NSC's mission is to promote innovative ideas in the region.

Fighting poverty with technology and innovative ideas has become a new paradigm in development economics. Examples include: distribution of cell phones by a Bangladeshi businessman to villagers in his country; setting up wifi receivers on the trees in Nepali villages by Mahabir Pun; using internet to provide e-loans to budding women entrepreneurs in Nepal and elsewhere; setting up tele-connection between remote clinics and major hospitals; using internet to send student volunteers to remote places; letting the locals come up with decision making rules (Nobel laureate Professor Elinor Ostrom's work in Nepal); solar tuki (lamps) in remote villages; and the hole-in-the-wall learning project.

Holistically, we can call this a smart village, smart design concept. This holistic community engagement approach depends much on the collaborative spirit between various stakeholders and the local empowerment.

Micro-finance (kiva), school rain harvesting project

NSC has helped introduce Kiva micro finance program in Nepal. Other examples include: telehealth initiative between UNM and KU, rain water harvesting project in a Nepali school (Dalchoki) and distribution of smokeless stoves through its Himalayan Study Abroad Program.

NSC has also brought together partners in Nepal (Friends of Basgmati and Kathmandu University) together with the UNM's BEMP program to start thinking about implementing an student-driven Bagmati Ecological Monitoring Program on the Bagmati River. It is at a preliminary stage.

What's new?

e-learning: school computer lab project

NSC and UNM Service Corps program are jointly developing a Nepal Service Corps idea in collaboration with Intel to encourage students (Nepali and American) in community engagements through various projects. NSC's next collaborative project along this line is to build a solar-powered computer lab for a school in the remote part of the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu University is our institutional partner.

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