Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

Stunted economic development of rural mountainous regions is attributed to inadequate infrastructure. Basic heath care and education are denied due to limited means of transport to hospitals and centers of learning. These areas are also inaccessible to relief measures during natural calamities.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

Main idea behind the project is to apply concepts of bridge engineering at a level from where it evolved: to meet critical needs of transportation. However, they thrives on bare minimal to the extent of being away from basic health support even at times of natural disasters.

First stage was devoted to studying the rope bridges built by hand by the Ancient Inca Empire in Peru, South America. The process of community bridges was looked at and parallels were drawn with the programs run by the Swiss Development Cooperation and Helvetas in Nepal and by a Non Profit Organization called Bridges to Prosperity in Guatemala and Ghana.

Technical aspects of the project involve developing a stress ribbon bridge in contrast to the regular suspension bridge, which is the preferred structural type for these bridges. The motivation for this structural type comes from the initiative of using recycled plastic ropes in the deck, for suspenders and handrail. Primary applications of these ropes in the off-shore mooring industry exhibit its resistance to unfavorable climatic conditions and load capacities. Thus life cycle analysis of the stress ribbon structure should yield positive results. Further, since this bridge is to be hand made by the locals, our aim is to use least amount of industrial products. So clamps connecting the suspenders to the main cable have been replaced by knots and may other similar green changes have been adopted.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

An innovative approach to the critical problems has come in the form of community bridges. This methodology helps meet the demand for bridges on the remote trails and also mobilize the locally available manpower. It is them who make decisions regarding the requirement and location of the bridge. The project seeks to provide employment to specific percentage of ethnic, women and dalits (belonging to the lower class). The key aspect of the policy is to improve the livelihood of locals. The program will make it possible to reach marginalized people in the remotest parts of the world. The community bridge will not only contributed towards bridging gaps between lands but also greatly abate the social divide between the elite and the dalits as they work together. The cottage industry of the region will receive further out reach in terms of patrons as a result of the installation of the bridge. The process of making ropes from synthetic fibers at the household level is studied to predict the success of rope making as a cottage industry. Apart from these social and economic issues, the major problem of plastic disposal is also countered, since these ropes are made from recycled plastic. Technologically, the proposal hopes to generate renewed interest in stress ribbon structures and open it for future research by changing various parameters to come up with similar bridges even for motorized traffic. Currently, only Japan has a recycling plant which deals with manufacturing the desired end product of recycled plastic that can be used for our purpose. Other such plants can be set up thereby considerably reducing the amount of plastic that goes into landfills each year. This proposal is a breakthrough since it resolves numerous global problems through just one approach.