IIT Delhi to set up design and innovation lab for rural entrepreneurs – The Economic Times

New Delhi: The Indian Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi today said in a release that it has partnered with the Common Services Center (CSC) Academy under the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to set up a design and lab aimed at helping rural entrepreneurs. The lab will be set up at the department of design at IIT Delhi where students will conduct research on design-led innovations which is supposed to help solve problems at the village level.

Known as ‘Design and Innovation in VLE’s Indigenous Network Ecosystem (DIVINE) Lab’, it will provide continuous research into the rural entrepreneurial ecosystem and design new products and services for the VLEs. It will also develop digital content for new skilling and education courses for VLEs. Entrepreneurs in rural India face the problem of poor connectivity and low digital literacy. The institute said the partnership will provide them with understanding and academic support to solve problems and challenges of growth.

“The Common Services Centres and the Village Level Entrepreneurs are driven by an entrepreneurial spirit. They are adaptive, based on the local community environment, they work on digital connectivity in areas with limited access, they also solve problems on a day-to-day basis for a diverse range of customers or citizens. The Design Lab will benefit from IIT Delhi’s unparallel expertise and experiences of hardened and creative VLEs who will bring hyper-local realities and challenges of delivering services to the partnership,” said Dinesh Tyagi, managing director, CSC special purpose vehicle (SPV).

“We also hope some of the learnings from the field will permeate upwards to create knowledge around grassroots innovation by VLEs,” Tyagi added. The institute said that the aim of DIVINE Lab is to connect students in the institute with the village level entrepreneurs to co-create solutions for the local problems in villages using design and technology.

“I am hopeful this collaboration with CSC will support IIT Delhi students to access CSC’s network and identify problems in rural India. World-class research infrastructure and expertise available at IIT Delhi can be utilized to design and innovate optimal and sustainable solutions for rural problems through the wide network of Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) across the country,” said V. Ramgopal Rao, director, IIT Delhi.

The CSC Academy was set up in 2017 to provide access to professional learning in various subjects like basic computers, basic cybersecurity and computer-aided design (CAD). It also has courses for professionals like mechanics and electricians. The academy also caters to students of class 6-10 and helps them access online material related to their school curriculum.