Building urban resilience through innovations

Sometimes we need out of box thinking approaches to problems that seem to stay ahead of us! Urban pluvial flooding in India is one such problem. More pronounced in recent years, it now threatens to erode the economic dividends that India’s service sector based largely in urban areas brings. In the floods of Chennai, for example, MSMEs bore maximum brunt of facing a loss of Rs 1700 crores, and 50,000 job losses. This year bustling urban hubs like Belagavi in Karnataka, Kolhapur in Maharashtra, Vadodara in Gujarat were hit. On the other end of the spectrum are cities like Bangalore facing Day zero scenarios. 

We, at SEEDS , in partnership with ADRRN’s Tokyo Innovation hub, and with support from Humanitarian Innovation Fund invited proposals from social entrepreneurs in India through a competitive process. Eight exciting entries have been short listed. Ranging from real time early warning systems for urban areas to ensuring conservation of water by ‘commodifying waster water’ - ideas such as these, if developed can bring systemic changes in which we approach water governance issues in urban areas.