India seems to excel at making things smaller and cheaper. The $2,500 car and the $35 computer are just two of the country's latest innovations. Now, India increasingly is focused on low-cost solar technology. The front lines of that effort are seen in a tiny village in the Indian state of Rajasthan called Tiloniya.
印度的优势就是能将所有的东西做得又小又便宜。最新研制的2千5百美元的汽车和35美元的电脑就是证明。现在印度逐渐将焦点聚集在低成本的太阳能技术上。这项技术的发源地是印度拉贾斯坦邦的一个名叫提洛尼亚的小村庄。
In this sunlit workshop, Tenzing Chonzom solders parts onto a device that regulates electrical currents. It will eventually be connected to a solar panel, allowing it to power everything from lamps to laptops.
在这个充满阳光的工作间里，肖赞正在焊接一些调节电流用的元器件。这些零件最终将被焊接到一个太阳能板上，为从电灯到电脑的一切电器供电。
Make low-cost solar panels
Chonzom says she was chosen by her community to come here to learn about solar technology. She says she will take the knowledge back to the villages where she lives. She says many people in her region, in the Himalayan foothills, still do not have access to electricity.
肖赞说，她的社区推举她来这里接受太阳能技术的训练。她说，她将把这个技术带回她所居住的村庄。她说，她居住在喜马拉雅山脚下，那里很多地方还没有通电。
Chonzom is 50 years old, and one of two dozen people being trained here as solar engineers. Most have had no formal education. It is all part of a program to help India's rural poor by teaching them to make and install low-cost solar panels. Then they teach others to do the same. It is called Barefoot College, and so far it has trained thousands. Sanjit Bunker Roy started the program 25 years ago.
肖赞今年50岁，她与另外23个人一起参加太阳能技师的培训，其中很多人过去都没有接受过正规教育。这是印度正在推行的一项计划，通过教授印度农村贫困人口如何制造和安装低成本的太阳能板来帮助他们。之后这些人能够把技术传播给更多的人。这被称为“赤脚大学”，目前已经培训了数千人。罗伊在25年前开始了这个项目。
"You have to see how you can demystify the technology and bring it down to the community level so that they can manage, control and own the technology," said Roy.
罗伊说：“你能感觉到你解开了这项技术神秘的面纱，将它带入每一个社区。人们能够掌握、控制和拥有它。”
Roy is among Time Magazine's Top 100 most influential people for 2010. He says grassroots solar technology is crucial for India. Nearly half the country's rural population – more than 300 million people – has either no electricity or just a few hours of it a day.
罗伊是美国时代周刊评选出的2010年全球百大影像力人物之一。他说，普及太阳能技术对印度来说至关重要。该国3亿多人，也就是农村人口的近一半，居住在没有电力供应的地区，或者每天只能使用几个小时的电。
That limits how much people can do in a day, whether its homework or handicrafts.
从家庭生活到手工业生产，电力短缺大大限制了人们的生活。
Tapping local ingenuity
To help, Roy says he did what World Bank and U.N. aid projects often fail to do – that is, tap into the local ingenuity he sees every day.
罗伊说，为了改变这种情况，他做了世界银行和联合国援助计划没能做的事情，那就是利用他每天都能看到的“天赋”。
"You'll find it everywhere in India, this infinite capacity to be able to improvise and fix things without having gone through any formal education," he added. "They have this incredible inbuilt skill that we haven't been able to define, appreciate or respect yet."
他说：“你可以在任何地方看到它。这个无法衡量的能力，人们不必接受任何正规的教育就能够改良或修理东西。印度人民有这种与生俱来的天赋，而我们一直没能认识、欣赏或尊重它。”
Women built solar cooker
As if to illustrate their inbuilt skill, Roy points out a solar cooker that some of the women at Barefoot College helped design and build. At its heart is a "solar tracker" made of old bicycle sprockets, springs and rocks. It allows a parabolic mirror – also homemade and about the size of a satellite TV dish – to follow the arc of the sun, focusing its rays into an aluminum stove. All the meals at the college are cooked on it.
为了证明印度人民这种与生俱来的能力，罗伊拿出了一个在赤脚大学的妇女帮助设计和建造的太阳能炊具。最核心的部分是一个“太阳能追踪器”，由废旧的自行车链轮齿、弹簧和石头组成的。它还需要一个反光镜来反射阳光，将阳光聚焦到一个铝锅上。而这个反光镜在家里就能制作。赤脚大学里的饭都是用这个炊具做的。
One of its main designers is Sita Devi, a 30-year-old mother of two with only a third-grade education.
这个炊具的主要设计者之一西塔·德维是一名30岁的母亲，她是两个孩子的妈妈，而且只上过三年学。
She says she wanted to make a solar cooker with materials that are easily available, even in remote villages. She says the cooker saves time – and the environment – by reducing the need for women to wander outside the village in search of firewood for cooking.
德维说她想要用身边的材料来制作这个太阳能炊具。她说这样的炊具不仅对环境有好处，而且能够节省时间，妇女不必再走出村子寻找煮饭所需要的柴禾。
In this song, Devi and other women of the Barefoot Brigade extol the benefits of their solar cookers and lamps.
Roy says his program merely provides the space for the women to develop self-confidence. He says that is what drives the Barefoot Brigade's success in bringing power to more than 450 rural villages.
罗伊说，他的项目仅仅是为妇女提供发展自信的空间。他说，赤脚大学成功的关键就在于它为450多个村庄带去了光明。 |