SAN FRANCISCO (USA), Apr 12: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu and Prof Solomon of the Berkeley University (BU) here have agreed, in principle, to roll out a smart village initiative in Arunachal Pradesh by dovetailing the CM Adarsh Gram Yojana with the professor’s self-financing model of smart villages.
Prof Solomon has undertaken a self-financing model of smart villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh for empowering the under-banked and underserved sections of the population in the rural areas through technology.
Solomon gave his consent to the idea on Thursday during discussions here with the CM on wide-ranging issues related to developing Arunachal Pradesh. A delegation is expected to visit the state shortly.
“With a predominantly rural population in the state, empowering the villages will usher in inclusive development in the truest sense,” Pema said.
Prof Solomon is the Executive Director, Garwood Centre for Corporate Innovation, and currently works in UC Berkeley. He is known as the ‘Father of the smart village movement’, and has developed scalable models that support rural village markets by aligning global brands, start-ups and local cottage industries to form a better future.
Earlier, Pema visited the headquarters of PayPal – the digital ecommerce platform – at San Jose, where he was given a guided tour on the innovations being undertaken by PayPal, and told about the future of digital transactions involving very high degree of data encryption and protection of individual data.
The CM’s delegation included Ambassador V Ashok, Chief Secretary Satya Gopal, and others. (CMO)
