And so... My time at SELCO is coming to a close...

Sad times!

Over the next few days I will be wrapping up a few loose ends from my time here. In the last week or so, quite a lot has happened here with the work I've been doing.

I heard the great news that the stove I ordered for an institution in Gulbarga has finally been delivered to the right place, and the clients have been using it. So far, initial trials seem to be going well, and over the next two months more testing will be carried out. It sounds like the guys there really like the stove, and are interested to get some more so they can carry out all their cooking on them, however its difficult to assess how much of the enthusiasm comes from SELCO having initially paid for the first stove on their behalf. Assuming the stove is used correctly, I think that they should make savings that will start to pay off quickly, while saving the women who cook for 100+ people, three times a day from inhaling large amounts of harmful smoke.

Also, our designs for a paddy separator tray have materialised as a neatly welded and nicely painted steel machine! We've assembled most of it, and managed to create an ugly but (hopefully) effective linkage for the motor (see below for a bit of over-zealous welding by a college technician, assisted by Seb.)

Seb "Sea-Bass" Burn assisting with some welding and managing to burn his hand through the terrible quality welding gloves... Well at least they had some, unlike most places! 

The paddy separator design almost constructed...

I've also finished a rather complicated Solidworks model of the paddy transplanter which I've mentioned in previous posts. Since it fell off a bus (yes, that actually happened, somehow) at the end of last transplanting season, its been a little worse for wear. I've made some modifications to improve the design, and so that new parts can be built at a workshop near here. 

Solidworks model of a paddy transplanter with a few modifications (and accidentally a bit shiny)

Meanwhile I've been able to give the machine a lick of paint, a bit of oil and grease and general TLC so that it can be ready to be taken to Puttur in a few weeks for an agricultural show and hopefully impress lots of farmers.

In other news, we've had a new face in the office (and our appartment) since Sameer arrived from the US to work with SELCO for the next year. Its been great fun so far, and I think he'll do a fab job here.

Finally here's a video I made while we were at a waterfall near Ujire... (put the quality up so it looks good :) )

More agri-machinery and a couple of treks

Since my last post, we have submitted the designs for our paddy separator to a metalworking workshop in Ujire. They've been quite helpful in taking on the project for us despite it not being the usual type of thing they are involved with. However progress has been very slow. Seb and I had estimated that our designs could be constructed in a couple of days using some basic tools such as an arc welder and angle grinder which we know they have available.  Its now been over a week since we last visited them and there's been little progress. A phone call this morning was not particularly fruitful "yes work it has been started" *rustling sound* "but other work has come in so not done yet." *another rustling sound* "I will call you when it is complete". I think this basically means that it will be finished when its finished and calling every day won't help. Maybe we'll pop in tomorrow...

On top of that, we're having trouble with the bearings and linkage we sourced from Mangalore. Its frustrating, but unfortunately typical of many people's experience trying to get things done here. I'm hoping we'll be into the testing phase for this machine by the time I leave for the UK, but its difficult to plan ahead when there are so many blockages in the chain of events which will lead us to that.

Meanwhile I have been able to do a little work on the paddy transplanter which has been tested quite a lot with local farmers during the rice transplanting season last year. Sam's blog gives a good overview of the project so far: click here. Basically it is a machine which has been designed to re-plant paddy plants which have initially been grown close together as young seedlings. Planting the small seedlings back into the field is a long process which is generally carried out by groups of women. During my time in the Philippines I actually helped out with the manual replanting process and met some people who have been doing it all their lives. It really is quite a painful, sweaty, muddy and repetitive process to carry out, and I can see the benefit of having a small manual machine to assist with the process. I've been looking at the design of the current machine which was quite badly damaged by falling off a bus after the last transplanting season in June. Some parts will need to be replaced so it makes sense to make some improvements at the same time.

Over the last two weeks we've been able to do a couple of hikes not far away from Ujire. A couple of weeks ago we hiked up a mountain called Kudremukh which is about 1900m above sea level, and on a clear day visible from our office window. We set off after sundown and  managed to camp near the summit (which was absolutely freezing without a tent or even sleeping bags) under a beautifully starry sky, and then headed up to the peak for sunrise the next morning.

The sun starting to rise over the western Ghats

Sunrise from the top of Kudremukh (the name means Horse's Face in Kannada)

We've also been able to climb an odd looking hill/rock formation called Gadaikall that you can see from where we stay in Ujire and which has an old fort called Jamalabad at the top. Its a very sweaty climb in the still, humid air, but the views from the top are great.

Seb, Surabhi, Sam, Nishant and Deepti on top of Gadaikall

Karnataka is on strike for the day...

....So why not start this post with a few pictures of monkeys I took the other day!?:

So yesterday was Ganesh Chaturthi - a festival day in honour of the god Ganesh, who looks like this:
We ventured into Ujire's town centre after work to check out the celebrations- there were fireworks, lots of orange bunting, decorated cows, flowers and dancers performing traditional dance (as well as more people than usual there to ask me "what-country!?" and look confused at the presence of a foreigner in this little town). Apparently later on in the week traditionally people build models of Ganesh and float them out on rivers or the sea.

Today is the second day of beautiful weather we've had in a row- yesterday was all blue sky and sunshine and today is much the same. We even did a little sunbathing in our lunch break [insert photo here]. Today is also the second day of not many people being around the college campus. People all across India are striking to oppose some bills that were passed in government last week. Auto drivers aren't driving, teachers aren't teaching and shopkeepers aren't shop-keeping. I'm told that Bangalore (a city of 8 million people) has pretty much ground to a halt The protest is against a bill which would allow foreign companies to own up to 51% of businesses here. This essentially means that companies such as Tesco and Walmart could open up supermarkets here and potentially kill off many small businesses. It however be a good thing for the Indian economy though, the idea being that it will boost the economy (which is currently not doing very well) and create jobs. On top of this, there is also the 14% diesel fuel price increase and changes to domestic cooking gas allowances which won't be making anyone happy.

Work continues at SELCO labs despite the strikes however, and we have been able to get some progress on the rice paddy separator Seb and I are designing. Here's a sneak preview (which probably won't demystify how on earth the thing works... but never mind- use your imagination)

We've found some suppliers for various components such as bearings, and have tracked down materials at some local workshops- the whole thing is designed so that it can be built here in the little town of Ujire. Engineering drawings have been produced- however I have a feeling it will be a little more of a challenge getting them created than just passing them over to a manufacturer. We'll see.

On our day off last week, Seb, Sam, Anantha and I were able to get out into the countryside to visit some waterfalls, see some more of rural life and go for a bit of a swim. Here are a few photographs of our adventures (which, unfortunately, don't feature elephants making noises very close by in the forest, or me sliding into a fast moving waterfall...)

Bull fight

Climbing around the falls

A spot of cliff-edge tree climbing

A nice cool wash!

Through the undergrowth

Under a big waterfall

Feeling settled in...

So project work is progressing, the monsoon rains are beginning to slow (ever so slightly) and I am feeling pretty settled in to life here.

Seb and I are still working on a rice paddy separator machine which  seems to be going quite smoothly.  If I've not mentioned it before- its part of SELCO's work on small scale agricultural machinery to help poorer farmers. We've got some feasible designs sketched up and are now trying to figure out how to bring it all together using the materials and expertise available round here. On Friday we took a little trip in to town to a metal workshop to check out the materials and components they have available. This sounds like quite a simple task- in the UK, and maybe in other parts of India, it would most likely be a case of finding someone at a desk and asking him for a catalogue. Not the case here. We walked around measuring up everything we could and then headed inside the workshop. All around you are people welding (without gloves or masks or any visible safety equipment) grinding metal and going about their work. Back home you'd never be allowed to this, but we pretty much had free reign of the place. We found a helpful guy who was able to show us some things we couldn't find and managed to pick up a sample of steel.  Its a great way to really get a feel for the materials that can be used, even if you constantly have to watch out where you're looking to avoid burning your retinas by accidentally looking at a welding arc.

My project "up north" in Gulbarga has progressed and the cooker I proposed for testing has arrived. Hopefully I will be able to take another trip up there some time in the next month to monitor how things are going for them. I'm hoping that the intervention will really make a difference there and help them save money on firewood fuel- Gulbarga is known by many in Karnataka to be a deprived area, and the institution there is providing for many children from very poor families.

The other day I was asked by Sam to do a presentation at the university's "tech club". SELCO labs have been asked to come along once a month to talk about the projects we're carrying out and facilitate discussion amongst the students. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but prepared a presentation about what I've been doing at SELCO- and giving some focus to my views on engineering for development. I actually kind of expected there to be about 5 or 6 students in a little room who had been forced to come along as some form of punishment... However, I walked into a huge room full of students and a few lecturers (about 60 or so) all apparently eager to hear from me. I found out later that about half of them were first year students who had arrived just the week before (no, there is definitely no such thing as freshers week here!).

So I delivered my talk, and was surprised how engaged the students seemed to be. I opened up for questions, and was really impressed with the student's intelligent, focussed responses. Sam lead a discussion based on my talk and we got the students to split into groups to discuss topics such as "What can our generation of engineers do to help the poor" and "Do we have responsibility to do so?" as well as some questions relating directly to the work of SELCO.

I was able to wander around and join in the subsequent discussions and was really impressed and excited by how these young students were keen on engaging with the problems in their society. I made the point that, for me as an outsider, it is perhaps much more difficult to understand the difficulties faced sectors of society who live in poverty. I feel like these students are in an incredible position to make a difference in their society and SELCO are doing a fantastic job at exposing them to ways they can create change in a country which has vast inequalities.

Its been an interesting week, rounded off with my birthday yesterday which was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with Seb, Nishant and Sam, with a few beverages and a personalised cake from the local baker (it appears they struggled to believe my name was a real one..)

Work update

So its been a while since I've updated this page... I'm pretty sure everyone who starts a blog starts off thinking they'll be updating it daily with exciting updates and photos... But its so easy to get on with living life rather than writing about it!

Work has been quite varied over the last few weeks. I've had some follow-up work from my trip up north to Gulbarga - mainly assessing their options for cooking and passing on information about their requirements for other solar installations such as a solar powered water pump for the well.

While I was there I spoke to them about the option of producing biogas as fuel for their cooking (this is made by using the breakdown of waste material - from food, agriculture, animal dung etc.). Biogas is being increasingly used all over India and it is relatively simple to set up when you have a source of waste to use. There is another name here for gas produced using manure- "Gobar gas". They had about 50 cows on site plus a few deer so it seems like a perfect option for them to set up a biogas plant and use this waste. Biogas plants output flammable gas as well as a slurry which is ideal as a fertiliser for agriculture. Despite this, they were very resistant to the idea- with a whole host of objections about how its smelly (which is surprisingly not true), the slurry doesn't work on the "black" soil in the area, and a general feeling that it "isn't something we do round here". SELCO have some project work looking into biogas plants which Vidyut is carrying out until he heads back to college, so he's looking the objections from the guys at the school.

I spent a while looking into the options for using cookers which use biomass pellets that burn cleanly, more efficiently and are kind to the environment - but this option still gave too much uncertainty about how much money they could save on fuel and makes them dependent on a single fuel supplier. I ended up making a comparison between these pellet stoves and some larger scale improved firewood stoves - particularly looking at those created by Sustaintech - a social enterprise which has come out of TIDE. Using this type of stove almost eliminates smoke and soot production as well as burning wood far more efficiently- I found that if they moved from a three-stone stove (open fire) set-up they could save as much as Rs.3000-5000 per month which is a huge amount for them.

I've been spending quite a bit of time working on a couple of different projects in the lab this week- some design and research work on a solar- hybrid food drier which is to be used at a fishing cooperative in Mangalore. This is Nishant's (he's going to be at SELCO for a year) main project and the  idea is that fish can be dried in order to preserve it and it doesn't go to waste, while saving money and energy on burning large amounts of fuel. Its quite a complicated problem- balancing air flow, getting optimum drying temperature and collecting enough solar energy to drive it is difficult.

The other project I've been working on is with Sebastian, designing a test rig for a small scale paddy separator which separates rice paddy from dehusked rice. Again- its a more complicated problem than it sounds- especially when you are constrained to designing with the materials, components and expertise that are locally available. The whole point in the design is that it can be easily replicated in poor farming areas and so our design must be cheap, sturdy and effective, otherwise its never going to be used.

Hopefully that wasn't too dull to read! I'll get some nice pictures up soon, but for now I'll leave you with a photo of the view out the lab window yesterday evening:

Sunday mud madness

So, completely unexpectedly on sunday afternoon we found out that some of the university's students and teachers were celebrating Krishna's birthday (Krishna Janmashtami) (no I didn't realise the gods had birthdays either) by smashing pots suspended very high up, and dunking each other in large amounts of mud.

Of course the fun and games was all reserved for the boys, with the ladies watching under umbrellas from a distance.

Here's a few pictures:

Somehow, Anantha (bottom left) manages to stay spotless and not be dragged into the meleé

A failed attempt

Carnage

Me, Seb and Vishal

After a wash with the hose

A bit of a dance off

Trip to Gulbarga

Just a short one to update on my trip up north. I headed out on Wednesday and arrived back here in Ujire on Saturday- so three days away in total. That sounds alright, except that roughly 45 hours of it was spent travelling! We arrived early on Thursday morning, after the 16 hour (which ended up being 18 hours) ride on a "sleeper" bus". I imagine that you probably would get a decent night's sleep on one of these when travelling on one of the UK's straight and smooth motorways... Not quite the same on Indian "roads" which apparently require the driver to brake and manoeuvre so ridiculously hard and fast    it would probably make a can of coke explode after 10 minutes.

There's also the issue of beeping. Actually for bus/truck drivers "beeping" is probably too soft a word so I'll go with the (probably american) "honking" to describe the ear-splitting sound made by just about every vehicle on the road. In the UK, I probably would use the horn about once a fortnight, for situations involving mild roadrage, being cut up or going around a blind corner. In India, horns are used with the same frequency as we'd use indicators in the UK. All together, not the easiest place to sleep, especially when you're about an inch too long for the beds...

Anyway, enough complaining. In Gulbarga, Deepti, Robin and I were able to visit a farm where the local SELCO branch had set up a solar powered electric fence. This relatively simple device helps this small scale farmer, who's field is very remote and miles from grid electricity, to keep his crops safe.

Deepti talking to a smiley farmer

A troupe of locals carrying produce on their heads

Robin and I later headed off to the school where we needed to gather information about their energy needs and cooking set-up. It was a sweaty, noisy (yes, teenagers blasting out tunes on their mobiles from the back seats is not unique to the UK) almost two-hour bus trip, which was not a lot of fun after all the travelling the previous night. When we arrived we were given Indian coffees and I was surprised how peaceful the place seemed (despite the 60 or so children who were being taught that day). We managed to gather lots of information and discussed the idea of trying out some solar cooking and clean burning pellet stoves, instead of smoky, inefficient wood burning on stones.

The leaders (right) were constantly smiling - until you take a photo of them

It was an interesting visit, and good to see that they were keen to try new things after having invested in some solar lighting. The institution was situated in a really run-down and remote village- but it was good to see that kids were being fed and educated here. The leaders of the place were quite excited and said that it was the first time a foreigner had visited their village. They gave us a lift to the main road to catch the bus in a tiny little Suzuki, and I answered lots of questions about British culture, religion, marriage and weather...

We spent the evening with the guys from the SELCO branch - eating some notoriously spicy local food     and drinking tea.  On the way back the next day, I have a feeling the bus driver decided to take an even bumpier, windier road than the route we arrived on. It was a worthwhile trip, even if I did come back incredibly tired and with a man-cold.

Weather Update and my trip up north

On sunday we ventured out to a beach in a town called Malpe. We weren't expecting any good weather, but after a little time the sun came out and it was roasting. The sea was warm and pretty clean so we spend a while in the waves. Later we brought a lot of attention to ourselves by digging a big hole to bury Vidyut in...

We stayed the night in Mangalore and managed to watch some of the Olympics- even staying up til 2am to watch the 100m final. 

Since we got back to Ujire yesterday it has been raining. Non stop, seriously heavy, tropical rain. About 24 hours of it! There was some thunder and lightning last night too which was pretty impressive.

I now understand why everyone has an umbrella round here. I find it quite ironic that having lived most of my life in England and never having bought an umbrella, but on coming to India I've got one after less than a week!

So tomorrow I'm off to a place called Gulbarga which in in the extreme north of Karnataka. I'll be doing a needs assessment and observing cooking habits at a small institution. Should be interesting, though I'm not quite sure what to expect. I'll travel up there with Deepti who is doing some different work in the area, looking at trials of solar fencing, and Robin who's going to assist me (especially with translation!).

Its meant to be a 16 hour bus journey to get there, which isn't a particularly fun prospect, but is a true Indian experience :).

16 hours rattling around in an old bus

First week at SELCO labs

Its nearly the end of my first (6 day - yes we work saturdays) week at SELCO already. Quite a lot has happened.

The massive tree in the middle of the university building

Much of this week has been spent looking into the feasibility of designing an affordable smoke extraction solution for the rural poor. I guess I should give some background to this.

There has been a huge amount of investment into improved cookstoves around the world, it has even become a political issue in many places. Many companies and NGOs have attempted to create scientifically designed "rocket stoves" which burn biomass very efficiently and with reduced levels of smoke and harmful gases as well as supposedly reducing the amount of fuel required. However, there are several problems with these improved stoves and their distribution, which are often overlooked.

There has been a lot of field testing of many types of rocket stoves in urban and rural areas. The reason for differentiation is that cooking habits vary widely in different places and amongst different people groups. Any intervention means changing peoples habits which is incredibly difficult.This is one of many reasons that a "one size fits all" solution is not the answer. It has been proven many times that in real live, the stoves don't come close to their quoted efficiencies which have been measured in a lab or in controlled field tests. In some cases, people who have received these stoves have kept them to use only on special occasions- reverting to their normal 3 stone setup for their usual cooking needs. In some of SELCO's tests in urban areas, users have not understood how to use the stoves properly or their benefits and therefore not been keen to use them. 

After water and sanitation, indoor air pollution is the largest environmental threat to health in developing countries.It is an issue that effects women and children most, but smoke inhalation appears to be a minor issue in the minds of many women who are used to cooking indoors in thick smoke. 

There has been some efforts in the area around Ujire to put improved stoves to use, which have not been particularly successful- but there are still many, many people in this area breathing a lot of smoke.

I've spent a lot of this week looking into cookstoves, but have also been helping others with their projects- testing new solar panels with Vishal, development of some small scale agricultural machinery designs with Seb and looking at small scale biogas collection with Vidyut. 

Me on top of the roof with some solar panels

Seb working on the small scale rice dehusker

We have had time in the evenings to do a few fun things - and have been out for some fantastic meals. My favourite was at a local place called Sapna where we had a delicious 3 course dinner with mango juice for about Rs. 125 each... Thats about £1.50.

We went swimming in a nearby river (much to the upset of our auto-rickshaw driver who later tried to call Seb 3 times to check if we were OK), played a bit of cricket, and taught the Indian guys how to play (touch) rugby.

An evening swim in a nearby river 

Some cricket on the college campus

On monday or tuesday next week I should be going to a place called Gulbarga in the north of Karnataka to check out the cooking setup at a small institution which has asked SELCO to do some consultancy work looking at alternative fuels etc. Not sure how its going to work- and its meant to be a 15 hour trip each way!

Arriving in Ujire

It took 7 long hours of zipping along through the countryside to make it to Ujire where I'll be based for the next 3 months. It was almost impossible to sleep in my tiny bunk as the bus hurtled around corners and avoided brave rickshaw drivers on the bumpy road. I think I managed to drop off a couple of times. Unfortunately one of these times the bag containing my laptop was knocked off the bunk, landing on the floor... What I didn't know was that this had happened to it:

poor laptop :(

Whoops. 

So I arrived in Ujire to the shouting of the bus conductor at around 4:30am. I'd already woken up since I was worried about missing my stop. After I hurriedly got off, I hunted for an auto rickshaw to take me to the university where SELCO's lab is situated. Luckily my driver knew where I wanted to go and got me there nice and quickly so I could meet Seb who, bleary eyed, met me outside the staff accommodation where we are staying with 3 other guys from SELCO. 

The next day, after about 3 hours sleep we were heading off to the nearest city, Mangalore, so the others could pick up some supplies that are scarce in Ujire. I met the other engineering interns at SELCO- Vishal, Vijud and Nishal as well as finally meeting Sam who is a previous EWB volunteer who has now gone on to work as SELCO labs mechanical engineer. 

Mangalore is a bustling town with some big malls as well as small vendors lining the street. Its very different to rural Ujire but its good to know that there is somewhere less than two hours on a bus away   that has places to buy more "unusual" items like pasta, or toilet roll. It was another bumpy ride. 

One thing that struck me about arriving in the countryside was the change in climate. Its much warmer and far more humid than Bangalore, which is situated at about 3000ft altitude. Rains can start and stop very abruptly, and soak you through instantly. We've had a couple of days of good sunshine but I now understand why locals always carry an umbrella with them, just in case! 

Back at the apartment later gave me a chance to see around the University campus - SDM Institute of Technology. The students were on holiday when I arrived so it was quieter than normal. After a week here, its a fair assessment that this university is quite different to what I'm used to... and perhaps even quite different to other universities in India.

the view from the university buildings

My first few days in India

I arrived in Bangalore last Friday at 5am. Confident on the exterior but mildly apprehensive, I stepped out the airport, concerned about the high chance getting lost in the 3rd biggest city in India with only a few printed out Google maps, some contact details and marginally faulty British mobile phone. After failing to make it to SELCO's Bangalore office, I managed to get a auto-rickshaw driver to take me to the hotel I was going to be staying at that night. I crashed out when I got there due to getting no sleep on the plane and 2 hours later grabbed my maps and valuables and started to walk to the office, sadly too late to avoid a huge downpour of warm tropical rain.

My first trip on an auto rickshaw

I spent most of the day at the office, meeting people, calling Sam at the Ujire office, getting an introduction to SELCO and eating my first south indian meal: some kind of veg curry and rotis (like a thin dry naan). Tasty and spicy, but difficult getting the hang of eating with my hand.

Back at the hotel, I went out in search of something to eat and found a guy who made delicious kati rolls which are a street food which supposedly originated in Kolkata. I set my alarm for 1am to be awake to watch the Olympic games opening ceremony (with entertaining Indian commentary).

At the office the next day I met with Shruthi who was an architecture student doing an internship with SELCO looking into cookstoves. She shared plenty of information about cookstoves in both urban slums and rural poor areas. As it came towards lunch time I was invited to a celebration meal at a local temple which was being held by Harish Hande, SELCO's founder. I met an American guy called Headley who'd been in Bangalore for a year and a half and a girl called Surabhi who is from Bangalore and has been working at SELCO since she came back from doing her masters in London. 

It was my first visit to an Indian temple so I found it refreshing to have a walk around- it was extremely peaceful compared to the mad hustle and bustle in Bangalore (although it was situated in a very smart neighborhood). Later we were asked to come for food. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect - or what to do. As we sat down we were each given a large banana leaf, and the caterers promptly started to dish out many types curries and exotic mixtures of coconut milk, spices and rice onto them. It was both delicious and slightly baffling, but fortunately I was guided by Headley and Surabhi as to what to do and when! Fortunately Surabhi was there to correct us as I followed Headley into mixing my main course into a dessert bread. 

After lunch, Ananth (who heads up SELCO labs in Bangalore), Surabhi and I got ready to go out to a slum in the city where SELCO has done some work. We were joined by two girls, Danielle from the US and Emi from Finland, who were in Bangalore to look at related projects at another organisation. We were going to look at a SELCO Energy Centre (basically a small building with solar panels on the roof) from which two of the people living there hire out solar lanterns and can offer charging facilities for mobile phones. The energy centre seems to be having a fantastic effect on the slum community. It was interesting to hear that no one buys kerosene any more since they are able to use solar lanterns (although this currently means that they are using plastic bags to light wood fires - which is not ideal in an enclosed space!).We delivered some replacement lanterns and Surabhi spoke to the couple who run the energy centre. The wife demonstrated use of a three stone stove and an improved cookstove which she had help do field testing on. 

A standard 3 stone stove which most people cook on

We were able to understand better the problems with smoke that are encountered when cooking in a slum. The room filled with smoke which stings the eyes. Its hard to believe that people live with several hours each day in these conditions. We later had a quick coffee in a man's house, met lots of lovely smiley children (who mobbed our car as we left) and got pestered by a local drunk.

In a classy french café in UB city

In the evening we went to get some dinner at a place in the centre of Bangalore which had a photo of Gandhi and staff who dress up in old fashioned traditional clothes. To kill some time before my bus to Ujire, Surabhi and I spent some time in UB city, which is incredibly grand and featuring some classy French cafes. Its all owned by the guy who owns the Kingfisher brand - famous for its beer and, bizarrely, a failing airline.

I took an autorickshaw to the office of the bus company to wait for my bus... which was about 45 minutes late. Eventually it arrived and I clambered on to my top bunk of the "luxury" sleeper. It was definitley not long enough for me to lie down- especially not with all my luggage piled up. I got myself as comfortable as possible- ready for the 7 hour overnight trip to rural Ujire.

Flying tomorrow!

Tomorrow I will be flying from Heathrow airport to Bengaluru. The plane will touch down at 4:40am which will give me some time to get past passport control and grab my luggage and take out some cash before tracking down a bus which will take me all the way through the city to a district called JP Nagar. I'm hoping it will be relatively obvious which bus stop I need to get off at, and with lots of luck I will arrive at the SELCO offices at the beginning of the working day.

I'm staying at a hotel for the night not far from the offices, hopefully I will be able to book an overnight bus for Saturday evening and get on my way to Ujire then.On Saturday I should be able to arrange a visit to an urban slum- going with some Indian interns who have been working on improved cookstoves in the Bangalore area. They have set up some prototype stoves there which should be very useful for me to see before I crack on with my projects from the labs in Ujire. 

Currently I am furiously packing while at the same time moving out of my house in Cambridge.. Lots to do and little time to do it in!

Why am I doing this?

On request by one of my good friends, I am writing a post about why I have chosen to go to India on this placement... Which is a very good question. What are my motivations?

In no particular order, here are some of the reasons why:

• I'd like to use my skills in engineering to benefit people who haven't had the same opportunities I have 
• I believe that all people are equal and should not be disadvantaged just because they happened to grow up in a certain part of the world
• I love meeting new people from different cultures and getting some understanding of how they live
• I think that providing people with skills and opportunities to develop their own solutions to problems is a far better way to help the poor than simply dishing out aid.

I think that's a good summary of what motivates me to do something like this. What are your thoughts?  Does this make sense?

I'm interested to know how these ideas change and develop while I am away. I want to learn more about how I can combine the engineering skills I have learned with my passion to really practically help those less fortunate than myself. 

It's now just over a week before I head off so there's a fair few things to get going with. I'm back in Birmingham over the weekend to be best man at a friend's wedding. 

In general, I'm feeling quite prepared but also expecting to be challenged in all sorts of unexpected ways during my time away...

Now to get on with some packing..

Perhaps I need to get some more sun cream...

Not long before I go!

Today I finally got the chance to speak to Sam who is a British guy who has been working at SELCO labs for nearly a year now. He has been on holiday in the UK for a few weeks and heads back to Bengaluru tomorrow. It was great to have a chance to talk about some of the practical things before I go. Seb, the other EWB- UK volunteer has now arrived in India and should be on his way to Ujire now. Here is a link to his blog.

I'm going to arrive very early in the morning on the 27th July in the bustling city of Bangalore. My first task will be to find SELCO's offices and track down a man named Anath.

its in there somewhere....

I should be able to book an overnight bus to Ujire while I'm there (I think it takes 7-8 hours). I'm told that taking the night bus is better since they can be crazy drivers and its best to try and sleep though it than think about it too much!

Pre-departure course... a summary of a long week

So the EWB-UK pre-departure week has been and gone. It was a pretty intense time with tonnes of stuff to learn and interesting people to meet. One thing that struck me over the week is just how great it is to spend time with others who have similar interests - people from engineering backgrounds who are excited about international development, travel, culture and have a passion to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

The week started with getting to know more about the EWB team including Andrew Lamb, the chief executive and Jonny Gutteridge who's in charge of all the placements. I previously met Jonny during my interview in April at Arup's head office in London. Andrew led a seminar looking into our motivations for going away on placements - thinking about the huge mix of reasons we've chosen to put ourselves into unfamiliar situations in unfamiliar lands. He talked about how important it is to have a bunch of our own personal motivations which are robust- and that every one of these motivations will be challenged in some way whilst we're away. He highlighted the importance of reflecting on these motivations- knowing that some will be selfless, others selfish, some very specific and others which we don't quite understand ourselves.

We had a session looking at Logical Frameworks - (read more here - from good old wikipedia) which are used often in international development as a way of organising our thinking, setting objectives and relating activities. Its a relatively new concept for me, but comes across as an extremely useful tool when done correctly.

I won't bore you with detail of all the sessions we had over the week- but here's a few highlights...

• A session on putting international development into context- lots of interesting stuff about the history of development work, current global challenges and the challenge of empowering women and its effects.
• A couple of great sessions on health, safety and security complete with lots of tales of experiences across the developing world. We picked up plenty of tips on topics ranging from diarrhoea prevention (!) to dealing with road checkpoints and landmines.
• 'The big picture- Energy and development' was a great session by Drew Corbin of Practical Action consulting which talked about the strong links between energy access and the Millenium Development goals. He touched on the UN's 'sustainable energy for all' initiative, and the complicated concept of universal access to energy. He provided us with a bunch of really useful resources including the Total Energy wiki which can be used by anyone working in energy access for developing nations. He also gave some useful tips on getting a job in international development from an engineers perspective.
• Human Rights perspectives- with Miranda Sawston. A seminar discussing the question of "is access to technology a human right?" was very interesting. 
• Newton Consulting's Ric Whalley came in to talk about being successful in our placement- and gave a great seminar looking at a really effective problem solving method called "split solving" 
• Kas from the Institute of Development Studies gave us a really enthusiastic session on becoming a "Reflective" engineer- highlighting the importance of community consultation and introducing a third concept to development which sits between high-tech solutions and appropriate technologies, which she calls "pathways"

All in all, a huge amount to learn from and a lot to think about.

The week culminated with a fantastic African feast where we could eat together and have some time to relax and talk about what's to come for all of us.

EWB pre-departure course

So I'm in North London at a massive countryside conference centre (which is also a huge Scout centre) for the week with all the other EWB placement volunteers. Arrived around 11am (but was already tired after only getting about 4 hours sleep!) and have been gradually meeting the other volunteers - there's quite a few (~25?).  Several are heading to South and East Africa and a bunch of us going to south and southeast Asia.  Traveled down with two others from Cambridge- Antoine, who is heading to Uganda for 3 months to work with RASD on a coffee demulcilager along with two others, and Priya who is heading to Peru for 6 months on her own. Really great to start meeting people who share similar interests and passions- so I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.

Where in the world all the EWB-UK volunteers are off to

I've finally met Seb, who will also be heading to India with me to work at the SELCO lab. He's going to be there for 5-6 months and will be heading out a week before me.

Which reminds me- my flights are booked! Leaving in late July, flying direct to Bengaluru (Bangalore). I'll return on the 4th November which leaves a bit of time to travel around a little- hopefully in Kerala if possible.

We have lots of activities and seminars this week from all sorts of interesting people. I'm really looking forward to a talk called "Big Picture: work on energy access" by someone from Practical Action consulting, and a session on "Working with communities" with a girl from the Institute of Development Studies. 

Ujire, Karnataka

Ujire is shown by the little "A" on this map

Its about time I started learning about the place I'll be headed to! A good place to start would be to learn how to pronounce Ujire... OO-Jeer- uh? Uh-Gire? ooh-Jeer-ey?

I think I may have to consult an expert on that one. Anyway, its a rural town about 80 mins inland from Mangalore which is home to a university called SDM Institute of Technology which is where SELCO's innovation lab is situated. The official language in the area (and the state) is Kannada (pronounced like this)and they eat mostly veggie food round there.

Karnataka is on the south west of India, north of Kerala and south of Goa as you follow the coastline. Its capital is Bangalore (Bengaluru) which is India's IT hub and the country's third biggest city. It's been nicknamed the Garden City, India's silicon valley, Pub City and even - though perhaps not any more- pensioner's city. I guess all these are fairly self explanatory, but paint the city to be a vibrant and contrasting place. 

It turns out that although Kannada is the official language in the state, its most likely that the mother tongue of the local people where I'll be will be either Tulu or Konkani...

Lots more to come on this...

SELCO

The Solar Electric Light COmpany is the organisation I will be working for while in India.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCO_India and  http://www.selco-india.com/)

They don't just make solar panels and have branched out into other sustainable and accessible methods of producing energy, as well as lots of research and development into technologies and ideas that could help improve the lives of the (rural) poor. The organisation has won two Ashden Awards due to their efforts to improve access to energy. The organisation have already provided solar lighting to 125,000 homes and plans to provide access for many more. It focuses on enabling people to make change in their own lives and has initiatives like campaigning for banks to provide microfinance packages for the rural poor, and helping people to use the technology to create their own businesses.

When SELCO was set up in the 90's by Dr. Harish Hand - there were three myths that he wanted to dispel:

1) Poor people cannot afford sustainable technologies; 
2) Poor people cannot maintain sustainable technologies; 
3) Social ventures cannot be run as commercial entities.

Now that all sounds very exciting to me.. And it sounds like they're already proving some of these statements wrong.

Energy poverty is a concept I have been interested in for a while. Access to affordable and clean methods of lighting, heating, communication and cooking has huge effects on the quality of life of people in developing nations. I plan to write a post about this massive topic sometime in the future.


SELCO currently works mostly in Karnataka and Gujurat, and I will be based in their research and development lab in Ujire, Karnataka, South Western India.


SELCO lab's website which gives a bit of information about the developments currently taking place (here). The Bangalore part of the labs generally focusses on developments for the urban poor, while the Ujire lab (where I'll be) has a larger focus on poverty in a rural setting.

Engineers Without Borders UK

I'm off to India for 3 months with an organisation called Engineers Without Borders UK ( http://www.ewb-uk.org/). They send young engineering graduates to developing countries to work on exciting projects which aim to tackle poverty. The central idea of the organisation is that some of the barriers to development can be removed using engineering skills.  In addition to setting up placements from between 3 and 12 months, EWB-UK supports research projects which contribute to similar aims, provides training for students and young professionals, as well as funding outreach and education programmes to give more people an idea of the global issues it seeks to tackle.

EWB runs placements all over the world, supported by a bunch volunteers in the UK who make things happen. They are based in Cambridge, although my interviews for the placement were held in ARUP's head office in London (who are a supporter of EWB-UK). 

I first got involved with EWB at Loughborough Uni - although that branch of the network only really started up in my final year. I have always wanted a chance to combine two of my great passions- engineering and international development- and EWB give me a fantastic chance to do that!

EWB-UK have plenty going on across the country, so do check out their website.