In this talk I will discuss my experiences designing, developing and deploying information systems in rural India. I have worked on making
information more accessible to rural users (by designing a user interface that was usable by semi-literate users), as well as applications supporting sustainable rural development (such as a distributed multi-media workspace used to share and catalog inventions by rural villagers). My current projects include CAM - a mobile information services framework for the rural developing world; and Mahakalasm MIS - a management and information system for village microfinance cooperatives. Mahakalasm MIS uses a CAMera-equipped mobile phone to link manual paper-based processes in the village to an on-line data processing service. I will present some of the lessons I have learned in this work, and how that has culminated in the CAM toolkit, which is designed to facilitate many important kinds of rural information flows.