Drupal is magnificently apt for emerging economies. With a quite comprehensive core that enables a quick-start build of websites, a vast set of contrib modules that help extend it, rich multilingual support (and not to mention the awesome community!) Drupal can thoroughly cater to even most of the budget-conscious, frugal SMEs, non-profits, e-governance initiatives and on-line communities shaping up in the emerging economies through cost effective, rapid and fine setups.

As a drupal user and developer from India, during the last 9 plus years I have helped build several hundreds of websites for SMEs, non-profits, on-line communities and e-governance initiatives keeping cost-effectiveness as the primary criteria owing to their lower budgets. This talk shall intend to share the many take-away from site building experience on these projects and tips in balancing cost and the outcome. The talk shall also try to throw light on harnessing the power of Drupal in building quick, yet reasonably solid websites and systems without having to compromise on too much.

At a time when large technology players like Google, Facebook have started to look towards SMEs in emerging economies to increase their market share and profits, it is worthwhile to look at how Drupal can be of significance in this market despite the challenges the market presents. Note that the very theme of this talk need not centre around just the cost-effectiveness in emerging economies, but can touch the aspects of projects with lower budgets in general.