Ex-Apple boss tackles poverty in India with mobile technologyMobile phones have become an essential part of our everyday life. Through a special month-long series, "Our Mobile Society," we examine how smartphones and tablets are chang
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(CNN) -- In Juanga, India, a village of less than 3,000 inhabitants, the adults typically work as farmers on small plots of land earning less than $2 a day. They live in extended families in two or three roomed bamboo thatched mud huts, surviving on rice and dahl.
Unable to see the value of education, the parents typically take their children out of school before they turn 16 to earn money. Women frequently deny themselves trips to health clinics and they lack knowledge of basic preventative healthcare measures.
They also lack basics such as drinking water, electricity, food, healthcare and infrastructure, but cell phone towers are often ubiquitous.
One American non-profit organization is using this proliferation of phone masts to bring empowering mobile technology to these destitute villagers.
mPowering, headquartered in San Francisco, has joined forces with Citta, a charity working in Orissa, one of the poorest states in India, which has a population of 37 million, roughly the same size as California.
According to UNICEF, Orissa has the most people living below the poverty line of any state in India and one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates of all the states in India. Many people are from illiterate tribal communities and the region is also frequently hit by droughts, floods and cyclones. Nearly half the children leave school at 14 years and are not vaccinated against common childhood diseases.
(CNN) -- In Juanga, India, a village of less than 3,000 inhabitants, the adults typically work as farmers on small plots of land earning less than $2 a day. They live in extended families in two or three roomed bamboo thatched mud huts, surviving on rice and dahl.
Unable to see the value of education, the parents typically take their children out of school before they turn 16 to earn money. Women frequently deny themselves trips to health clinics and they lack knowledge of basic preventative healthcare measures.
They also lack basics such as drinking water, electricity, food, healthcare and infrastructure, but cell phone towers are often ubiquitous.
One American non-profit organization is using this proliferation of phone masts to bring empowering mobile technology to these destitute villagers.
mPowering, headquartered in San Francisco, has joined forces with Citta, a charity working in Orissa, one of the poorest states in India, which has a population of 37 million, roughly the same size as California.
According to UNICEF, Orissa has the most people living below the poverty line of any state in India and one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates of all the states in India. Many people are from illiterate tribal communities and the region is also frequently hit by droughts, floods and cyclones. Nearly half the children leave school at 14 years and are not vaccinated against common childhood diseases.
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