| I want to help people. I want to create simple solutions for fundamental problems. Now I understand why people move back to India. I am surprised that the thought has actually got into my head. This week I read about the following - - Mr Arunachalam who made affordable sanitary napkins for the rural and poor women. The question he asks in the end - people make lot of money and then they do lot of philanthropy. (Like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg etc), why not skip the money making part and directly help the needy. He also asks an uneducated man like me has done this, what do you educated people have to do for the world. http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_started_a_sanitary_napkin_revolution - a woman from Gambia walked the Paris marathon with liters of water on her head. She said there are women who walk a marathon distance everyday to provide clean water for their families. - in a 'culture' class I learnt about taxi drivers in Africa that barely fill their gas tanks to do the trip so that in case their vehicle get stolen the thief cannot get far and hence can get caught. - I read about a man in Jharkhand who walk several kilometers while sick to get treatment. A non profit I worked for supports a health care center deep in remote areas where tribal people live. Infant mortality rates are high, mal nutrition is high, TB cases, plain poverty due to illness and bad hygiene. Read about one family whose sole bread winner fell sick to illness and all money went in nursing him back to health. A $50-100 from us is big money for them that sometimes makes a difference of life and death. I rallied for an expense of a vehicle to take labor ing pregnant women from remote villages to a hospital for proper delivery.
When I think of all this, I wonder how making fancy technology is helping. I guess it does help to a certain extent. I work on the cheaper line of products, to make technology available to mass, at a very affordable rate.
This eases into the Africa trip. We will be deploying rugged solar computers in remote villages. Ok get this, it is a product we worked on! Yep. These kids most likely have not seen computers. I am trying to read about their life as much as possible. It is fascinating as much as it is scary.
Solar computers. I actually had this idea to mass productize solar computers. I pitched it to a VP in a forum. I wanted to save electricity. I am excited to see the computers in action.
We have a VP joining us in the trip. Oops. Her calendar is super busy and she has her admin move around her meetings to make time for our meetings. She will be a trainer as well. I seem to be the least qualified trainer. ;--P so may be I will stick to ' what is a computer' type lessons. We will be prepared with lessons on some of the education apps available. I need to play with them.
I want to do more, spend more time, make a difference. But I am struggling to find the time. This week literally I have been slacking on every single project of mine. Everyone is hounding me for this and that. DH is not too happy with me. My guilt of not spending time with family makes me unhappy. And then more unhappy people all around me. I have no control over my tasks or my calendar.
And then I wonder if it really is a problem or do I make it a problem.
Happy weekend! |
