Five months ago, six UC Berkeley students joined a Challenge Lab where the objective was to solve six problems that face Meghalaya, a North-East state in India. The challenges were Rainwater Harvesting, Horticulture, Turmeric, ECO Tourism, Healthcare and Financial Inclusion.
Our challenge was to find a way to create a solution for financial inclusion for citizens in Meghalaya, a state in India. Here are the facts:
- Currently, 2.3 billion people in the world are unbanked (not served by a bank)
- 190 million people in India are unbanked
- 63% of the Meghalaya population is unbanked
- There are only 16 bank branches per 1000 square kilometers in Meghalaya compared to the national average of 30.4 bank branches per 1000 square kilometers
Click here to read the complete Medium post, published by Shivani Patel, and learn about this SCET Challenge Lab project.