Enabling Rural Citizens through Innovations in ICT

ashok Jhunjhunwala, IITM, India, ashok@tenet.res.in

IIT Madras

Over the last two hundred years, 4 billion people in the developing world have been left behind

How can they stand up and be counted? How will they get access to resources, health and education? How will they be able to compete? How will they bridge the distance with their urban counterparts or those in the developed world?

India was in this category in the recent past

Urban India has changed will use it as an example to talk about what can be done

India was struggling in eighties

One had to wait for eight years to get a telephone

Deposit money to get in a queue

To buy a two-wheeler took four years Gas connection took even longer

Importing a simple $3 microprocessor IC took one year

Life was difficult

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Changing Indian Affordability:65M urban homes

25

Number of HH in millions

21.2 15.8

20 15 10 5.8 5 0 100 180 260 360 520 840 1300 3500 Monthly Household incom e in $ 3.2 2 0.8 0.9 12.8

2001

30 25 20 15 10 5 0

2007
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Nos of HH in M

<150

225

470

825

1560

>2075

Monthly HH Income in $

Mobile Market in India boomed

Projected Nos of Subscribers in million

5 million 50 million 150 million 400 million

500 400 300 200 100 0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year

Not until Mobile Infrastructure Capex < Rs 3000 per line

and with handset price of Rs 1200 onwards service available at 50 p per minute ARPU of about Rs 250

7 million subscribers added each month

Just Like number of TVs in India rose from 10 million to 100 million in 90s when prices became Rs 1200 onwards and cable TV tariff fell below Rs 75 per month Number of TV channels boomed Entertainment industry in India one of the biggest

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Even Airline Industry

Is booming in India
quadrupled its passenger carrying capacity in two years Average tariffs have fallen to a fourth making it affordable to middle class Indians

Inspite of rising petrol prices

The only limitation to growth is the airport infrastructure

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India on Move

Auto Sector is booming R&D driven initiative: Scorpio and Tata-Indica India emerging as leader in auto-component design and manufacturing Indias cement plants in 90s virtually closed as they could not compete

Today India has some of the most energy efficient cement plants of the world

Electricity from wind energy surpasses its nuclear energy

Indias wind energy company is the fastest growing one in the world

Indian companies carrying out successful Drug discovery

Spends US$50-70M as opposed to US$800M for a drug

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Engineering Education

500K engineering students graduate every year from 1600 engineering colleges

Up from 25,000 in 100 schools in early eighties

Uneven quality is a major problem

was foreseen and resulted in reluctance to expand

But it is this human resources which has driven growth

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Growth of IT and IT enabled services is legendary

Reaching $50 billion this year

Trillion dollar IT Services industry being projected

The World is Flat

But you aint seen nothin yet
for the changes has not yet touched Rural India

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Politically unsustainable

But Rural India is still struggling

637,000 villages, 700 million people Per capita GDP about $200 Can ICT make a difference? Rural Priority is Education, Health and Livelihood

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Changing Indian Affordability:150M rural homes

120
Number of HH in millions

102.1

100 80 60 40 20 0 60 180 260 360 520 840 1300 2240 HH Incom e in $ per m onth 17 10 3.9 1.9 1 0.3 0.3

2001

80 70

2007
IIT Madras

Nos of HH in M

60 50 40 30

20
10 0

<150

225

470

825

1560

>2075

Monthly HH Income in $

Fibre goes deep in India

All block headquarters are connected by optical fibre Most villages are within 15 Kms from Block towns Last mile technologies are rapidly emerging Broadband CorDECT WiLL developed at IITM, India

provides a telephone line and 256 kbps Internet connection in 25 Km radius Exchange and tower in town
Works at 55 C Power requirement: 1 KW start-up costs very low

Newer technologies emerging Promising 1/2 Mbps connectivity

with OFDM (like 802.16 / WiMax) with HDR and HSDPA

Rs 10K per line deployed Exchange and tower in town

Innovative Business Models

Rural Service Providers

aggregate demand into a kiosk owned & driven by a local entrepreneur

Rs 50K per Kiosk providing telephone, Internet, multimedia PC

with web-camera, printer and power back-up for PC

plus local language software, video conferencing software, training and maintenance and 6 months unlimited Internet

set up by a village entrepreneur on the lines of urban PCOs

Provides multiple services to break even Needs Rs5K pm to break even

Rural Services An Overview

Capacity Building

Education Health

Enabling Services Income Generation

Agriculture Entrepreneurship Outsourcing

Finance Markets (exchanges /trading) e-Governance Water Management Energy Communications and Transportation

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3Education
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(Rating carried out on 0 to 5 scale to indicate where India is)

Towards enabling Rural Areas.

Education

Curriculum based

Passing SSLC: excellent results

Skill based

Spoken English Computer Basics CAD, Web development, Photoshop Repair pumps, wire for electricity, carpentry

Concept based

Science and Business concepts

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From London, Boston, NY

To Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi
Then Jaipur, Mangalore, and Pune

2
Rural BPO
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Is it the turn of Shikrapur,

Modaj and Mettupalliyam?

Towards enabling Rural Areas.

Services Provided
.In English and Regional Languages

Audio Recording & Editing

Engineering Services

Web & Multimedia Development

Overview

ITeS
Administrative Service Desktop Publishing Translation

11 Months 50 People 20 Villages 13 Clients

Output 3D model

Input 2D drawing

Desi Crew
Rural BPO Services Administrative

Data Entry Data Conversion

Localization (English to regional languages)

Translation Voice Over

Engineering

2D drafting 2D to 3D conversion

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As Chennai becomes the manufacturing hub for Nokia and BMW

1Rural Production
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Can Pinjavakkam become the production hub for Chennai?

Towards enabling Rural Areas.

THE MODEL FOR CLIENT CLIENT

CLIENT

CLIENT CLIENT

Visual Access to production Delivery of order

Design Order

Infrastructure Working Capital Production Processes

ROPE

Order Skill Enhancement Quality Management

RPC
RPC LEADER RPC WORKERS

RPC
RPC LEADER RPC WORKERS

RPC
RPC LEADER RPC WORKERS

RPC
RPC LEADER RPC WORKERS

FOR WORKERS

FOR LEADER

RPO: Distributed Production enabled by Internet

Outsourcing production to rural areas Kiosk becomes a point of co-ordination & quality control
The Crafts for Life projects include

Embroidery Bags Soap Banana Rope Dry Flowers

Training in making dried banana bark rope making facilitated by ICT entrepreneur Jayamalathi at Thirupandrutti.

Building and Aggregating Distributed Rural Production Units as back end for industries Focus Sectors: Crafts, Leather, Garments, Agro Processing

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PRODUCTS

ROPE

Banana Fiber Table Mat

Banana Fiber Window Blind

BF with Jute Placemat

Bamboo Fiber Placemat

Korai Grass Runners

Training & Recruitment: Industry Client

RTBI: Networking,
Logistics & Monitoring Operation

ICT Kiosk: ICT

Infrastructure and Marketing

Vocational Training
Focus Sectors: Security Personnel Skilled Construction Workers Sales persons Home Service Agents

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Remote Eye Care with Aravind Hospitals

Vet care with Veterinary college

1+
Healthcare
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Telemedicine:

Initial experiments with eye care and with Veterinary doctors using the video conferencing tool Moved on to video-consulting for GP & gynecology problems

Towards enabling Rural Areas.

ReMeDi Tele-medicine solution

Kiosk Operator

Healthcare Delivery
Identification of village healthcare delivery centers Linkage with a hospital partner via ReMeDi telemedicine solution

Local Partner Hosp

Pharma Companies

ReMeDi Telemedicine Kit

Supply and delivery of essential medicines

RP

RP

RP

RP

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1Agriculture
Towards enabling Rural Areas.
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Managing Risks for farmers

Crop disease: Use of video conferencing to connect farmer to an agricultural Expert Obtaining answers before it is too late

Before
In a Village in Madurai, the Ladys Finger (Okra) crop was turning white

The problem was sent to the experts at the Department of Rural Extension, Madurai Agricultural College and Research Centre who diagnosed it as Yellow Mosaic disease

After

Production and Price Risk Coverage

Rain-fall insurance

Micro-weather Measurement and prediction

Collect weather data at each village

Temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction and rainfall

Weather Monitoring Kit : Rs 15K

Market risk: use of commodity exchanges forward pricing and Options

Can one get small farmers to use it?

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Agriculture

Agro Processing Agricultural Advisory Services Agricultural Supply Chain Management Focus: Fruits and Vegetables in Theni District of Tamil Nadu Strategy: To link markets, banks, extension partners and suppliers to small farmers

Facilitate Sales and post-harvest support

Use of Village Internet kiosk and mobile phones for

Obtaining market-prices in different Markets Transaction and deal-closing from villages Scheduling delivery Booking of transport Direct payment through banks and loan repayment

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1
Financial Services
Towards enabling Rural Areas.
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Financing by banks from towns is expensive

Is Microfinance the answer Has made great strides, but what is the interest rate?

At 24 to 30% interest rate it is good loan for

Trading and Short term consumption loans But not for any manufacturing / agriculture?

Can kiosks become mini-banks? Internet banking: But how will cash be delivered? Can kiosks carry out credit-rating of rural people? What about Insurance? Can they enable different kinds of insurance?

Life Insurance, health insurance, General Insurance, rainfall insurance

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We could put Internet in every village but for its cost? TeNeT / VorTex develops ATM

Finger print detection Internet kiosk based or Stand alone Deliver even soiled notes
Single denomination today Can be extended to multiple denomination

Electronic Lock operated using finger print detection Cost about Rs 60K for kiosk ATM / Rs 75K for stand alone

Vortex GramaTeller initiative, reducing the cost of ATM to 1/15th

Towards Credit Rating

0+
Rural Business, Transportation, Energy & others
Towards enabling Rural Areas.
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Rural Businesses

Agriculture, food processing & other small businesses

Can they be enabled by ICT kiosks? Does technology play a significant role in supply chain management & co-ordination? Can they be used for market linkages & pricing mechanisms? Can kiosks be used to find jobs?

Exploring to understand the evolution of rural businesses and the role of technology in such businesses

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Decentralized Energy

Grid based Power Supply

Quality and availability

Urban Power will take precedence Rural India will only get overflow

Each Village require 30 KW to 100 KW Power Generation

Solar Biomass Combustion Biogas Bio-diesel

Can kiosk be used to enable this?

Community Oriented Services

Rural Development programs

Water Management Soil Management Road construction

Social harmony and religious tolerance Promoting entrepreneurship

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ICT can provide opportunities for those who have been left behind to leapfrog provided there is will Requires Confidence, Local technologies & Services and lots of hard work Rural Areas in emerging Markets can follow their urban counterpart

To Sum Up

Towards enabling Rural Areas.

Today

India consumes

Less than one twentieth of per capita resource as compared to that in the West

as per International Energy Agency Statistics Division, India consumed 512.4 Kg of oil equivalent of energy per person as opposed to 7794 Kg of oil equivalent per person in USA in 2003

If India and China grow like West?

And their per capita resource consumption of 1.4 billion Chinese and 1.1 billion Indians reach the level in the West

This can not be our future

Nature is already retaliating Technology can help but cant support consumption beyond a point

A dilemma

India and China can not be asked to wait to get out of their deprived state

AND they can not grow and acquire the same lifestyle as that of the West

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Need

To redefine development

Not accept the industrial revolution Development paradigm

Technology can find all the answers Urban life is better life

Good life need not imply

Such large consumption

Migrating Rural Indians to Urban areas is not the answer

With health, education, a bit of infrastructure and livelihood opportunity, life in Rural India may be better than in urban areas

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Urban India and China has done well

Growth in China stupendous India started late, but is racing today

But most growth limited to urban areas Rural Areas are being left behind

700M out of 1 B people live in Rural India

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