half a world away in a high-end store, the same quilt is sold for $150. How fair is that?

A San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur — unhappy at the way the global supply chain puts more money into the pockets of middlemen than the craftspeople themselves — is betting that shoppers will try a new system that funnels profits straight back into India’s villages and communities.

With Sanjay Bhargava’s novel business plan, buyers in America can get the exact same quilt for only $65 (a portion of which is even tax-deductible), while the craftspeople earn more than twice as much income for their work.

Bhargava calls his social entrepreneurship project SuVyapar (”good trade” in Hindi). SuVyapar “connects these rural artisans and their communities to the enormous American consumer market through an innovative process that reduces friction in the entire logistics and marketing chain,” states the company’s business plan.

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By Madhavi Devasher
The Stanford Daily

SuVyapar, a new social entrepreneurial project launched this year at Stanford, aims to create an innovative business model that helps the developing world.

The project was founded by Stanford Reuters Digital Vision Fellow Sanjay Bhargava, who has worked with companies such as Citibank and was one of the founding members of PayPal.

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By Mercy Wambui
Development Gateway

They arrive from all walks of life with one purpose — to dedicate their creative energies to the ICT-based project ideas they have a passion for. Not surprisingly, the fellows leave with more than they bargained for — interaction with cutting-edge Silicon Valley technologists and entrepreneurs; the experience of soaking up the prestigious Stanford University environment; and collegial relationships that will no doubt last a long time.

The Digital Vision Program was launched in October 2001 with five fellows in the inaugural class. The current 13 fellows who are nearing the end of the sabbatical have been hard at work, applying vision and talent to innovative applications of technology relevant to countries such as Brazil, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Peru, and India. The program has gained a lot of attention from both the IT industry and foundations. Applicants for 2003-2004 include individuals from 41 nations and a wide range of companies and organizations, including Cisco, Sun, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Bechtel, Mitsubishi Electric, the United Nations, and the World Bank.

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Indien: Mobiles Laptop erschließt die Welt des Interntes
Von Michael Weidemann

Den Nutzen moderner Computertechnik lernen derzeit die Menschen aus dem indischen Dörfchen Parvathapur kennen. Via Internet können sie etwa ihre landwirtschaftlichen Produkte verkaufen. Möglich macht´s ein Moped.

“Bis der Mann mit dem Moped hier auftauchte, wußten wir nicht einmal, was ein Computer ist. Jetzt kennen wir das World Wide Web und wissen, wie man E-Mails schickt”, meint Damodar Reddy Vadiyala, ein älterer Bauer aus Parvathapur, einem kleinen Weiler im indischen Bundesstaat Andhra Pradesh. Dessen Einwohner profitierten als erste von einem neuen Modellprojekt, das dem Gedanken des Weltbankforums entspricht und selbst Regionen ohne Telefon und Strom an das Internet anbindet: dem Rechner auf Rädern.

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