Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya presented on social innovation and the impact of mobile technologies. He discussed ekgaon, a social enterprise providing IT services to farmers in India. He described OneFarm, ekgaon's personalized farm advisory service delivered via mobile phones. OneFarm provides advice on soil health, crop management, and market prices. It helps farmers increase yields, reduce costs, and improve livelihoods. The model is financially sustainable through prepaid service cards sold via partners. OneFarm currently serves 12,000 farmers and aims to help more access services and savings.

1. 6th October 2011
Social Innovation & Impact: Mobile
Telecommunication Technologies
Making a Case for Business Logic
2nd Annual Asia NGO Innovation Summit, Jeju Island,
South Korea, 5 - 7th October 2011
Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, New Delhi, India
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
www.ekgaon.com

2. ekgaon technologies
 A unique social enterprise that provides Information Technology enabled services for the
under-served needs of financial services and agriculture advisory of farmers in villages in
India.
 Founded in 2002 by two first generation Entrepreneurs as a private limited company under
companies act of India, with registered office in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
 Operates from New Delhi and Madurai (Tamilnadu), providing services across India, Sri
Lanka and Nepal, planning entry in Africa in future.
 The company has 45 employees across two offices in India.
 We believe, poor have the ability to pay, provide they get value in a service
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 2

3. Mobile Telecom Story in India: A Case for Business Logic
 Indian Mobile Telecom growth model is much known and revered across the world for its low cost to the customer
and enterprise value. Needless to say Indian telecom companies are fastest growing mobile companies in the world
How did it happen?
 Creating Business for retailers (allowing them average revenue of approx. 2000 INR per month approx. 50 USD)
 Prepaid Sim Card
 Small or "Chota" recharge of 5 and 10 INR
 Life time connection
Lessons Learnt
 Product Design
 Incentive in delivery channel
 Product Mix
 Sustained Value
 Value for Money
 Impact ....... social impact is still to be properly understood
Do ponder on this ......
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 3

4. Mobile Telecom Story in India: What works?
 Indian Mobile Telecom outreach has had a phenomenal impact on the people and businesses, all
impacts are not measured, however some anecdotal case studies are noteworthy
How Business used it
 Just Dial: Yellow Book information
 Taxi: Secure Taxi service
 TV Shows: Public participation and revenue
 Civil Society: Crowd sourcing
How common people used it for there livelihoods
 Women Vegetable Vendor in Tamilnadu: Demand & Supply Management
 General Store: Home delivery
 Rickshaw & Auto-Rickshaw Puller: On call service
 Farmers: Connecting with local markets and dealers
 Women: Personal health information
What is the social impact here ......do think
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 4

5. Social Innovation: Not just technology, business model needed
 Innovation in application of technology does not all the time create impact, impact depends on
reception of service/s and scale ....for which sound business model is a prerequisite
A usable Mobile service/tool is a factor of innovation in technology, information design, business model,
delivery model, service and enterprise value.
 Product Design: If the product design (assuming already user centric), supports the business logic and
viability
 Product Mix: In the basket of the products being offered, have value proposition for the customer in
mind for e.g. Free SMS do not offer much value for a Rural customer
 Delivery:
– How: A SMS delivery to a farmer who cannot read does not make sense, voice is better
– Incentive: A service gets delivered only when, the delivery channel is incentivised over time
 Sustained Value:
– Service Value: The service should have scope of building a ecosystem and enabling a ecosystem,
which services are sustained as well as greater returns is generated
– Enterprise Value: Returns to enterprise is very important for sustaining growth, scale and incentive
for building ecosystem for services
 Value for Money: The service offers a value vis a vis returns from the service..... this logic is defeated
only for “ringtones”.... :)... for uninitiated India VAS model is built on top of ringtones
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 5

6. OneFarm: A case of farm advisory service

7. Agriculture Services Sector - Problems & Opportunities
 Small and marginal farmers do not have have access to formal agriculture
extension services and are poorly connected to markets
 Global food security hinges on small farmers across developing world who account
for over 40% of global food production and provide employment to almost 1.5
billion people. 80% of Indian farmer are small or marginal.
 Farm productivity when adjusted with inflation had been negative over last decade
 Change of agriculture commodities market and extensive focus on cash crop has
led farmers shift from traditional crops to new (cash) crops, but they do not get
required advisory necessary to grow these crops
 A generation change in farming is also leading to large shift towards cash crop
cultivation - grow what the market demands
 A huge market demand exists for personalised farm advisory services, with a
potential market of 730 mn farmers across Africa and Asia alone.
 India has over 840 mn mobile phone connections of which 30% are rural, hence
an opportunity to get access to farmers like never before
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 7

8. OneFarm: Personalised and Customised farm advisory service
s
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9. Soil Health + : Mobile Screenshots
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10. OneFarm: Raman speaks on Benefits
 Balanced nutrient management
 Importance of soil management practices
 Reduce input cost
 Reduce risk
 Increase productivity
 Ensure livelihood security
 Scientific and decision making knowledge
system – reaching at farmer level
 The direct benefits of OneFarm services to the
farmers are in the form of reduced agri-input
cost of fertilizer and pesticides on a average of 6
USD per acre (for a small farmer, based on a
impact study) which is a reduction of about 30%,
healthy farm, productivity enhanced (upto 15%
have been observed).
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 10

11. OneFarm Service: Revenue Model
 OneFarm services offer personalised customised services to small and marginal farmers
not having access to formal agriculture-extension services and market information
 ekgaon provide network integration platform for delivery of these services in partnership
with business aggregators and local content providers (Universities, Agriculture research
organisations, commodity exchanges and metrological department)
 Standard products & revenue, prepaid vouchers of denominations and duration
– Green Card valid 4 month - 120 INR or 3 USD
– Gold Card valid One year - 240 INR or 5 USD
– Blue Card - Retail Service card - 100 INR or 2 USD
 As of now we serve 12,000 farmers across three states in India, servicing them through
franchisees and partners, sharing commission
 Major partnership has been done with Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), which is
working with Department of Post, Government of India for marketing of our services across
six states in India.
 Exploring retailing partnerships with other channel partners such as mobile network
operators, fertilizer and insurance companies.
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 11

12. OneFarm: Innovation & Value Proposition
User Centric Design
 Content Packaging – Content designed for meeting the farm requirement: Crop Season
 Product Design - Supporting the farm advisory and decision making
 Product Mix – Bundle of utility services
The Business Logic
 Delivery Model:
• Service Mode: SMS, Voice, TTS, Web ..... local language
• Service Delivery: OneNetwork of franchisee and master franchisee as service providers
 Financial Model:
• Value for Money: Product Pricing
• Sustaining Service Value: Providing access to other value added services such as credit,
insurance, market, input supplier etc.
• Sustaining Enterprise Value: Partnering with service providers for exploring revenue
sharing based services such as insurance, retailers, banks, fertiliser and seed companies
etc.
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 12

13. OneFarm Impact
 OneFarm service mandate is Healthy Farm & Wealthy Farmer
 One farmer buying a service of value 120 INR (approx. 2.5 USD), was able to save 530 INR
(approx. 12 USD) in one crop seasons in reduced agri-inputs used
 In the projected growth phase of five years, the services would help save over 12 $ per
farmer per crop season (average farm size of 2 acres) in agri-inputs (fertilizers and
pesticides), which is over 30% reduction, with over 172 Mn $ worth of cumulative savings
 Improve soil health and enhance farm productivity (of over 15%) and hence better return on
investment to over 15 Mn farmers.
 The service aims to help farmer diversify his/her farming with better choice of crop and
variety as per market demand, and hence helping to get better returns from the same farm,
while helping secure market demand for food.
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 13

14. Strategies: For Innovation & Impact using mobile technologies
Identifying the user requirement and market demand-supply situation
 Identifying the user information/services need requirement
 Assessing the market and business context in which the services would operate
 Assessing the marketability of the tool/service – Customers willingness to pay / service
provider to pay
 Identifying the delivery mode and delivery channel for enabling the services and providing
service support
 Information Product Design for Identified Market
 Content Packaging – Content designed for meeting the need of user segment in market
 Product Design – Ensuring usability and accessibility
 Product Mix – Bundling of utility services for a greater impact
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 14

15. Strategies: For Innovation & Impact ...... continued
The Business Logic
 Delivery Model:
• Service Mode: SMS, Voice, TTS, Web ..... local language
• Service Delivery: Identify franchisee/agent/service providers as channel partners in
distribution of services/tools
 Financial Model:
• Value for Money: Product Pricing should be indicative of direct benefit to the customer
• Sustaining Service Value: Business model of services should have scope for 'evolution'
beyond the service package on offer for creating greater value for the customer over
years, such that services are sustained and customer retained.
• Sustaining Enterprise Value: It is very important that enterprise that choose to deliver
services ensure its own sustenance for ensuring sustenance of the services. The services
enabled should enhance enterprise value over time.
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 15

16. Contact
For inquiry please contact
Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, Chief Executive Officer
ekgaon technologies
E 142 A, Lower Ground Floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi - 110 019, India
tel: +91 11 4055 1490 | fax: +91 11 4055 1491
email: info@ekgaon.com | web: www.ekgaon.com
Regional Office (South India)
Door No. 14/6, Opposite BSNL Exchange, Ellis Nagar, 20 Extension Road, Madurai - 625010, Tamil Nadu, India
tel: +91 452 4368094 | telefax: +91 452 2602433 | email: info@ekgaon.com | website: www.ekgaon.com
Registered Office
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
ekgaon strives for community ownership in Enterprises, Media, Technology, Heritage, Finance, Development & Governance © ekgaon 2011 16

17. Thank You
www.ekgaon.com