$100K awarded to social enterprise for developing solar pumps in rural India

Oorja Development Solutions, a spin-out company from Imperial College London, has won the Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge.

Oorja Development Solutions was named the grand winner of this year’s competition for its work developing and operating pay-as-you-go community solar pumping systems in rural India. They were awarded US$100K to support their activities.

A total of 335 teams competed for a total of US$330K in prizes, and for recognition of their work to address some of the current global challenges using innovations in technology.

Co-founded in 2016 by Dr Clementine Chambon of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and social entrepreneur Amit Saraogi, the company is attempting to tackle energy poverty in rural farming communities by installing energy systems to power livelihoods. In the irrigation sector they provide irrigation as a service, as an alternative to expensive and unreliable diesel irrigations pumps which place a large financial burden on farmers who often cannot afford to invest in alternatives.

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Solar pumps are virtually free to run once they’ve been installed and water is available year-round, which enables farmers to plant a greater diversity of crops and can help boost their yields by up to 50 percent.

Since their inception Oorja have run three successful community solar pump pilot projects in Uttar Pradesh.  They now plan to launch the service in Assam and have launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the project. They have currently reached 55% of their funding goal, and the campaign will remain open until the end of June. 

Find out more about Oorja on their website.