May 01, 2020

Sustainable Innovations' work has been featured in the May 2020 AARP Purpose Prize Newsletter. Our founder, Dr. BP Agrawal, was the recipient of the 2012 Purpose Prize.

January 24, 2020

In 2003, I embarked on a journey to perfect self-sustaining enterprises — Aakash Ganga to bring water to communities with no access to safe drinking water — and Arogya, to deliver primary healthcare at the doorstep of rural families. At that time, sustainability was just an in-vogue buzzword to me.  I recall inviting several friends over for dinner to chart out a plan for using our prodigious skills and resources to help the neediest back home in India. One of them thumped the table and asked: “What difference will it make if we were to give $100 million to India?” Silence ruled the moment. Meaning, none. If not money, what will make a difference?

June 27, 2019

Dr. Bhagwati P. Agarwal, Founder and President, Sustainable Innovations Inc, USA 

November 30, 2018

For more than three decades, Bhagwati “B.P.” Agrawal, Ph.D., was a leader in the communications revolution, spearheading research and development at Fortune 100 companies including General Dynamics, ITT-Alcatel, GTE/Verizon and Hughes Network Systems before launching his own companies. He received more than 10 patents for telecommunications innovations that today are industry standards. He abruptly left the corporate world behind fifteen years ago to focus on a new mission – helping others.

November 30, 2018

Bhagwati "B.P" Agrawal
Engineering Science PhD, '74

​

After more than 30 years with fortune 500 companies and as CEO of his own Business, B.P. Agrawal took up an entirely new mission. He provides clean drinking water and low-cost health care in his native india. 

​

July 31, 2018

The University of South Florida Alumni Association has announced the 2018 recipients of the university’s highest alumni honors, the USF Alumni Awards, celebrating USF graduates for outstanding professional achievements and for service to USF and its students. One award also recognizes a non-USF graduate for dedicated service to USF and the Tampa Bay community.

June 04, 2018

TAMPA, FL – June 4, 2018 – The University of South Florida Alumni Association has announced the 2018 recipients of the university’s highest alumni honors, the USF Alumni Awards, celebrating USF graduates for outstanding professional achievements and for service to USF and its students. One award also recognizes a non-USF graduate for dedicated service to USF and the Tampa Bay community.

December 07, 2017

I have been a leader in the church for almost 40 years. In addition, I have served as a director on nine boards, for organizations very small to very large. I have always thought it important to amass as much knowledge as possible to be a good leader and board director. When it is my job to seek board candidates, I am always on the hunt for people who are intellectually sharp and come with significant life experiences and achievements. That only makes sense, doesn’t it?

October 30, 2017

Adapted U. S. utility industry model to harvest rainwater. Builds local infrastructure to end water scarcity for generations.

I confirm that I am fully aware of the eligibility criteria, and based on its description, I am eligible to apply to the CSV Prize 2017.

April 12, 2017

Sustainable Innovations (SI), a US based nonprofit organization requested GIS assistance in late 2016. SI harvests rooftop rainwater to provide safe drinking water to rural communities in the state of Rajasthan India. Currently, SI collects 15 million liters of rainwater annually and provides safe drinking water to 10,000 people. They are expanding their program, called Aakash Ganga or River from the Sky, to bring water to 250,000 people.

February 23, 2017

Aakash Ganga, our rainwater harvesting program, brings clean drinking water to the doorsteps of rural communities. One of the costly line items of Aakash Ganga is the physical survey of the villages. The physical survey is essential for designing the rainwater collection reservoirs and laying pipes to connect the reservoirs with the rooftops, but it is expensive, time-consuming, and laborious. Volunteers at GISCorps have developed a methodology that utilizes geographic information system (GIS) technology to conduct virtual surveys. While rooftops are digitized using Open Street Map, web maps available on mobile devices are developed using Esri. Their methodology significantly cuts down the costs, time, and labor spent on surveys, and will allow Aakash Ganga to be replicated in villages quickly and cost effectively.   

​

Aakash Ganga involves the installation and maintenance of a series of channels and reservoirs that vary from community to community depending on village-specific aspects.  Every village will differ in elevation, number of rooftops, population, density of houses, topography, and soil condition. All of these characteristics will affect how Aakash Ganga is implemented, as we believe that sustainability relies on solutions that suit a community rather than requiring the community to adjust to the solution. Conducting physical surveys to gather this information requires considerable manpower, expenses, and time ─ typically 10-12 weeks.  Villages in India don’t have street names and house numbers, which makes identification of physical locations of the reservoirs an insurmountable challenge. 

​

It became evident after the first implementation that a more efficient way to conduct surveys was needed. If we could alleviate the need for physical surveys,  we would be able to  reduce the time and money spent on planning down to only a fraction of what we were spending. Conducting virtual surveys through the use of GIS images would help Aakash Ganga expand its reach farther and more quickly than we thought possible.  

​

The volunteers at GISCorps developed a methodology using GIS technology and latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates to calculate the rooftop area of each individual house. The rooftop area tells us how much rainwater can be collected from each house and, for example, what the pipe diameters should be. The use of GIS maps also shows possible pathways for laying pipes to transport the collected rainwater from individual house reservoirs (Griha tankas) to the community reservoir (Gram tanka), and how close together the houses are, which is a determining factor in concluding how many Griha tankas are able to fit in the village.

​

The ability to calculate rooftop areas using coordinates gives us an accurate square footage measurement without even needing to visit the community. It also resolves the issue presented by the lack of street names and house numbers as the locations of every reservoir will have a unique and exact set of coordinates, which will also make monitoring and future maintenance a much easier task.

​

We combine the GIS technology with elevation data to find the lowest point in the village, which marks the location of the Gram tanka. Building the Gram tanka at the lowest point ensures that gravity will pull the collected rainwater to the reservoirs, alleviating the need for pumps. The Gram tanka is sized to collect the maximum volume of rainwater, and is determined by the average annual rainfall.

​

The work of the volunteers at GISCorps is expected to reduce the planning period of Aakash Ganga from ten-to-twelve weeks down to only one or two weeks.

​

Thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, we are developing a standard process for Aakash Ganga that will pave the way for the program to be rapidly replicated anywhere it is needed. Utilizing GIS technology reduces the time and money spent on designing the systems by removing the need of conducting physical surveys, and also simplifies the design process and future expansion as we work to expand our program, ensuring socially equitable distribution and access to water in communities everywhere.

February 08, 2017

In western India, groundwater levels are falling at a rapid and irreversible pace, leaving many communities without access to drinking water. Due to a lack of surface water such as lakes and rivers, most of western India relies primarily on aquifers, underground geologic formations that store water. India’s aquifers have been depleting at approximately 60 cubic meters annually--at that rate, Lake Erie would be reduced to a dust bowl in only two years.

Throughout India’s history, infrastructures have been built around the importance and utilization of aquifers and groundwater as the communities’ main water source. As the groundwater levels began to drop, these infrastructures were left dry and forgotten about, and new solutions were needed. While many organizations and government bodies have attempted to remedy this life-threatening issue by introducing new water harvesting structures, most have proven to be unsustainable, leaving rural communities without access to clean drinking water once more.

A sobering manifestation of the rapidly decreasing groundwater levels lies in the empty water structures of the past, which have been completely dried up for upwards of one hundred years. On a recent trip to India, Sustainable Innovations paid a visit to the village of Chhapoli and saw the extent of failing water systems in the community.

​

The oldest water structures in Chhapoli are step wells, which are estimated to be around two hundred years old. This tall, temple-like well known as a bawdi was once a beautiful structure that was built into the ground to reach the groundwater below. Bawdis were very common in western India, where water supply fluctuates greatly depending on the time of year and communities needed ways to collect and store water for year-round use. These bawdis were also used as a gathering place where locals could find relief from the heat by descending to the bottom, where the temperature was often several degrees cooler than the surface. As the ground water supply began to dry up, the stepwells were left in a state of emptiness as they had outlived their usefulness.

​

This stepwell is known as a johara well. Catchments nearby the johara would fill with rainwater during the monsoon season, and the runoff water would flow from the catchment and into the johara through the arched openings on the sides, called sluice gates. The johara would fill with water that was easily accessible via the steps leading down to it. Farmers also kept their cows on the other side of the well, with a ramp called a gow ghat allowing the animals to access the water.

As time went on and the population of the village began to increase, development projects were built on top of the catchments, cutting off the johara’s water supply and leaving the well empty and barren. You can see in the picture above how a barrier of dirt and rubble has been pushed up against the openings from which the water would flow.

These step wells, while beneficial in hydrating both the villagers and their livestock, only lasted for around one hundred years, leaving the community in need for another solution.

​

Ground wells such as this one were built to replace the stepwells. Ground wells can be dug deeper into the ground, allowing them to reach the water supply that the stepwells were unable to as the levels began to sink. The water below was access with lowering a bucket on a rope to scoop up the water, and then pulling the bucket back up.

The shrinking groundwater supply and increasing population causes this ground well to dry up after only fifty years. Once it was empty and useless, a steel gate was placed over top of the opening of the well to prevent people from falling in.

​

The next kind of well to be utilized in Chhapoli was a borehole, which quickly dried up after only ten years. Boreholes can reach deeper into the ground than stepwells or ground wells to the water that is stored below, which can be accessed by pumping the handle. The boreholes in India are notoriously unreliable and are known to break down easily, and typically remain broken due to lack of maintenance. The boreholes that were able to remain functional quickly dried up, as the groundwater was being collected much too quickly for the supply to replenish itself.

As the groundwater supply and water structures in western India continue to rapidly deplete, a new approach is desperately needed. Instead of digging deeper and deeper into the ground to reach the shrinking groundwater supply, we need to take advantage of the monsoon season and collect and store the rainwater for year-round use.

​

Aakash Ganga provides that solution by installing a series of gutters and reservoirs in rural communities. Clean, bacteria-free rainwater is collected and stored safely in tanks that are located directly in the villages, removing the need of women to travel and stand in line to fetch it. The covered reservoirs protect the contained water from the elements, reducing the effect of evaporation and keeping contaminants out. Aakash Ganga utilizes GPS mapping to locate each installed system, making it easy to perform maintenance as needed and ensuring longevity.

Sustainability is our utmost priority in all of our programs. We are dedicated to creating and implementing systems that are viable for each unique culture by identifying why past solutions have not worked and learning from these flaws. As the famous quote by George Santayana goes, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Aakash Ganga is currently providing 10,000 people in six villages in Rajasthan with clean, accessible drinking water year-round, and we are expanding our program to reach 100,000 people in the next phase of the project.

September 30, 2016

This blog draws on the findings from research conducted on innovative social enterprise models at the Base of the Pyramid for the World Bank Social Enterprise Innovations team by Endeva and Ashley Insight. The research and corresponding case studies are available on the World Bank and OECD’s

March 22, 2016

Sustainable Innovations matured a systemically sustainable model for social enterprise or for public-private-community partnership

(PPCP) Ð namely Aakash Ganga (AG) (or River from Sky in Hindi), a rooftop rainwater harvesting system, and Triage@Home for

door-to-door delivery of health care. When AG was launched in India, sustainability had just one dimension, one colour, and

one meaning for us Ð economic sustainability. During the pilot programme, sustainability revealed its numerous colours, one

color after another: For PPCP to be a sustainable system, it should be sustainable economically, culturally, socially, operationally,

technologically, politically, institutionally, and ecologically.

March 20, 2016

Rajasthan, India (CNN)The record-breaking drought in California has made the headlines. But in Rajasthan, the driest region of India, water scarcity is a way of life.

Women and children walk miles to get water and clean dishes with sand to conserve it. In recent years, the problem has escalated.

December 10, 2015

Jalwa Puja is a water ceremony, sacred to India, in which mothers welcome a new child with blessings at the village well. Baghwati Argrawal incorporated this and other customs, including naming reservoirs after community leaders, in the Rajastan project that collects and distributes rainwater.

October 31, 2015

Dr. Bhagwati Agrawal was named last month as one of CNN’s Top Ten Heroes of 2015. His nonprofit corporation, Sustainable Innovations, created a rainwater harvesting system that’s providing safe drinking water to six villages in Rajasthan. Called Aakash Ganga, the system use gutters, spouts and pipes to collect rainwater from rooftops and store it in underground storage reservoirs.

October 31, 2015

What is the difference between a stray animal and a human being? That was the question Vienna’s Bhagwati Agrawal’s mother asked him when he ignored an elderly woman who asked him to help her pull a few buckets of water from the well when he was a young boy in Rajasthan, India.

July 28, 2015

Dr. Bhagwati P Agrawal is a social entrepreneur, who is the director of Sustainable Innovations Inc. based in Fairfax, Virginia. Agrawal pursued his higher education from America. He always had keen interest in technology, and never wanted to be questioned about the same. Been in America, he worked for creating technologies for over 100 Fortune companies.

April 25, 2015

In Conversation with Dr.B.P Agrawal, Founder,Sustainable Innovations & Winner of Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability,2010.Dr.B.P Agrawal is a 1964 BITS-Pilani passout.

June 07, 2014

For the Year of the Boomer — 2014 is the year the youngest Boomers turn 50 — here is another installment in my survey of 50 Boomers across 10 career categories who have reinvented themselves within the last 10 years.

March 27, 2014

In 2007, B. P. Agrawal left his longtime career in the telecommunications industry to launch a U.S.-based NGO that would address the shortages of clean drinking water and healthcare in rural parts of India, his native country. The goal was to develop local, self-sustaining solutions. But, he told students, “I had no clue what sustainability meant at the time.”

December 31, 2013

Sustainable Innovations, SI, came into existence formally in 2007 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to building self-sustainable enterprises with a focus on engaging youth entrepreneurs in culturally and economically viable ventures.

November 30, 2013

B P Agrawal has given social entrepreneurship an evolved meaning in the desert state of Rajasthan with his thriving initiatives—Akash ganga and Arogya. We present a pictorial view of his recent visit to india.

June 30, 2013

Dr. B.P. Agrawal is the founder of Sustainable Innovations in rural Rajasthan, which has created domestic rainwater harvesting systems by channelizing rooftop rainwater from every house in a community, through gutters and pipes to a network of multi-tier underwater reservoirs. Such simple solutions can easily be implemented in water-scarce areas. It has also developed kiosk-based clinics that aim to treat common ailments and preventable diseases at $0.25 per visit cost. The kiosks are equipped with computerized best medical practices for common ailments. The clinics are operated by trained individuals. It can help people in areas where medical practitioners are rare to find.

March 03, 2013

Washington, DC/Jaipur – One of the western states of India recently came into the limelight as Bhagwati P. Agrawal, 68, was announced as the winner of the 2012 Purpose Prize for creating a system for collecting rainwater to quench the thirst of thousands in the parched land of Rajasthan.

January 20, 2013

Poverty and the lack of resources prevent most people in rural India from accessing primary healthcare.

​

But there is hope in the form of Arogya Ghar, a self-sustainable social venture by Dr Bhagwati P Agrawal. Sachin Joshi writes on how it computerised medical protocols for common and preventable ailments to make medical knowledge and primary healthcare accessible to many.

December 31, 2012

The adage that “all politics is local” might also apply to social entrepreneurship and career reinvention. Bhagwati (B.P.) Agrawal is a social entrepreneur with a stellar corporate track record who decided to pivot into the non-profit world to address dire circumstances 7,000 miles away in his home state of Rajasthan in India.

December 20, 2012

The other 2012 winners, who each receive $100,000, are:

Bhagwati (B.P.) Agrawal, 68, Sustainable Innovations Inc., Fairfax, Va.

By using his engineering expertise, Agrawal is mitigating the water shortage in his native India. Through his nonprofit, Sustainable Innovations, he founded Aakash Ganga, or River from Sky, in 2003 to create a system for collecting rain - one of precious few sources of drinking water. Now, gutters, pipes and underground tanks gather the short-lived rains of monsoon season in six villages, home to 10,000 people.

December 05, 2012

Most people do good deeds without expecting to be repaid. The reward is the act in itself.

This week, Encore.org, a nonprofit that promotes second acts for the greater good, selected five Americans 60 and older to each win a $100,000 Purpose Prize for changing lives in new and creative ways. Wow.

December 04, 2012

You can have your Oscars, your Kennedy Honors, even your Hasty Puddings. For my money, the most important award of the year is the one that was just announced today: The Purpose Prize, given to people 60 and older who are truly making a difference in the world.

December 04, 2012

A lawyer, a former toy-store owner, a financial planner, an engineer, and an ex-offender have each received $100,000 to honor social programs they created as a way to solve some of the world’s most stubborn social problems.

December 04, 2012

Stopping on a dusty, unpaved village street in northwest India’s Rajasthan in 2007, Bhagwati (B.P.) Agrawal saw children excitedly running around calling, “Pani aagayaa.” They were alerting everyone that the water tanker had arrived with its twice-a-month delivery. Women appeared carrying clay pots to collect what they could of a life-sustaining resource continually in short supply.

December 03, 2012

Engineer Bhagwati “B.P.” Agrawal, who long wanted to mitigate the water shortage in his native India by using the expertise he developed in the United States, was recently awarded the $100,000 Purpose Prizefor creating a system for collecting one of the region’s precious few sources of safe drinking water – rain.

Through the Fairfax-based nonprofit, Sustainable Innovations Inc., he founded in 2003, Aakash Ganga, or River from Sky, has created a network of roofs, gutters, pipes and underground tanks in six villages that are home to 10,000 people. 

August 28, 2012

Washington, DC – Arogya, the Laptop-based Clinics for Masses project of Sustainable Innovations, recently received a shot in the arm as The Merck Company Foundation approved a financial injection of $341,250 for the organization to continue its work providing healthcare to people at extremely low cost.

July 02, 2012

It was February 2003. I had just acquired the intellectual property rights from the Eastern Virginia Bankruptcy Court for my defunct health informatics company’s technology. With the dotcom bust, investors pulled back and the company ran out of money. Knowing how tight the capital market had become, I sought investments from my trusted colleagues, most of whom were successful high-tech executives

December 31, 2011

Agrawal brings safe drinking water to six villages in India, home to 10,000 people. He’s doing it by collecting rain. 

February 28, 2011

Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific inventors and his wife Dorothy founded the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. Funded by The Lemelson Foundation and administered by the School of Engineering, the Foundation sparks, sustains and celebrates innovation and the inventive spirit. So when the Lemelson-MIT Progam announced Dr.B P Agrawal as the winner of the 2010 $100,000 Award for Sustainability, it added yet another feather to the cap of this master innovator whose non-profit venture Sustainable Innovations is improving lives of thousands in rural Rajasthan.

February 08, 2011

So, what is the best strategy to go about doing ‘sustainable and inclusive innovations’, or SI2? There are six areas of strategic intervention, as discussed here.

High asset use or high throughput is achieved through standardization in processes, enabling huge cost reduction, uniform quality output and sufficiency to scale and replicate.

January 03, 2011

New Delhi, Delhi, India: BITSians welcome the New Year with a Bang! Come January 07, 2011, BITSians the world over will converge at Epicenter in Gurgaon to revisit their alma mater for the first ever global alumni meet – BITS Pilani Alumni Association (BITSAA) Global Meet 2011. Themed on ‘Transforming Society, Enterprises and Academics through Innovation', the meet will witness some of the World's most well known BITSians including the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan sharing platform with fellow BITSians like Rajesh Hukku, Former Chairman & CEO, iFlex Solutions; Mr. Baba Kalyani, Chairman, Kalyani Group; Mr. Gulu Mirchandani, MD, MIRC Electronics; Ms. Revathi Advaithi, President, Eaton Corporation, Prof. SP Kothari, Deputy Dean, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA, amongst others.

September 14, 2010

At lunch a few days ago, I was sitting next to a retired engineer from the U.S. Department of Energy. When I told him about our work at the Lemelson Center, his eyes lit up. “You know,” he said to me, “my son is an inventor. He started his own high-tech business about five years ago.”

June 30, 2010

"While financing is the No. 1 ingredient for any development project, it is only one key element for achieving sustainability, i.e. taking an idea beyond pilot demonstration to widespread replication", emphasizes Development Marketplace 2006 winner, B.P. Agrawal.

​

Visit Page 41 

July 25, 2010

In Rajasthan, India’s driest region, social entrepreneur and innovator Dr. BP Agrawal believes a “River From the Sky” is the answer to providing arid villages with fresh drinking water.

June 14, 2010

How do you win a major sustainability award from MIT?

​

Simultaneously tackle health care and clean water in the developing world like Dr. BP Agrawal, the founder of Sustainable Innovations–a seven year-old nonprofit that builds self-sustaining projects in rural villages. Agrawal recently won the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, which will be given out this week at MIT’s Eureka Fest. The prize honors “inventors whose products or processes impact issues of global

relevance, as well as issues that impact local communities in terms of
meeting basic health needs, and building sustainable livelihoods for
the world’s poorest populations.”

May 10, 2010

Social entrepreneur Dr Bhagwati P Agrawal, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Sustainable Innovations, has received the $ 100,000 Lemelson-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Award for Sustainability.

May 04, 2010

In Wired magazine’s provocatively titled “Social Entrepreneurship Achieves What Centralized Aid Could Not in India,” one man’s efforts at providing sustainable solutions for water and health in Indian villages show how economic incentives may be more successful than pure aid. As a recepient of the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, Dr. BP Agarwal’s Aakash Ganga and Arogya Ghar are initiatives under his organization, Sustainable Innovations. 

May 02, 2010

BP Agrawal is the recipient of the 2010 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability. The social entrepreneur is being honored for innovative approaches to improving the global public health system, the Massachusets Institute of Development said.

April 27, 2010

LEMELSON-MIT PROGRAM

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 28, 2010) - Eighty percent of health problems and five million deaths per year in developing countries are linked to inadequate water and sanitation according to the World Water Development Report 2009. This, coupled with the lack of medical attention for rural villagers, highlights a dire need for reliable access to clean water and healthcare, problems that Dr. BP Agrawal aims to solve.

April 27, 2010

Congratulations to Dr. BP Agrawal, recepient of this year's $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability. Dr. Agrawal’s creation of a community-driven rainwater harvesting system and mobile health clinics have the potential to improve the global public health system and better the quality of life for villagers in rural India.

April 27, 2010

Dr. BP Agrawal has been named recipient of the 2010 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability in recognition of his community-driven rainwater harvesting system and mobile health clinics, which have the potential to improve the global public health system and better the quality of life for villagers in rural India. (Photo: Business Wire)

April 27, 2010

Nonprofit venture capitalist BP Agrawal wins humanitarian award for rain-harvesting system, health kiosks.

BP Agrawal, founder of Sustainable Innovations, has won the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

The award goes to an individual's overall achievement in improving the lives of others through science or engineering innovation, not for one particular invention.

April 27, 2010

Dr. BP Agrawal, a visionary social entrepreneur, combines his business insight with pioneering technologies to uncover innovative approaches to solve problems for the world’s vulnerable populations. For these inventions and their potential to improve the global public health system, he has won the 2010 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

April 27, 2010

CRITICS OF SOME aid programs contend that merely supplying money and resources to destitute regions does not help them in the long term, and can even hurt, because it creates dependence on the part of the recipients. Not so with Dr. BP Agrawal's solutions for bringing clean water and medical services to rural Indian villages, which won him and his program the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, the organization announced on Wednesday morning.

April 19, 2010

Aakash Ganga – River from Sky

​

Aakash Ganga (AG) is one of the signature innovations that Dr. BP Agrawal developed under Sustainable Innovations (SI), a non-profit organization. SI harvests innovations in systems, technologies and entrepreneurship to build holistically sustainable social enterprises. AG is a rainwater harvesting system utilized to collect safe drinking water in the arid region of Rajasthan, India. The system channels rooftop rainwater from every house in a community through gutters and pipes to a network of multi-tier underground reservoirs with large enough capacity to store a year of drinking water.

January 14, 2010

Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC

​

Just a few years ago, Dr Bhagwati P Agrawal, founder and executive director of Sustainable Innovations and erstwhile World Bank and United Nations Development Programme consultant, launched Aakash Ganga to harvest domestic rainwater to alleviate the perennial shortage of drinking water in India.

January 04, 2010

January 5, 2010 -The Development Marketplace Awards are awarded to early-stage community projects in developing countries. These projects are aimed at poor people and their environment, but can also be expanded to benefit other communities. Here's how three winning projects from the Development Marketplace have evolved since winning their award:

January 04, 2010

January 5, 2010 —Development Marketplace awards go to innovative, early-stage community projects in developing countries that aim to benefit poor people and their local environment, and have the potential to be scaled to other communities. Here's how three winning Development Marketplace projects have fared since winning awards:

Zimbabwe, Malawi: Clean Water Venture Reaches Millions

July 15, 2009

The Ganga (or Ganges) is one of India’s mightiest rivers, flowing from the Himalayas in Uttarakhand to the Sunderbans in West Bengal. It is nowhere near the arid northern state of Rajasthan. It is equally remote from Guiyang Municipality in the People’s Republic of China. But Aakash Ganga – a rainwater harvesting project that literally means “river from the skies” — is making a mark in both places.

July 07, 2009

The Ganga (or Ganges) is one of India’s mightiest rivers, flowing from the Himalayas in Uttarakhand to the Sunderbans in West Bengal. It is nowhere near the arid northern state of Rajasthan. It is equally remote from Guiyang Municipality in the People’s Republic of China. But Aakash Ganga – a rainwater harvesting project that literally means “river from the skies” — is making a mark in both places.

July 06, 2009

Sometimes, we come across an article that surprises us, educates us and makes us feel terrific about the world. One such article is about Aakash Ganga, an innovative water resources project that began in Rajasthan, India and has now reached China’s Guiyang Municipality.

“The entire world has become aware of the shortage of fresh water in some countries and regions,” notes an expert quoted in this article.  “These include India, with 16% of humanity but less than 3% of global fresh water resources. The poor water availability is exacerbated by its uneven spread over regions and time of the year.” 

July 06, 2009

The Ganga (or Ganges) is one of India's mightiest rivers, flowing from the Himalayas in Uttarakhand to the Sunderbans in West Bengal. It is nowhere near the arid northern state of Rajasthan. It is equally remote from Guiyang Municipality in the People's Republic of China. But Aakash Ganga – a rainwater harvesting project that literally means "river from the skies" -- is making a mark in both places.

December 31, 2007

We have perfected social enterprise model that couples "social business" of Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus and sustainability approach of Mahatma Gandhi. Aakash Ganga, our rainwater harvesting system provides drinking water to communities. Arogya, or Kiosk-based clinic, provides health care for preventable diseases and common ailments to vulnerable populations. These social enterprises are holistically sustainable – culturally, socially, institutionally, operationally, and economically.

May 11, 2007

Dr. BP Agrawal, founder and president of the nonprofit corporation Sustainable Innovations, seeds change, nourishes change, and harvests change.  He founded Sustainable Innovations to harvest innovations in engineering, entrepreneurship, business, and social policies to build systemically sustainable social enterprises that can negotiate the difficult path from laboratory to market. He conceived Aakash Ganga, a self-sustainable domestic rainwater harvesting system, to provide safe drinking water in perpetuity.

May 11, 2006

May 12, 2006 -- Five projects from India were among 30 Development Marketplace 2006 winners who will share US$5 million for initiatives to provide clean water, hygienic sanitation, and access to energy to those communities in need: