Little has changed in the villages of Nepal in the past decades. Yes, schools have been built, but many still lack teachers and appropriate teaching methods. There are phone lines in selective villages; still getting a dial tone is still a challenge. Electricity supply is at best intermittent. Health care is still limited in its availability. Entertainment is limited to radio or television, if it all the electricity is there.
Nepal’s villages are dependent on agriculture for much of their sustenance. Natural calmities like drought are common occurrence across much of Nepal. As a result, villagers, for the most part, remain a poor lot - the per capita income of Nepal’s villages is perhaps no more than USD 200 per annum.
Perhaps, most important, the opportunities available to the people in villages are not dramatically different from what they were many years ago. Villages in Nepal are where you live if you have no other option.
And yet, Nepal is in its villages. Almost 85% of Nepalese live outside of the urban areas. Even as there is one Nepal which is racing ahead with optimism towards the future, there is another Nepal which seems to be stuck in the past. If Nepal has to progress, there is little doubt that Nepal’s villages have to progress, too.
Transforming Rural Nepal is a challenge that should focus the best of Nepalese minds - it is perhaps the single biggest barrier to making Nepal a developed country. Nepal’s villages need disruptive innovations to make the giant leap forward.
Today, I want to discuss the role that technology can play in transforming Rural Nepal. Of course, one can argue that what the poor need is food, water and electricity, more than technology. It is an argument we have been making since a long time back.
Nepal’s solution so far has been myriad poverty alleviation programmes and employment schemes. Corruption is not the only reason they have met with limited success. The question to ask is have they changed or enhanced people’s skills, and exposed them to new worlds. To that, the answer is a resounding No.
The time for incremental innovation is over. Nepal needs creative solutions to start a revolution which can take its villages fast forward in time - creating them economically viable units and growth engines, harnessing the power of the villagers, and opening up new horizons with the promise of a better tomorrow.
It’s high time that the youth of Nepal join their hands together to transform Rural Nepal through the Technology of today. I announce all the youths of Nepal to have a vision, Strategy and the goal for the upliftment of the villages they dwell.

Sudip Aryal
President
NRIDS, Nepal
nridsnepal@gmail.com