Adriana Marina (founder of the NGO Hecho por Nosotros and B-Corp animaná) is happy to host G N Raghu. They will be talking about his experience and understanding with textile technology, the textile situation of rural India and a new perspective on technological design. They will also touch on some of the technological solutions to today's problem faced in India, as well as social entrepreneurship development and management.
About our guest speaker G N Raghu:
He graduated as a mechanical engineer and worked as a machine designer in the automotive industry for a short while. To justify himself as a mechanical engineer, he quit his job, traveled across India and understood that there is a thirsting requirement at the grassroots level for decentralized technology.
The cotton value chain is one of the biggest livelihood activities in India, due to centralization and huge scaling up of processing has created skew development with the people involved in the whole supply chain of cotton. To break that, and to give a better solution, he started working on the technology required for cotton processing in a decentralized manner. This has taken him through the works of Mahatma Gandhi (Hind Swaraj), J C Kumarappa (Economy of Permanence), E F Schumacher (Small is beautiful) and finally to Kirkpatrick Sale (Humanscale). Their ideas of Scaling and replicating, Production by mass, and Swaraj have led G N Raghu to think towards the scale of Science or technology that is very sustainable to operate.
With that in mind, and his work with the SELCO foundation heading the Textile department for 2 years, a year ago he founded Studio for Humanscale technology (SHST) with the help of Janapadaseva trust and Puvidham Learning center. At SHST, they do not just design machines or technology, but rather sustain the idea of Humanscale through science and design a process that can be replicated. With Raghu's experience in the textile field, 2 years ago, him, his friend Ashok and his wife started working with women from rural communities. With textile products like Cotton bags, natural dyeing, screen printing, and block printing they founded Bag'N Stories. Bag’N Stories mainly addresses two issues.
First, unemployment in rural and urban areas. Through economic activities, it aims to impact rural economies and empower women. Secondly, it addresses environmental issues like the usage of disposable plastic by providing sustainable alternative options to the people.
Apart from this, it also aims to bring back some traditional practices of rural India. It also focuses on Women Empowerment (by providing a sustainable livelihood activity), Capacity building for local women and skill development, Providing an alternative solution for disposable plastic bags, Bringing awareness to the people the damage caused by disposable plastics and Taking the story of the product and the producer to the customer through unique visual storytelling.
Join Adriana Marina and G N Raghu on Tuesday September 22 at 11 AM (Buenos Aires Time).