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Grameen Intel

Grameen Intel

Today information technology (IT) excludes 80% of the world population. We want to take IT to the lower income people to improve the lives of people in poverty.

Grameen Intel is tasked at looking at ways to assist the rural poor by examining their needs and finding appropriate solution using IT.  We will provide packaged solution consisting of the hardware and software to provide access, information and training to an impoverished entrepreneur or local entity who can offer IT services, which in turn would have a social impact in the village community.

Our goal is to offer solutions and services in multiple fronts such as online marketplace, education, financial services, and many more, but targeted for the poor population.  Two of our current offerings in healthcare and agriculture demonstrate the possibilities.

Maternal Health

Over 120,000 infants die needlessly in Bangladesh, many due to nutritional deficiencies—anemia, shortages of vitamins and minerals, and other problems that should be preventable.  In addition, around 12,000 mothers die from pregnancy-related complications.

In 2 of the clinics in Savar, mobile healthcare workers equipped with smartphones are using technology to assess the risk profile of pregnant mothers who have limited access to medical care at the villages.  Mothers at risk are then referred for further diagnostics, bringing the mother into the formal service for basic healthcare.

We have assessed 100 pregnancies for early follow up with the goal to reduce maternal mortality.

Agriculture

The solution in centered on the needs of farmers for agricultural information. In Orissa at a village of 440 farmers, we found that the majority of the agriculture lands are missing basic nutrients (e.g. urea, fertilizers and certain types of pesticides).   A soil test on an annual basis and/or per crop rotation is needed, but not done.

A local entrepreneur provides soil testing and the result is tracked and analyzed via IT.  The solution being developed would help identify specific recommendation to the farmer e.g. a certain amount of urea, specific type of fertilizer for the given crop cycle. As the next step, the IT solution it would match buyers and sellers for higher quality seeds and fertilizers at a reduced rate.

We have provided the solutions to 125 farmers to increase their crop output and manage their business more profitably.

The Grameen Intel Social Business will continue to work on developing IT solutions, to ensure that the bottom income people begin to reap the benefits of information technology.Is a  social business joint venture between Grameen Trust and the Intel Corporation.  The purpose of this new social business is to  assist the rural poor by examining their needs and finding an appropriate  solution with the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT).  This new company will look at how healthcare,  commerce, education and economic activity be improved in rural Bangladesh with  the help of ICT.  This social business  will start with Bangladesh but will also aim to help the poor of rest of the  world with use of ICT.