Towards a Scalable Architecture for Smart Villages: The Discovery Phase

Alleviating poverty, reducing inequality, and achieving economic prosperity and well-being is a global challenge. The spread and quantum of this daunting challenge calls for a scalable solution. The aim of the ‘Scalable Architecture for Smart Villages’ project is to contribute to an eective solution which addresses scale as well as customization. In order to achieve both in our new framework for smart villages, we take an endogenous approach. This approach emphasizes learning which will create a catalytic eect for scale. Learning is an essential component in the process, both for the researchers as well as members of the community. With these principles in mind, our approach proceeds in four phases, namely discovery, planning, resourcing and executing. In this paper we outline the discovery phase, which will lay the foundation for developing our framework of scalable smart villages. The Discovery Phase is a research process where the community learns about itself and the researchers learn about the underlying factors that can help uplift and develop a smart village. Using conventional qualitative and quantitative research methodology, the researchers and the community will generate baseline data which will help calibrate villages for future development into smart villages.