3D Printing Lends A Hand
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By Sanjiv Goyal Featuring Dipak Basu
In this article you will learn about:
- Tech applications in the nonprofit sector
- Altruistic Entrepreneurship
- Purpose-driven 3D Printing applications
- The two keys to entrepreneurial and life success
- Nethope
- Vispala
Bringing Tech to Those in Need
Dipak Basu never had a grand vision. Throughout his life, he has found himself in the right place at the right time. Originally a technologist working in the telecommunications space for Cisco, he started Nethope an alliance of the world’s largest nonprofits and leading tech companies.
Nethope is a space where nonprofits and tech companies collaborate. Sixty IT companies from around the world work with nonprofits to design, fund, implement, adapt, and scale approaches that solve developmental, humanitarian, and conservation challenges.
All of the major nonprofit organizations from the Salvation Army to the WWF to Oxfam, are members of Nethope. At Nethope, competing organizations work together in an atmosphere of co-creation.
His work on Nethope inspired Basu to strike out on his own. He left his job at Cisco and took a risk to start the Anudip foundation. Starting with three centers in 2006 in India it has now grown into over 100 centers that serve 30K students a year. These are village youth with a high school education that the organization preps for jobs in the IT sector with about 70–75% placement success.
Basu stepped down as CEO of Anudip in 2019 and his latest area of improvement is healthcare. His most recent venture is Vispala, an organization that makes low-cost, functional prosthetic arms for amputees in India and other developing countries.
Dipak says he is fortunate to have the opportunity to apply technology to humanitarian missions worldwide.
3D Printing A Lending Hand
For people in developing countries access to modern prosthetics is almost unheard of. Most prosthetics that rural Indians have access to are expensive and outdated, meaning they aren’t functional or light-weight.
