India resides in its 6,00,000+ villages spread across 600+ districts accounting for 65% of the total population. Reaching out to these rural communities requires an innovative and creative channel, and a firm commitment to address the critical challenges that plague the underserved in rural areas. Knowledge Centers, under the NKN program are “a physical space that provides public access to (value-added) Information and Communication Technologies for educational, personal, social and economic development.” NKN brings together donors, content providers and implementing agencies, and enables grassroots organizations to start successful ICT projects. The design focuses on community needs, using a bottom-up, non-prescriptive approach.   

NKN was initiated with the objective of:

Since its inception there has been a tremendous growth in the NKN, in terms of number of centers, presence in states, community members trained and linkages formed to support the program. The focus of the network is to draw up a long-term sustainability plan for the centers and to provide content and services that address the needs of the local communities. The aim is that all this will help make significant impact on social development indicators of the communities in which the centers work.