Future Innovators Summit
FRI September 5, 2014, 4 PM-4:30 PM
Sparkasse Oberösterreich, Promenade 11-13, 4020 Linz
The site of the afternoon session of the Future Innovators Summit is the lobby of the Sparkasse savings bank, where the discussion will focus on economic change. The first speaker is Sanjit Bunker Roy (IN), the founder of Barefoot College that teaches women in rural India to generate electricity and light with solar energy and to build DIY lamps, kettles, parabolic reflectors and solar elements.
Sanjit Bunker Roy (IN)
Sanjit Bunker Roy is the founder and director of the Barefoot College. He received his formal education in The Doon School (1956-62) and St. Stephens College Delhi University (1962-1967). He was the Indian National Squash Champion in 1965, 1967 and 1971. His “real” education started when he dug open wells for drinking water as an unskilled labourer for 5 years (1967-1971). He established the only fully solar electrified Barefoot College in the deserts of Rajasthan in India 40 years ago. It is the only College in India built by the poor and managed by the rural poor who earn less than $ 1/day. Since then the based Barefoot approach has been implemented in over 30 of the Least Developed Countries, a total of 36,000 houses in 1,024 villages have been solar electrified by nearly 300 illiterate rural grandmothers. Without using the written or spoken word they have been trained in 6 months using only sign language in India in the Barefoot College to be solar engineers under a scheme called ITEC of the Government of India. Bunker Roy was identified as one of the 50 environmentalists who could save the planet by The Guardian in 2008 and as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2010.
Sanjit Bunker Roy is the founder and director of the Barefoot College. He received his formal education in The Doon School (1956-62) and St. Stephens College Delhi University (1962-1967). He was the Indian National Squash Champion in 1965, 1967 and 1971. His “real” education started when he dug open wells for drinking water as an unskilled labourer for 5 years (1967-1971). He established the only fully solar electrified Barefoot College in the deserts of Rajasthan in India 40 years ago. It is the only College in India built by the poor and managed by the rural poor who earn less than $ 1/day. Since then the based Barefoot approach has been implemented in over 30 of the Least Developed Countries, a total of 36,000 houses in 1,024 villages have been solar electrified by nearly 300 illiterate rural grandmothers. Without using the written or spoken word they have been trained in 6 months using only sign language in India in the Barefoot College to be solar engineers under a scheme called ITEC of the Government of India. Bunker Roy was identified as one of the 50 environmentalists who could save the planet by The Guardian in 2008 and as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2010.
What is the Future Innovators Summit?
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