Neil Patel - Experiences Designing Information Systems for Rural Gujarat

Neil's recent presentation was incredibly informative and very useful for me as I tend to hear only about health-related initiatives as of late. I was particularly interested in his comments about the Jatan Certification Program he was involved with and the way the local farmers and community established standards for themselves. The exercise and process Neil outlined once again reminds me of the importance of involving the end-user and key stakeholders in any project of this type (i.e., development focused). Neil's comment about a bottom-up approach as opposed to the typical top-down approach in order to develop a scalable and sustainable certification system particularly resonated with me and with the focus of this course.

Using a scalar approach and establishing a scorecard is a novel way to ensure consistency and provide clear feedback to the farmers involved in the certification program. I was very impressed with the rigor the team used to test different types of metrics with users and determine which they would ultimately use. Talk about creating buy-in! The scorecard reminds me a bit of a program used with doctors here in the US and I'm curious whether a similar system would have applications for rural health down the road.