1) Grameen Foundation AppLab has a history of scaling sustainable ICT solutions in East Africa through programs like Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) and mobile money product innovation. 2) Their approach involves designing programs and products for sustainability from the start. For example, their CKW program provides a 'Business in a Box' model that offers monthly payments to CKWs to disseminate information to farmers using mobile phones in a way that is 50% self-sustaining. 3) Key learnings include thinking about sustainability from the beginning, solving the right problems, considering all partner value propositions, finding the right partners, and using evaluation to improve or change approaches and not fearing failure

1. Designing and Implementing Sustainable ICT Projects
USAID Regional ICT Innovations Workshop; June 6, 2012
Lisa Kienzle

2. Grameen Foundation AppLab has a history of
scaling sustainable ICT solutions in East Africa
Grameen Village Google AppLab
CKW
Phone Phone SMS Money

3. AppLab’s approach to developing innovative
social enterprises involves designing for
sustainability – in both the programs and
also the products we develop

4. Sustainable ICT PROGRAMS
CKWs
(Community Knowledge Workers)

5. The model: information delivery to rural farmers
Partners CKWs Farmers
Public & Private
Development
Stakeholders
CKWs use mobile phones to share Cross-subsidization
Better serve our information with smallholders, and from data collection
partners needs collect information via mobile allows farmer info
surveys services to be free

6. The program was designed for sustainability
form day 1
CKW Value Proposition: Partner value proposition:
‘Business in a Box’ B2B Services
• Monthly mobile money payment • Information dissemination to rural
for outbound info and inbound populations
surveys • Data collection via mobile surveys
• Mobile phone charging unit • Field force management & training
• Marketing collateral • Custom application development

7. After two years, we’ve achieved fast growth and
achieved partial sustainability
799 67,900
CKWs Farmers Registered
9,000 Villages 30%
Reached 19 Districts
Female
38+7 Crops &
40% Animals
Repeat
Usage
898,000 50%
Total Sustainability
Interactions

8. An IFPRI study showed major strides for farmers
who used CKWs versus those who did not
Farmer Knowledge Price Received for Maize
800 Parish
without 95% 37%
700 CKW
difference
Parish 58%
600 with
CKW
500
400
300
200
100
0
2009/10 2011/12
17% difference
Propensity score matching shows that, as Results in Kapchorwa show a 37-percentage
measured by 6 given questions, CKWs increase point difference in maize price increases received
farmers’ knowledge by ~17% vs. non-CKW-served farmers

9. Sustainable ICT PRODUCTS
AppLab Money Incubator
(mobile money product innovation)

10. The problem: significant MM deployment
growth, but few have offered more than payments
~100%
offer standard
payments
120
38%
# providers offering the
100 provide other
payment types
29%
product type
80
enable interaction
60 with financial
institutions 10%
facilitate
40
loans
4%
offer
20 insurance
0
Traditional Other Bank Credit Insuran
Payments Payments Linkage ce
(Transfer, Bill (G2P, salar
Pay, Airtime) y)
Payments Beyond
Payments
Source: GSMA deployment tracker, November 2011.

11. So why aren’t we seeing more innovation?
Concerns
Requires an institutional investment –
Resources both financial and human capital
Not a sudden “stroke of genius” – but
Time the result of significant time and effort
Risk Must be prepared to celebrate failure
Must have capacity for R&D that
R&D Processes involves a deep engagement with the
consumer
Need access to MNO to bring product
MNO Partner to market

12. Our solution addresses the challenges we see in
driving sustainable MM product innovation
Concerns Our Answer
Requires an institutional investment – ~$1M funding and
Resources both financial and human capital diverse team
Not a sudden “stroke of genius” – but 18 month time
Time the result of significant time and effort horizon
Risk Must be prepared to celebrate failure Fail early, often
Must have capacity for R&D that
Focused on the
R&D Processes involves a deep engagement with the
consumer innovation process
Need access to MNO to bring product
MNO Partner to market
Strong partner

13. We focused on designing an innovation process
that would produce sustainable products
Product Development Process
1 2 3 4
Idea Concept Prototype Product
(50+
ideas) (8) (2-4) (1)
• Intense • Ideas refined • Early version • Top prototypes
consumer into concepts of product refined
research to and filtered developed • Business
identify user (scale and and tested models
pain points impact) with finalized
• Development • Business customers
of long-list of models • Business
ideas identified models
tested

14. A considerable part of product innovation is
business model innovation
Illustrative
Bus Models
Potential Business Partners to
Models to Test Test With
Example Product:
Developing a savings
product that • What if customers paid a
encourages many small fixed fee to use the service?
Test with:
deposits
• Customer
• What if a % of airtime was • MNO
Challenge: deducted every time it was • Agents
purchased, and that covered
• Deposits cost for the the product costs?
MNO, not customer
• No transaction
revenue as funds not • What if agents were not
moving compensated by deposits?

15. Sustainable ICT Projects
Learnings on Program and
Product Design and Development

16. What it all means: Learnings from our work in
sustainable ICT
• Think about sustainability from Day 1 – incorporate it in the
mindset from the start
• Solve the right problem
• Think about the value proposition to all partners
• Find the right partners
• Monitor and evaluate performance, don’t be afraid to change
approaches, or to fail