Chennai: Microsoft India and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has chosen five organisations to be funded under the Rural Innovation Fund, a collaborative effort between Microsoft and IRDC.

The successful five are: Aravind Eye Hospital, Theni, Tamil Nadu, Janastu, Bangalore, Society for Participatory Research and Integrated Training, Tamil Nadu, Vritti Solutions Limited, Mumbai and Aruntec.

The were chosen from among 700 applicants with solutions focusing on enhancing livelihood and agriculture practice, education and literacy, rural health and telemedicine, e-commerce, local content management applications and village level administration tools; and disaster preparedness and management.

Commenting on the initiative, Neelam Dhawan, managing director, Microsoft India, said, "The Rural Innovation Fund was established to help communities with limited access to technology to realize their potential. The response in the first year of its existence has been tremendous - every one of the 700 applications submitted tells a story of achievement."

A brief about the proposals submitted by the five organisations is given below:

Aravind Eye Hospital: Based in Tamil Nadu, the eye care giant in its Vision 2020 has proposed a low cost telemedicine approach that reaches out to the rural population. A vision centre blends information technology innovatively, facilitating online consultation for each patient with ophthalmologists. T

his approach helps patients acquire the right advice directly from ophthalmologists, saving a lot of time and money. The objective now is to develop an appropriate model to increase the uptake of eye care services at the vision centres.

Janastu, Bangalore: The organisation proposes to build an open source school management software that is aimed at the teachers and staff of a school, for configuring it to their needs. This is a result of observing that teachers at schools get proactive if the bottleneck of depending on their computer support department is minimised.

Society for Participatory Research and Integrated Training (Sprit): Tamil Nadu-based Sprit has been implementing community development activities among the hill tribes and dalits in 40 villages in lower the Kodaikanal hills, since 1996. It wanted to introduce the local fishing sector to information technology in the form of e-commerce, by apprising them of benefits in areas of catch, market trend of pricing and post harvest technologies of fisheries.

Vritti Solutions Limited: Mumbai-based Vritti works in the focus areas of e-governance, training and manufacturing ERP. Its has proposed its disaster management system acting like an ERP and knowledge management solution for disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, rescue and rehabilitation and relief work.

Aruntec: Conceptualised by V G Ram Kumar, Aruntec seeks to create and deliver innovative infotech solutions for rural community with an idea of converting a traditional village into an e-village adept in e-commerce.