The Story of Chilliwater

The Vision of Chilliwater and the Story of How it Started

Chilliwater: The social entrepreneurial arm of chillibreeze.com - sustainability, innovation, communication 

Chilliwater is about helping people in India. With some empowerment, even the most needy people can be assisted. Chilliwater will be serving these people from a totally non traditional approach. Instead of an NGO, chilliwater will be a profit making business that models business excellence and innovates to grow and prosper.

The primary strategy is to help individuals start small businesses by creating simple innovative low cost solutions. Then by using the internet for marketing and leveraging the power of journalism, we would mobilize awareness and create change agents. This venture is about improving people and their lives in a way that is sustainable, innovative and leverages the Internet.  

We are currently testing low cost technology solutions. Right now we are focused on very low cost solar water heaters and solar cookers for use in rural India.  Eventually, we may help create better ways to cook with wood, build homes, raise crops or market crafts.

The fieldwork is the front line of our work.  Working side by side with the rural population of India is what we intend to focus on. We will also work at the global level, bridging markets and creating awareness about our solutions and new technologies.  

This local-global impact will be facilitated by combining the expertise of chillibreeze with chilliwater. Chillibreeze has a network of high quality writers and journalists. Chilliwater is involved with the actual groundwork. We plan to create a setting where they can synergize and leverage each other to create the maximum impact.

Chillibreeze is an Indian content development company and is building a network of journalist and writers all over India. It can use this network to inspire and create awareness throughout the globe.

Please track with us or help us in the years to come.

How Chilliwater Started

From Community Concern to Social Entrepreneurship: A True Indian Story

Ever since our daughter started school, three years ago, I have walked her down the dirty roads to her little school located about ¼ mile from our house. There is a section of our walk that passes a row of two room concrete block houses. Most of the women I see spend their day working to keep the family clean and fed. They care for their children while collecting firewood, cooking on an open fire and waiting for water from the neighborhood faucet.

Our next door neighbors also live in a similar two room concrete house. They are Ramu, Devi and their daughter and son, Lavanya (7yrs) and Ganesh . (3yrs). Our daughter and Lavanya are very good friends and enjoy playing together everyday. Over the past year we have observed Devi's daily tasks of gathering wood and cooking. When Lavanya and Ganesh come home to play, they smell like smoke and are often coughing.

After one year of watching the lifestyle of the neighborhood women, my husband got interested in contributing to our neighbors’ living conditions, general health and their environment. It started as he watched these women cooking over an open fire. It just seemed so inefficient. Three rocks spaced so that a pot can sit above a small wood fire. The wind blows a little and the flames move on and then off the pot. Most of the heat goes into the air along with the smoke. The women spend hours searching for wood. They go onto private land and take the top branches off of trees, gather branches along the railroad property and dig out the roots of old trees. Many trees here have been cut down and gathering wood is getting tougher and tougher. (It goes without saying it is not environment friendly either).

Surely, there must be a better way to cook? The first idea was to distribute a paper in the neighborhood with a simple stove design that anyone could build using brick or clay. It took about 1 day to realize that most people are unfamiliar with looking at plans and this idea was dropped. Furthermore a simple design change did not improve the efficiency much.

It looks like my husband is not the only one thinking about stoves. A quick search on Google revealed years of successes and failures in Africa and India. Many organizations and governments have been trying to improve stoves. Recently, however some low tech designs have greatly improved efficiency. But more than just a good design is needed. It must be accepted by village women and it must be cheap.

What seems simple is really very complex. For example some village folk don't want to try anything new, they may like the smoke that keeps away mosquitoes or $ 4.00 may be too much to spend on a stove. The Internet is full of stories of failures.

My husband keeps trying his back yard experiments as and when time permits (he works with a software company and does some writing). Recently he came up with a radical new design that can burn green wood without much smoke.

You may find this as interesting as our neighbors did. They gather to watch each new versions being tested on Sunday. You too can “gather around” and watch new versions by coming back to this website.

My husband says that success will arrive when someone sells improved stoves in the markets of Bangalore and benefits the lives of people, thereby improving the environment and creating jobs. He is convinced that the best way to distribute these stoves and turn it into a movement is not by giving them away but helping someone turn the whole thing into a business. That is what social entrepreneurship is all about. The above is just one instance. My husband wants to be a catalyst for new businesses that add value to India. Oh, my husband is really an entrepreneur.