Poverty
Alleviation Through Goal Setting
Fire
or food in the belly?
Principles
“Base
of the pyramid”, Prahalad said, “Fours” Chetan Bhagat
characterized, we understand 90% of Indians form the bottom rung of
our economy. Why has this continued for 60 years after independence?
Many attempts have been made to reduce poverty but success has been
elusive.
Our
solution to the problem is removal of poverty in an organic way –
use the large number to advantage. Instead of a minority of
population trying to help a larger fraction of population, we would
try to address the majority. We try to seed them with very high
aspiration. Biggest problem in the poorer neighborhoods is a
lack of role models.
Solution we are depending on is to take some poor boys and girls
to achieve the most desired career in today's India and provide a
local model to their community. This would set a goal that others in
the neighborhood to achieve.
One
interesting sense of charity that the Tatas have is instead of
helping the needy,
they would help the capable
in the hope of that person bringing in massive change. Our approach
is similar but addresses the lack of dreams in poor neighborhoods.
If we changed that, many people would benefit. Incidentally, the
same disease affects the well off as well.
The
Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish and
you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for
a lifetime “
captures
another essential point, that of providing a long term solution in
relation to instantaneous gratification. An aspect of the idea is
captured in our program.
Also
charity implies superior inferior relation: we prefer long term
equality based on not asking for money when the student has none, but
insisting on getting paid when they are earning.
Present
: NStar Engineers
Karnataka
Microelectronic Training and Research Centre Pvt Ltd (KTRC) has since
2008 been recruiting rural poor SSLC pass out students through three
“guru”s in Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bijapur, Dharwad and Haveri
districts. Definition of poverty is defined by inability to continue
PUC education due to lack of tuition fees. The goal was to teach
these students to be equivalent of any engineer graduate in the
country after three years of training. The learning has to be deep
and the graduates enabled to continue learn new topics on their own
and as a team.
The
Future: Shri Siddarameshwar Microelectronic Composite School
Starting
from July 2013 KTRC will join hands with a rural school in Mallapur,
a suburb of Nesargi, a TIER-?? town itself, 35 km from Belgaum to
start State's (May be the world's) first high school that during the
period of 9th
standard to 12th
standard (PUC) simultaneously teach integrated circuit design and
embedded software. These are usually topics at the B Tech/M Tech
level. The graduates will be 18 years of age.
They
will also learn how to learn in a team.
What
we hope will happen is
- Push the limit of what is possible to learn at any given age
- Raise the “dream” level in poorer locales in villages
- Have India be able to compete as a semiconductor IP source irrespective of new nations entering the market.
