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A Framework to Explore “the Grass Roots” in Rural Villages By Design Innovation Thinking
(2012-05-21) Salunkhe, Uday; Agarwal, Anuja; Ekman, A; Ekman, S
In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world´s population lives in towns and cities. By 2030 United Nations estimate this number will swell to almost 5 billion, with urban growth concentreated in Africa and Asia [UNFPA, 2011]. While mega-cities like Mexico City, Mumbai and Shanghai have captured much attention, most of the new growth will be in smaller towns and cities. But these have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of change. Poverty is however now growing faster in urban than in rural areas especially in less-developed regions. A challenge is to find new opportunities, new ideas and building new mindsets for developing the rural areas and their infrastructure with new enterprises, innovation, entrepreneurship, industrial locations, ICT, and much more. The village life can also become models for a more sustainable way of living than in many of the overcrowded cities with their growing slum areas. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss an approach and theoretical framework for an on-going long term project for ideas and new perspectives in design innovation for education and research which probably can change mindsets; and how to provide methods and processes for rural village development.