"Close your eyes and imagine life without electricity. Entertainment and communications are generally what people think of first. No iPad. No mobile phone. No television or computer. It's very quiet. But electricity also drives more fundamental services we take for granted, such as running water (an electric pump is usually required) and lighting. Now multiply by 329 million. That's the number of people in India in 2007 who were living without electricity. Sounds like the basis for a charitable effort that should command the attention of citizens in the world's wealthier countries.

Time for a Switch
It is the year 2007 and you are Gyanesh Pandey, a young electrical engineer who learned he could generate electricity from rice husks, a waste product heaped along the rural roads of his native state of Bihar.
Would you be tempted to apply for government grants, approach international aid agencies, and seek donations from private foundations? Maybe. But with the input of a couple of MBAs from the Darden School in the USA, Manoj Sinha and Charles (Chip) Ransler, might you consider the heretical notion that you could actually make money from this thing?"