1. Digital Ecosystem for Agriculture and Rural Livelihood

A system has been developed for providing a multimedia platform for creation, sharing and dissemination of agricultural information among farmers & experts. It has created an ontology based agricultural vocabulary database in Hindi with more than 28,000 agricultural terms. This Agricultural vocabulary is based on Agrovoc in English developed by Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO), UN.  This agricultural knowledge repository can be utilized by agricultural extension scientists and farmers on various matters related to agriculture and also by the research engineers for enhancing the relevance of research results in the agricultural sector. An intuitive grid interface with horizontal and vertical sides depicting crops and agricultural practices makes it easy to get relevant information. Agrovoc visualization tool has been developed which shows agrovoc terms and their relations in a graphical way.

2. Polysensors

This project aims at providing a low-cost and easy method of testing the impurities in water, with low-cost rugged and tropicalized sensors. Polysensor instrument can advise whether water is suitable for human consumption. It can measure impurities in water viz.  pH, Chloride ion, Nitrate ion, Electrical Conductance (EC), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), and Salinity (amount of NaCl). The system consists of a set of electrochemical sensors and an electronic measuring instrument. The sensors are specific ion electrodes with potentiometry as the measurement principle. The instrument is battery-operated and portable for field use. The measured contaminant levels are compared with those specified by WHO with a green/red LED lighting up indicating that the sample is potable/non-potable. For a detailed report, there is a 20 char × 4 line LCD display that reads out the measured concentrations. The sensor-cartridge is screen-printed, low-cost and can be easily replaced. The lower limit of sensitivity of the instrument conforms to the specification of WHO. The technology is ready for large scale deployment.

3. aAQUA: An archived multilingual multimedia Question Answer based communication system.

aAQUA (Almost All Question Answered) is a multilingual online question and answer forum - which provides online answers to questions asked by farmers and agri- professionals over the Internet. It allows users to create, view and manage content in their native language.  It provides easy and fast retrieval of contextual information, documents and images using various keyword search strategies with the held of query expansion and indexing techniques.  Using this, a farmer can ask a question on aAqua from a kiosk (cyber-café); experts view the question and answer back, providing solutions to the problem. It is available in English, Hindi and Marathi.  Being Unicode compliant system, it can support other languages also. Technology is ready for large scale deployment.

4. Development of Cost-Effective Solution for Community Radio Station and its Deployment for Livelihood Generation

This project is being developed in collaboration with World Development Foundation, New Delhi. The project envisages development of a low cost solution for Community Radio Station, its deployment at five Agricultural Universities in India and assessment of its impact for improved methods of agriculture, education and social development. It will offer a spectrum of services including specialized technical assistance, communication strategic planning, audience research, production services, training, monitoring and evaluation, support for coordination among different partners' radio interventions, business models, identification and mobilization of private sector partners etc. Research efforts will intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline namely radio communication systems, software engineering, acoustics (use of new cost effective material for acoustics), data mining (for content and metadata), implementation and applications.

Community Radio Station (CRS) at Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi has been commissioned and was inaugurated by Shri Syed Sibtey Razi Sahab, His Excellency, The Governor Of Jharkhand on 3rd March 2008.

CRS at NDUA&T Faizabad was inaugurated by Shri Narayan Singh, State Horticulture Minister, on 27 Sept. 2008

Community Radio Statio at Tamilnadu Agriculture University- Coimabatore was inaugrated by Deputy Chief Minister Honorable Sh. M.K. Stalin and Agriculture Minister Honorable Sh. Veerapandi S. Arumugam at TNAU on 27th Oct' 2009.

CRS at CCS HAU - Hisar was inaugurated by Shri Bhupinder Singh Hooda, CM of Haryana on 29/11/09

The CRS at Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalya, Raipur was inaugurated by Shri. Raman Singh, Chief Minister, Chattisgarh on 20th January, 2010.

5. Agro-Sense

This project is aimed to investigate, design, develop and implement a sensor-based wireless mesh network in a pilot scale to monitor the parameters like temperature, humidity, rainfall and wetness of soil etc. in real time for better management and maintenance of agricultural production. This project is using Zigbee technology to implement wireless adhoc mesh network. The project focuses on development of low cost indigenous motes.

6. e-Sagu

The eSagu is a ICT-based personalized agro-advisory system. (“Sagu” means cultivation in Telugu language.). It aims to improve farm productivity by  delivering high quality personalized (farm-specific) agro-expert advice in a timely manner  to each  farm at the farmer’s door-steps. The advice is provided on regular basis from sowing to harvesting which reduces the cost of cultivation and increases the farm productivity as well as quality of agri-commodities. In eSagu, the developments in ICT such as (database, Internet, and digital photography) are extended to improve the performance of   agricultural extension services. The project is providing personalized advice in 6 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The major crops covered under the project are cotton, chillies, rice, groundnut, castor, red gram and fish. e-Sagu project has won the best CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Project Award (overall winner) 2005-06. eSagu has been awarded “The Manthan Award 2007 – India’s Best e-Content for Development”. The eSagu system has been recognized a one of the world wide latest novel internet application by a not-for-profit Think Tank for Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taipai (Behalf of Institute of Information Industry, Taiwan). An Integrated Agri Service Program (IASP) has been envisaged to include other services viz. banking, inputs, weather, and marketing to scales up the deployment all over India.

7. Gramin Gyan Kendra

A project has been taken up to develop models for use of ICT to improve social infrastructure and public interaction for the emerging knowledge based society and integrated rural development for employment generation and livelihood security. Multimedia programs will be developed for applications in agriculture, carpet industry, local art and craft, horticulture, chunar ceramic works, cultural heritage, Banarasi saree, embroidery, primary healthcare, stone sculpture, ayurvedic and traditional medicines, folk literature/music and local culture, looms and weaving.  These programs would contain video content and text based material covering the aspects of raw material, sources, technical know-how, potential markets and various cost components. The target geographical area will cover Vindhyan Region around Mirzapur District.

Yuva Gramya Vikas Samiti & Gramin Gyan Kendra, Basani, Varanasi in Collaboration with Gramin Gyan Kendra, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University has started a Skill Development Programmes for the school students, unemployed rural youths (school dropouts) and housewives of the target area. This training will enhance their technical know-how and they can utilize the skills acquired for income generation activities for livelihood security.

8. ICT for Empowerment of Women and Child Development.

The project aims to build enabling ICT platforms for empowering women and children in rural communities. The main objectives of the project are to create awareness about various issues, provide information to enable women and children to take informed decisions, help them become confident and self-reliant, provide a platform for self-expression & ‘voice’ to become a part of the transformation process.  Deliverables of the projects includes multimedia content (in various formats – audio, video, CD based text etc) on 10 development themes i.e Life Skills, Compulsory Education, Health - reproductive health, sexual health, nutrition, child care, age care & HIV/AIDS, SHG / VO capacity building, content for women entrepreneurs, Legal rights & duties, Effective functioning for women PRI members, financial literacy and livelihood skills. As a part of its strategy and attempt to serve the communities better and empower them, 3 Community Radio Stations & 8 Community TV Centres will be established. Project Chetana

9. e-Galla - A Low Cost Retail Management System.

The purpose of this project is to develop a low cost retail management system for small & medium retailers which would encompass a host of services involving both hardware and software components for increase in efficiency of livelihood generation and social development by propagating improved methods of trade, inventory management, billing, account management, collaborative social network of shops etc. This will in turn increase the customer base and profit margins.

10. Digital Craft Revival

CHIC is a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool for enhancing the productivity of the Chikankari designers. CHIC allows capturing of Chickankari motifs in digital form, use of these motifs to create new designs with fast turnaround time, engrave the designs directly on to the blocks. This allows to create library of traditional Indian & Persian designs for use. CHIC is ‘cost-effective’ and less ‘time-consuming’ as compared to the existing traditional methods and can help in creation of better designs.  This system is being field tested in Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with an NGO (Datamation Foundation). This product is ready for commercialization.