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ChanderiyaanProjectCS:Layout 1 10/12/2012 5:29 PM Page 9DEFis an NGO registeredunder the SocietiesRegistration Act XXIof 1980, with its own governing body,board of directors, and team members.It is headed by Mr. Osama Manzar, whofounded the NGO in 2002. DEF workswith the mission and vision of economicallyand educationally empowering thepoor people through the use of informationand communication technology,and the digital media leading to theirdigital inclusion. Since 2003, DEF hasinitiated several path-breaking projectsin diverse areas of social and economicdevelopment using ICT in some form.CWICTRC is one of the several initiatives,besides, Neerjaal, ManthanAward Ceremony for e-Content practices,and Digital Panchyat.Chanderiyaan is the brand name ofChanderi Weavers ICT Resource Centre(CWICTRC), which started in the AshokNagar district of Madhya Pradesh incollaboration with Media Labs Asia andby the support of the Ministry of Communication& Information Technology.Chanderi has a population of around30,000 (2001 census) members ofwhich a third belong to weaving communities;of these communities morethan 60 percent of the looms belong toMuslim families. Earlier the poorweavers were dependent on the latterbecause they lacked the purchasingpower to buy raw material and did notown their own looms. These weaversalso lacked the skills to create their designsor even approach customers fororders. The project primarily involvedproviding technical education to thetextile weavers leading to, in theprocess, some 30 computers centersbeing opened and run for weavers tolearn to create new designs by usingspecial software (CAD). At the sametime, DEF has also been digitally preservingold traditional handloom designsat its resource center. Weavers,with the help of printouts of designscreated by them, are putting the latterinto the loom.DEF’s Chanderiyaan project has helpeddevelop the knowledge and skills of thepoor weavers of Chanderi in severalways. The project’s activities include askill builder program, forming of selfhelpgroups, and the provision of handloomsto the poor, weavers’ blockprinting, and kalamkari. They also includemanaging the Chanderi e-Commerceportals. Another part of theChanderiyaan initiative is the ChanderiIntegrated ICT for Development Program(CIDP) through which DEF has beenpromoting entrepreneurship, healthcare,education, and tourism. Deploymentof ICT in the socialentrepreneurship program is part of theCIDP; this includes a setup for tailoring,weaving, and embroidery work requiringhardware like a plotter printer for printingChanderi sari designs at the resourcecenter. This center has, so far,trained more than 150 people in theweaving process on looms, embroiderywork, and block printing on clothes. AJacquard block-printing machine wasFrom Market Separation to Market Development at Bottom of India’s Socio-Economic PyramidA CAse study on digitAl empowerment FoundAtion’s ChAnderiyAAn projeCt9