Impact of Technology on Reducing Poverty and Alleviating Social Issues in India

Google TechTalks June 7, 2006 B. Ramalinga Raju and Venkat Changavalli ABSTRACT India is booming with visionary initiatives to transform rural India and its poor. This tech talk tells the story of one corporation that is leveraging its core competency to address the issues. Satyam group of Industries took on new missions starting in 2001 - to serve and transform the "Bottom of the Pyramid" - a phrase coined by Prof. C.K. Prahalad. Driven by the vision of Mr. Ramalinga Raju and his family, Satyam is forging ahead on three different fronts: The Byrraju Foundation: has developed a model of transforming villages into self sufficient commercial societies. To date this initiative has transformed the lives of ~2M people. Gram-IT: A model to take BPO jobs to the villages where loyalty is high, costs are extremely low and the success of which will transform the global service industry yet again. EMRI: A 911 analog (108 in India) which has innovated and deployed a model of bringing emergency services at <$1 per incident. In the short six months the program has saved an estimated 1500 lives.