M S Swaminathan Research Foundation

“This ‘information village’ and others like it have successfully relied on women from the
village itself to provide daily weather and market prices, as well as agricultural and
health information, to all the inhabitants. The process starts with volunteer teams that
help poll the villagers to find out what knowledge they want. Particularly popular thus
far are women’s health information, advice on growing local crops and protecting them
from diseases, the daily market prices for these crops, local weather forecasts, and
clear information about the bewildering array of programs that are provided by the
Indian government to aid poor families. Drawing on this concept, I envision a global
electronic network that connects scientists to people at all levels — farmers’
organizations and village women, for example. The network will allow them to easily
access the scientific and technical knowledge that they need to solve local problems
and enhance the quality of their lives, as well as to communicate their own insights
and needs back to scientists. As scientists, we need to study and learn from these
experiments - so as to make a science out of connecting the world to knowledge
resources. With the technology moving so fast, it is critical to ‘learn by doing’ in this
way, so that we learn how to make the next wave of the technology even more useful
for productive and sustainable economic development.”