Smart Villages and Sustainable Development: Lessons from a Clean Drinking Water Initiative in Rural India

Smart villages leverage the latest advances in ICT for the well-being of their members. However, the majority in rural areas of developing countries like India still struggle to access basic services such as clean drinking water. Despite many initiatives and active public policies, technology adoption remains a challenge. The diversity of problems and contexts makes applying a one-size-fits-all solution very challenging. In order to bridge this gap, this study develops a community-level model to facilitate technology adoption in complex settings so that rural communities can engage on the road toward becoming smart villages. This is based on the case study of a clean drinking water initiative in rural India called Jivamritam. These findings can help improve the efficiency of such initiatives by ensuring higher adoption rates and more efficient technology transfer for higher social impact.