AID Boston Symposium to be held at MIT featuring its founder who inspired the Bollywood film, Swades
 
The MIT and Boston chapters of the Association for India's Development hosts the AID Boston Symposium with an aim of discussing its work in the year gone by as well as laying out plans for the future. AID founding members,  Ravi and Aravinda, who embody the spirit of participatory and democratic sustainable development and have been its champions, long before the ideas became international buzzwords, will be the keynote speakers at the event. This will be a great opportunity for new volunteers and supporters to hear about AID's work, meet with Ravi, Aravinda and the whole AID Boston team.

While a graduate student at University of Maryland, Ravi Kuchimanchi founded the Association for India's Development (AID) in 1991 with the vision that interconnected problems need interconnected solutions.
Passionately interested in pursuing appropriate technology to benefit the underprivileged, Ravi with his colleagues recently adapted the traditional haybox for Indian villages, that is both made and sold in the villages, saving time and precious fuel and creating livelihoods for bamboo artisans and womens' groups. Priced affordably at Rs 70-100, it is not only a green technology but within the reach of the poorest rural households.

With his collaborators Ravi developed the pedal power generator to light remote, off-the-grid village schools where students take turns to pedal, that electrified 12 hamlets of the tribal village Bilgaon. This inspired the Bollywood film Swades (2005) that became a symbol for Non-Resident Indians interested in India's grassroots development.

Aravinda Pillalamarri has worked with people fighting for social justice in India since 1998. Raising awareness on fair trade and sustainable livelihoods, she works with tailors designing and marketing khadi (handspun) garments with a view to sustaining traditional living in modern times. Among other things, she works in Srikakulam to promote programs that help people take control of their learning, food security, and health, such as village libraries, kitchen gardens, whole foods, and accountability in government services to mothers and children.

 
WHO: Ravi Kuchchimanchi and Aravinda Pillalamarri
 
WHAT: AID Symposium
 
WHEN: Saturday, July 17th, 2010 (4 PM)
 
WHERE: MIT, 84 Massachusetts Ave, Student Center Rm 491
 
CONTACT INFO:

MIT & Boston Chapters
PO Box 390884, Cambridge, MA 02139
www.aidboston.org  info@aidboston.org
Phone: 732-423-6662

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