The idea is credited to two students in the US. They are not power engineers, but have an engineering mind to transform a socially benefitial concept into a working model. Manoj Sinha, whose idea it was to empower people in his Bihar village, was a microprocessor designer with Intel; Charles Ransler, project strategist, has been into software development pertaining to digital publishing. What brought them together was their social activism. Manoj produced the idea; Charles came up with a business model.

They were joined by Gyanesh Pandey ,so taken up with the proposal that he gave up a promising career abroad to come to Bihar to run their pilot project. Ratnesh Yadav completes the team. He is locally influential. Ratnesh is described in the company website as 'politician/entrepreneur, who promotes business enterprises in Bihar'.

HPS promoters conduct an energy audit and, before taking up a project, discuss with the village panchayat aspects such as power delivery system, payment mode (pre-paid), and training of local residents for consumer service and maintenance of the power plant.

Cross-filed from Giving It A Shot