In this article, we write about the Biomass Cooking Stove innovation that is being nurtured by the Villgro foundation.

Context and problems with LPG

Micro and small establishments that provide boarding services to 40 – 100 individuals in rural and semi-rural areas face the three pronged problem of not having the access, both financially and in terms of availability , to LPG, having to incur the costs of large amounts of biomass required to run their relatively inefficient stoves and dealing with the associated health impacts that inefficient, outdated stoves generate.
Unlike small households, micro and small establishments rely on purchasing fire wood and not on collecting biomass. These costs average around 2000 Rs. / ton. As such the inefficiency of stoves used by this category of users has a direct impact on their expenditure and thus on their income and savings. When compared to households these establishments utilize their stoves for much longer (upto 10 hours a day when catering to 100 customers) and thus the impacts on wood consumption and health issues are
exasperated.

Burning wood creates CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Establishments, based on size, generate between 20 – 80 tons of co2 a year. While small when considered at a national or global scale, this contributes to climate change in its own way.

Enter Biomass Cooking Stove, an innovation by Svati Bhogle of SustainTech India Pvt. Ltd.

The Biomass Cooking stove is an application specific high efficiency wood burning stove specifically designed for a range of cooking needs. The innovation offers to the end user: saving in fuel costs, by being up to 50% more efficient than conventional stoves and improved health impacts. The features that make the stoves innovative are, optimum air fuel ratios controlled by efficient vents, well designed combustion chamber volume resulting in high combustion and heat transfer efficiencies, good insulation to prevent losses to the walls and an optimally designed chimney to vent the flue gases away from the breathing zone of the cooks and designed to reduce heat losses to the atmosphere.

Who is impacted and how?

Owners of micro and small boarding establishments, including semi-portable food vendors will be impacted. This covers a range of individuals with daily revenues between 500 to 5000 rupees per day. A market survey revealed that the total number of tea shops, small & medium hotels and street food vendors to be 73,650 in the state of Tamil Nadu alone.
On the lower end of the economics scale – this includes street side food vendors who spend considerable amounts of their income on firewood. These individuals were shown to spend upto 30,000 Rs. annually on firewood with monthly take home incomes of around 7000 Rs. On the higher end of the economics scale – this includes proprietors of small size ‘hotels’ catering to the needs of approximately a 100 customers a day.

Environmental, social and economic benefits

SustainTech India Pvt. Ltd. (SIPL) is reaching out to the needs of a fuel stressed segment of society – initially the street food vendors, who operate on push carts and where cooking is done inside the cart or on railway platforms, roadside shops and small hotels who with a roof and some seating capacity.
A survey conducted shows that these stoves are in operation for about 10 hours every day and each unit caters to about 100 clients every day. The 65,000 fuel efficient wood burning stoves (considering only the tava, frying stoves and tea kettles) that would be sold by SIPL in the first five years would therefore offer a safer, cooler and healthier working environment to at least 65,000 cooks and 6.5 million people who would eat
around these stoves every day. India has a high incidence of respiratory ailments and a smoke free working environment would reduce the medical expenses of the affected people working around wood fires.
The survey data also shows that 38% of the street food vendors and tea shops use kerosene for their cooking needs. Very limited kerosene is available in fair price shops and this is inadequate. Very often the sector uses unfair means to procure kerosene creating stress and tension besides eroding the profitability.

Moving to a biomass stove would reduce the stress associated with procurement of kerosene, improve profitability of the business and show that it is possible to replace a fossil fuel with a renewable energy source.
At the global level the movement to a fuel efficient wood stove would significantly abate CO2 emission. A survey conducted in the project area shows that stoves are in use for about 8 -14 hrs every day and for 300 -350 days in a year. Data has also been collected about fuel consumption patterns in conventional stoves and performance of improved stoves tested and some of them certified. With a projected stove life of 5 years, the carbon abatement potential of the venture through installations in the first 5 year planning period would be 3.7 million tons of CO2. (1 kg of firewood saved = 1.5 kg of CO2).
Firewood is purchased by the end users of SIPL products at Rs 2000 / ton. The saving in fuel costs, because of energy efficiency should enable the end user to payback the cost of the stove without financial stress in 12- 18 months. Each stove purchased would on an average save Rs 20,000 – 30,000 of fuel cost every year.

The enterprise projects that through its intervention and in their life time, the stoves installed in the first
5 years period, it would conserve Rs 4000 million in fuel costs thus creating wealth for a very needy community.

In this article we bring to you an interesting invention by Mr. Vivekanandan, who is now being mentored and assisted by the Villgro foundation. Going by the good old adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, the device was invented by Mr. Vivekandan because of a real-world problem that his fellow villagers faced.

The Problem

Chili and coriander powder are so central to South Indian cuisine, that village residents will travel 25 km by bus to get it ground. They are forced to do this because the existing machines to grind chili and coriander are usually very large, have high installation costs, and use too much power to be suitable for rural areas.

Mr. Vivekanandan’s Solution

Mr. Vivekanandan’s innovative solution was a pin pulverizer that was modified for small capacities, yet could still grind chili and coriander. The material is centrally fed into the pin pulverizer’s milling chamber, which consists of two discs with pins: one is stationary and the other is rotary. The material that passes through the space between the stationary and rotary pins gets scissored, and converted into a fine powder. The perforated screen at the bottom filters the powder, and it is discharged through it.

When Mr. Vivekanandan applied to Villgro, pin pulverizers that could grind spices were already being manufactured with a capacity of 150 to 4000 kg/hr. A pin pulverizer that had a capacity of 30 kg/hr was also available, but it was only able to grind cereals.

Mr. Vivekanandan’s journey with Villgro literally began with a journey. He came to know about Villgro and its activities when he accidentally met an employee of Villgro on a train. At this point Mr. Vivekanandan had already invested Rs. 8 lakhs (approximately US$ 18,700) of his own money, and had created a 3 HP pin pulverizer without any external help. He thought he had solved 90% of the problems in grinding chili and coriander, and had manufactured 100 machines. But of these only 20 were sold. Even worse, three quarters of these machines were returned because the chili and coriander did not pass through the screen, and because they created too much dust. The work came to a standstill, and did not resume until almost a year later, when he was introduced to Villgro.

Villgro tapped several different resources to work on this problem. These were the technical expertise of their own staff, the assistance of a consultant from TANSTIA-FNF, Mr. Ashok Iyengar, and InnoCentive, an “open innovation” company that opens up research and development problems for anyone to solve. The solution arrived at was to increase the speed of the rotor to 6600 rpm.

While increasing the speed of the rotor is a seemingly simple solution, for Mr. Vivekanandan the key realization was that the chili and coriander were getting stuck in the screen not because of their high fiber content, but because of the speed of the rotor. In addition, Mr. Vivekanandan was concerned that to run the rotor at higher speeds, he would need much more expensive bearings. Consequently, if the cost of the machine increased, then grinding chili and coriander could not become a viable income generating activity for rural women. Mr. Vivekanandan is quick to emphasize that the main assistance that Mr. Iyengar provided to him was in giving him greater confidence, and in allaying his fears.

Mr. Iyengar first assisted Mr. Vivekanandan in producing a 5 HP, 3-phase machine, because his machine could not initially be run at the increased speed on 3 HP. However as in rural areas the preference is for a 1 HP, single-phase machine, Mr. Vivekanandan subsequently reduced his machine’s weight, wall thickness, size and diameter of the stator and rotor so that it is suitable for rural areas. Mr. Vivekanandan has also attempted to bring the cost of the machine down to cater to rural needs by focusing on the types and amount of materials used. However he has maintained the quality of the essential components such as the bearings and blades.

Below is a picture of a villager using the pin pulverizer. Fantastic innovation which is sure to benefit hundreds of villagers!

Note about the Villgro Foundation: Villgro is a not-for-profit company empowering rural development by identifying and incubating innovations that could be translated to market based social enterprise models thus impacting thousands of lives. In efforts to impact rural life, VILLGRO actively promotes social entrepreneurship and works with different stakeholders to create and support an eco-system that empowers social entrepreneurship by means of seed funding, mentoring, networking and recognition. Villgro has impacted over 360,000 rural users with technology & solutions reaching the grassroots. Villgro has identified and activated more than 2000 social innovators.

Introducing ‘AVAZ’ – a product created by Invention Labs, Chennai. AVAZ provides a ‘voice’ to a non-verbal child with Cerebral Palsy, allowing him/her to communicate with friends, family and teachers. By enabling speech-impaired children to communicate easily, this device is helping them become much more independent and free from their existing barriers.

Cerebral Palsy – The Problem

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a congenital condition in which the motor cortex of the brain is damaged. People with cerebral palsy are unable to achieve muscle control and coordination. Cerebral palsy is non-progressive, non-contagious and permanent. The incidence of Cerebral palsy is 2-2.5 persons per 1000 live births, and the estimated population of CP cases in India is approximately 25 lakhs (cited from publicly available information).
Approximately 40-55% of people with CP are affected in all muscles below the head (quadriplegia and diplegia). In most of these cases, these include the muscles that produce speech, and such persons are consequently non-verbal. In conjunction with their inability to move their hands or feet in a coordinated manner, this impairment means that they do not have access to any of the traditional ways of communication.

Most children with CP are of normal intelligence, and are handicapped in education and employment primarily due to their lack of communication abilities.

AVAZ

AVAZ is an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device for children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). AVAZ is a portable speech synthesizer which can be controlled by gross motor movements of a child with CP, such as approximate movement of the head or of large muscle groups. These movements are captured by the use of a touch-screen or an external switch to allow the child to create text sentences on the device using predictive software, and this text is read out by the device. AVAZ is thus an artificial voice for the child.

How did AVAZ achieve this?

Invention Labs began engaging with IIT Madras and Vidya Sagar to develop commercially viable Voice Output Communication Aids in 2008. Sustained research and development on the device began in May 2008 in collaboration with Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Departments at IIT Madras. Invention Labs received a grant of Rs 10 lakhs under the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India, in February 2009, which was used to fund the development of AVAZ in part.

Invention Labs continuously engaged with Vidya Sagar’s teachers and students to validate the usability and impact of the prototypes of the device. After a couple of rounds of prototyping and based on feedback from children as well as teachers, the design was finalized, and the beta version of the device went into production. AVAZ was launched in February 2010 and has been warmly welcomed by the community of special educators as a step in the right direction.

The Details

AVAZ consists of two components – a wheelchair mountable speech synthesizer and text prediction software that runs on this synthesizer. The speech synthesizer has been designed to be usable by children with different abilities and has the following features:

• Large 7” LCD display with Touchscreen
• Speakers and Audio Jack – for voice output and audio prompts
• USB port – to connect non-contact switches that get activated when they sense motion
• Mono Jack port – to connect contact switches that get activated when pressed
• Rechargeable battery (in-built)
• Wheelchair mount (optional)

The text prediction software helps children do two things – creating sentences and speaking them out. Sentences are created in AVAZ using a technique called ‘scanning’. The user can select an option by pressing anywhere on the touchscreen or by using any contact or non-contact switch that is connected to the speech synthesizer. In order to speed up text creation, AVAZ features learning and prediction. It is able to remember sentences and words used by the child in the past, and it accelerates the entry of commonly used templates. AVAZ currently supports nearly 10000 words in the English language, and many more can be added by the child if needed.

The text prediction software comes with many options to enable children to customize the device to suit their needs:
a. Scan speed can be modified to suit the child’s comfort
b. Audio mode is available to help visually impaired children hear the current position of the highlight
c. New words can be added by the user to the in-built dictionary of AVAZ.
d. Frequently used sentences can be added as a ‘template’ for quick retrieval

Benefits to the Children

AVAZ provides a ‘voice’ to a non-verbal child with Cerebral Palsy, allowing him/her to communicate with friends, family and teachers.

• AVAZ enables these children to express themselves – children can convey virtually any thought in their minds by creating messages dynamically and using the speech synthesizer to ‘speak’.
• AVAZ helps them become independent – children can interact with the device based on their ability. A number of interaction switches, contact as well as non-contact, are compatible with AVAZ and can be used to operate the device.
• AVAZ allows them to communicate easily – the software adapts to the child’s vocabulary, using words that are most frequently used by him/her as well as allowing the child to create ‘template’ messages for daily use.
• AVAZ is also portable, allowing the child to carry it around and even mount it on a wheelchair.

Future Thoughts

Communication plays a very important role in our lives and enables people to make friends, influence others and interact with their communities in meaningful ways. Our goal is to enable non-verbal persons with different abilities to overcome the barriers in communication that they face with the help of assistive devices like AVAZ. Just like a person with mild visual impairment wears spectacles to correct her/his vision, we envision that most non-verbal persons will have access to and use a portable assistive device like AVAZ to ‘speak’ and communicate.
Invention Labs plans to leverage the many features of AVAZ to extend its use to an educational environment, where the children could be taught using AVAZ. Special-purpose applications could also be built that work in specific employment opportunities to help such children take up gainful employment when they graduate. AVAZ could also be interfaced to a PC or a mobile phone in order for non-verbal CP children to use these devices.
Since a child can interact with AVAZ in multiple ways, the same principles used by a child with CP to communicate can be extended to help other non-verbal children. Children with lower levels of CP, Autistic children, children with learning disabilities and children with multiple disabilities could all benefit from having an assistive device that suits their needs. With the appropriate application, AVAZ could potentially be useful by adults who have been temporarily or permanently impaired by accident, stroke, disease or even old age.

About Invention Labs

Invention Labs is a startup based out of Chennai and incubated at IIT Madras. Voted one of the hottest startups in India by Business Today in 2009, Invention Labs was founded by alumni of IIT Madras. With a diversity of experience gained from working for multinational corporations at different locations worldwide, the founding members of Invention Labs returned to India in 2007 to set up Invention Labs as an organization that invents products for the unmet needs of the Indian consumer.

Read more about Avaz (and watch their video) here: http://www.inventionlabs.in/avaz/aboutAVAZ.html

Those signature kerosene and petromax lamps at hawker shops have decorated our streets during its busy evenings for years now. They are a hawker’s constant companion and a basic necessity for their shops. But did you know that a hawker has to spend around 250-300 rupees every month for these lights? Parting with this big chunk of money from the handful that he earns becomes quite a burden. Accolades to Urja Unlimited, who understood this difficulty faced by the hawkers and came up with a fine solution – replacing the fuel lamps with solar power.

Urja Unlimited is an organization which was born with a novel idea of providing ‘energy for all’ through renewable energy. Urja aims to serve every village, town and city in India with efficient energy solutions. With its vision in mind, Urja initiated the project to support street hawkers and aspires to reach a million hawkers with their lanterns.

The main aim of the project is to completely eliminate the recurring fuel expenditure on the hawkers. Moreover, as we all know, there are environmental benefits attached to giving up the use exhaustible fuels. Also, the hawker gets to work in a fume free environment.

Over 150 hawkers in Faridabad enjoy the solar power

The first step towards energy efficiency was Urja Unlimited’s solar lantern project in Faridabad. Over 150 hawkers have opted for Urja’s lanterns which have given them a breather with their expenses. The brighter solar lamps have enlivened their surroundings, gotten rid of the risk of health hazards and brightened the faces of the hawkers.

Savitri Pandey, a hawker in Faridabad who has switched to Urja’s lantern, mentioned that she is now able to devote the cost savings on giving up the kerosene lamps to her children’s tuition needs. Saina Bano says that “Ab har mahina mittiktel (kerosene oil) chori se kharidane kay jhanjhat khatam.” Ashok, a hawker suffering from Tuberculosis, said that he is now spending less on his medical expenses.

Support to spread the cause

Replicating the success and spreading awareness across the country is a big task in the hands of Urja Unlimited now. The constraint is that the equipment is slightly priced on the higher side, around 2600 to 3600 rupees. Logically, the amount is equivalent to what the hawkers would spend over a year for their fuel costs and they need not spend any more on their fuels after this initial investment. Also, the lanterns can easily serve the users for almost 5 to 7 years. Urja intends to bring down the cost that could come on the hawkers by entering into partnerships with micro finance institutions, corporates and other philanthropic organizations.

How can you help this initiative?

With more people like you supporting the cause, we are sure that we can make some difference to the lives of more street hawkers. Here are a few things that you can do:

• Introduce Urja Unlimited to your company and encourage a corporate social responsibility initiative
• Contact Urja Unlimited to find out more about the initiative and help them serve better
• Help spread awareness about the use of renewable energy

You can know more about the organization at www.urjaunlimited.in. Urja and The Better India shall assist you in sharing your contributions.

One question that you would perhaps like to answer is “How do I reduce my contribution to the city’s garbage system without altering my lifestyle too much?” Well, let Daily Dump answer that for you.
Daily Dump provides a commercial compost ‘pit’ that you can have at your home. All your leftovers and other organic waste can be dumped into these pits. Within a few months this becomes manure and you can use it for your garden or just sell it off to a needy farmer maybe.

Early Days

Daily Dump, the brain child of Ms Poonam Bir Kasturi, evolved from the question – How can design make a difference? Poonam graduated in Product Design in 1985 from the National Institute of Design. She worked in a small scale manufacturing company after college and then set up a craft based design company called Industree with two other partners. She quit after 5 years and set up Playnspeak, a proprietorship concern, to make products for the home. At the same time Poonam also was the founding faculty of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore which she in May 2008 to start Daily Dump.

So, what exactly is Daily Dump?

In simple words, this product allows every homeowner to reduce their contribution to city waste. In India, no commerical home composter was available till the Daily Dump product was launched.
It is designed for a single family as the “customer”. It is supported by a service backup and customer support. It actually helps families convert their wet waste into eco-friendly compost. The knowledge base is open-source to encourage micro-enterprises.

The Product and its elements

Daily Dump has designed a product with which anyone can convert kitchen waste into compost at home. The product, made of terra-cotta, is sourced from village potters. It is marketed through word-of-mouth referrals, media awareness, and their website. It is sold through channels including individuals, retail stores, and societies. The designs are ‘open source’, so individuals in other locations can replicate, adapt, build on, sell and use – for wide and rapid propagation of the idea.

The current product works well in independent homes; and they are working on a ‘mechanical composter’ for use in flats. Daily Dump’s vision is to see a composter pre-fitted in every flat sold in the country, as a standard fitting. Daily Dump not only retro fits composters at homes and other establishments but also provides maintenance advice and assistance through its service plans, essentially allowing you to just dump and letting nature and Daily Dump do the rest.

This product, in addition to reducing waste, serves as a way to get over the social stigma attached to waste in our country. Without being preachy it makes the job of taking care of your waste “doable” and “possible”.

The potters who make the terra cotta pots have benefited significantly – their profitability has increased since they started making these products.

The Team

The current Daily Dump team comprises of:
Poonam Bir Kasturi (Founder), Delara Damania (Designer), Savitha, Shwetha, Vinita, Trupti, Sudheer and Anupama

Current Challenges

The challenge faced by the team presently is to create sustainable revenue streams and make money out of all the research and design work that they have done. The team has also learnt a lot and is looking to partner with NGO’s now to make strategic connections to enable waste to be managed better all over the country. Daily Dump has a robust design and an easily replicable one, which can be adapted by most people all over India.

Looking forward, Daily Dump is in the process of prototyping a mechanical composter to be retrofitted into homes in India. For this, they are looking to work with builders and see if this product can then enter into every home as a standard fitting.
The Daily Dump team is constantly trying to figure out:

• How to get builders to retrofit a composter in each balcony and utility?
• How to design a new mechanical composter such that it follows the cradle to cradle philosophy and yet is cheap and fits into the informal manufacturing setup that dots the Indian urban landscape?

Recognition

Daily Dump has received the following awards & honors:

• “Nominated for the INDEX awards 2007 – an international award to improve the quality of life
• Awarded the Green Product of the Year by Anchor Better Interior Excellence Awards 2007
• Made it to the final round of the TATA NEN Hottest Startups 2009.
• Indira International Innovation’s ‘Star Entrepreneur of the Year Award’, 2009
• Made it to the final round of the Sankalp Social Enterprise and Investment Forum Award 2009.

A Chemical Engineer and lecturer at IIT Madras is an unusual candidate to have worked on a heart valve that has drastically reduced the cost of such a medical procedure, in turn bringing relief to millions of poor cardiac patients in Asia. However, Professor AV Ramani has done just this.

damage to their heart valves. The device – an indigenous heart valve, which costs a fraction of the imported ones in use at the time, has been created after years of research and hard work.

Developed at the Chitra Thirunal Institute (CTI) under the patronage of Dr.Valiathan and Prof. S. Ramaseshan, the heart valve adheres to all international standards and has a titanium-based metal cage that is long-lasting and wear-resistant. The engineering demands of such a valve were very high. Deepa Mohan tells us more about the requirements of such a machine in this article for Citizen Matters, a Bangalore based news magazine:

“It is worth remembering,” points out Prof. Ramani, “that the life of the heart valve IS the life of the patient”. The human heart beats about 80,000 times a day. For even a ten year life-span, the valve would have to function for at least 400 million cycles, which means a very high-precision engineering requirement, and, because the heart valve, typically, would be surgically implanted in younger people, it needs to be something that would last for a ‘normal’ lifetime.

Important decisions like allowing contributing partners to retain their intellectual property rights under a concept of joint ownership, and designing the valve specifically for Asian anatomy, where the valve dimensions are different from those of the western population, were other factors contributing to the success and prominence of the venture. Once developed, the challenge of marketing and large-scale manufacture of the product was undertaken by the TTK group, which set up a unit for this in Bangalore.

The indigenous heart valve is, in the words of Deepa Mohan:

..a living proof of how academicians, government officials and business people can work together with great synergy to bring out a product that is both profitable and beneficial.

Read the complete interesting article here.
Image Courtesy: Deepa Mohan in Citizen Matters

Link Courtesy: Uday Arya. Thanks a ton!