Monday 24 November 2008

People making a difference in India from Brij to Puran

Delivering concrete results that focus on real transformative change (and not just incremental improvement) is difficult in India as everywhere. Many of the projects I’m involved in go through different versions as they evolve (the urbanization study we are doing together with Mirabilis is one recent example of the challenges to develop analytical frameworks and find data that move the discussion beyond the incremental). Still I think that there are few places in the world (I would probably include China here as well) where so many people are trying so many new ways to deliver results. On two ends of the spectrum are Brij Sethi, VP, Evangelist ecoeye at Wipro and Puran Chand, “backward runner”.

Brij is in the lead within Wirpo to deliver on our joint project where we will have a report about IT’s climate potential and Wipro’s potential to deliver such solutions. Brij is an amazing person and one of those who can make a difference when it comes to solving some of the most important challenges of our time. Together with Anurag Behar, also from Wipro, he has already delivers some very interesting results.

On the other end of the spectrum is Puran Chand. Puran is a backward runner that I saw when driving through Delhi. He is trying to get into the Guinness book of world records and make people think about climate change. On the path to a low carbon society we will need a lot of people thinking in new ways, and if people can start thinking about ways to integrate Climate Change into the things they feel passionate about things will start to happen. If Puran can link backward running to climate change, more people can link their passion to the challenges the world must solve…