Rural BPO

I was reading about this organization in the recent issue of Business Today (India's Most Wired, 22 April, 2007) and have been quite impressed with the young lady's initiative.

Ms.Saloni malhotra, a 25 year old graduate from Bharateeya Vidyapeeth, Pune is inspired by Dr.Ashok Jhunjhunwala's speeches. Her mission is to "turn rural internet centers into BPO's".

DesiCrew.In, based in Chennai, acts as a mediator between the client and the far end BPO. The internet center in a Rural area acts as a BPO. The work is channalised to the Rural BPO through DesiCrew. The BPO is not more than a 3 computer center with Internet and Network. The employed are people living in the area with minimum education/knowledge in English/language which is required to get the work done (Its not that simple, DesiCrew has a rigourous selection criteria) . Kinds of work includes - Data entry, Digitisation of records for Government, proof reading of books and little of CAD work. These BPO's have delivered work for around 20 clients till date (this is just few months old organisation). Work pricing ranges from Rs.20,000 (~$480) to Rs.3,00,000 (~$7,186) and this in return earns around Rs.8,000 ($192) to Rs.12,000 ($287) per month which is quite impressive to begin with. Current strength of the organization is around 60 and Ms.Saloni anticipates that this would grow to around 200 people this year.

This is a very small beginning and DesiCrew wants to build the world's best network of service providers.

Visit the website and it has upto the point information available. The site is very simple, yet elegent. Now, this is what I call SocialEntrepreneurship.

Excellent job...

Silence for a long time...

I have recently changed role in my company. Now, I manage consulting teams (out from Testing after 6 Years) and have been busy since then. I thought this move made sense as I would have the option of seeing how other parts of the Project Lifecycle work. As this is a new team which we are forming as part of the India Operations, it has been challenging for me too, which is very very interesting. This is not a reason for me to be silent, but yes, this is one of the key reasons for my silence.

Bangalore BarCamp3
BCB3 is happening today and tomorrow at IIM,Bangalore campus. Even though I signed up to be a volunteer in organizing this camp (the topic is very close to my heart and this is what i am interested in doing), I could not participate as I am currently travelling. Here I am in sitting in a Hotel room in London, been sick for last week due to bad weather :(
However, my friends in BCB3 are online and been blogging continiously giving virtual people like us access to what is happening there live!
Check out http://muthuonline.com/

My latest Reading
Interesting book which I picked up at Bangalore airport just before i flew out - CHINDIA, How China and India are Revolutionizing Global Business. Could not get through the complete book yet, but it is giving a glimpse of the differences between the two countries and how the world is looking at them. Will post more information once I get through it...

Bangalore BarCamp 3.0

It's long time since I penned. Beginning of the year, I took a vow that I will write once a week (at least once in two weeks). But, since then, my weekends have been taking me away for various things...Life is going on...

Coming to the point, we are having Bangalore BarCamp 3.0 on the 31 March and 1 April. Theam this time is going to be around SocialTech, my area of interest and life. Unfortunately, I will be travelling during those dates and will not be able to make it for the un-conference.

I am sure I can keep myself posted with live blogging.....

YHIS

The Yeshaswini Health Insurance Scheme (YHIS) is a unique initiative by Government of Karnataka, India. Under this scheme, HealthCare services are provided to farmers at an Insurance premium of Rs.10 per month.

This article in HealthCare Management outlines the program - http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200601/focus01.shtml

The following paper provides in-depth information on the same - http://www.isec.ac.in/Karnataka_Kuruvilla16.5.05_aligned.pdf

Reality of Life

My latest reading is "End of Poverty" by Jeffery Sachs. This is a very good book giving details on reality bites of Poverty. I am just 25% done with the book, but am getting to understand few grass root concepts of Poverty. Probably, by the end of the book, I can get few ideas on how I can personally contribute to the idea of Ending Poverty in our life times. Poverty is not about living above the poverty line and making a living. Poverty in terms of quality of life. We have always known the 3 basic necessities of life - Food, Clothing and Shelter. However, I would like to add 1 more necessity which can address the above 3 with umberalla activities - HealthCare.

When I started to dream about entrepreneurship, I always wanted to create something which can improve the Quality of Living of individuals along with making money for myself and others around me. As I started 2006, my dream was coming to reality, we registered our organization and were very strong in our minds that 31 Dec 2006, we would be working for ourselves. As on date (31 Dec 2006) our dreams many not have matured physically as an organization, but sure we have matured as individuals and drawing a blue print for our future.

Reality Bite
I was speaking to my cousin couple of days back and discussing aspects of Social Entrepreneurship. He works with a charitable organization and his area of focus is primary education in rural areas of Visakhapatnam District in Andhra Pradesh. When speaking about "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", he mentioned that he is not too excited about the idea. I was curious and continued our discussion. He mentioned, "Look, we are speaking about e-Choupals and selling small quantity of branded goods to consumers in the rural areas and there by organizations making a forture, but let me tell you a reality - Will you believe that the cost of a bag of rice has not changed in the last 14 Years!" I was dumb struck. I still cannot believe this, but he said that this is the truth. Cost of seeds, pesticides and rent of land have been increasing with the increase in consumer goods costs, but the farmer is still getting the same price for the bag of rice for last 14 years. As I was on a phone line, I could not get into the statistics and facts, but when I meet him next time I am going to understand more of this and share with you all.
PS: The above context is with respect to Indian and espically local to Andhra Pradesh.

I wish all my readers a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007. May this year bring in more light to all our lives.

Ashoka

www.ashoka.org - an organization dedicated to encourage and support Social Entrepreneurship around the Globe.

Ashoka supports Social Entrepreneurship in three ways - Supporting Social Entrepreneurs, Promoting Group Entrepreneurship and Building infrastructure for the Sector.

It is a very interesting site and any one who think on these lines should visit.

BarCamp, BLR 2 - Day 2 Summary

Temperature last night in Bangalore was around 14.6 degrees (as per the newspaper). My home is surrounded by open environment and I was a bit lazy to get up and came to ThoughtWorks (Venue of BarCamp) by 9:30 AM. There was a lot of buzz around and key Campers are already running around for arrangements. Had my breakfast (sponsored by TCS) and now hooked on to the net to start another exciting day ahead.

The best thing which can happen this morning is that one person from Pittsburg has contacted me mentioning that he has seen my slides on http://slideshare.net (All BarCamp Bangalore 2 presentations can be found under the Tag heading "barcampbangalore2"). I am so very happy this morning to be a part of this exciting camp.

There are quite a good number of interesting sessions today and will try to give my best shot to provide as much information as I can when I attend sessions…

WiMax - Sujai
· According to DoT, there are 1.2 Million Broadband users in India (~1.2% of total population)
· Only 4 Million subscribers can go DSL because of various concerns.
· WiMax makes sense because people can get Wireless without Broadband. This is also inexpensive.
· WiMax is rapidly picking up. There are many organization pitching in for WiMax because of many advantages.
· WiMax comes on a WAN..

Sujai explains few myths about WiMax.

RFID - Short Distance
BlueTooth - Lot of hype, but we realized it fails in many situations.
WiFi - LAN, small area.
MAN - WiMax comes into picture.
GSM - 10-12 KM Radius.

· Sujai has shown a complete detailed slide on various frequencies.
· WiMax comes in various frequencies and various flavors.
· Timelines (A Bit old data)
○ 2006/7 - Deployment of Fixed "Outdoor" Wireless
○ 2008/9 - Fixed WiMax "Indoor"
○ 2009/10 - Mobile WiMax.

· Visit Sujai's presentation (he mentioned that he would put it up there) on http://slideshare.net (under Tag barcampbangalore2) . Its worth a visit.

Commute Easy - Car Pooling in Bangalore

www.CommuteEasy.com - is a website for a social cause. Like Bangalore, many other metros in India and over the world have real traffic problems.

This is a very good site, with a pure social cause and not-for-profit. There are already 2400 registered users and ~200 active car pool's through this site already!

What are you waiting for? Save fuel - Save Environment…..

SlideShare - Jon, CTO, SlideShare
http://slideshare.net - A common place to share and run your presentations online. Example, all the presentations at Bar Camp, Bangalore 2 are available on this site with the tag name

· You cannot currently download the presentations - SS is working on this.
· No Privacy - Do not post private/confidential presentations - SS is working on this.

Microfinance 2.0: How web 2.0 is helping to explore the Fortune at the Bottom - Siva Prasad

http://shivp.wordpress.com
· Provided an insight into Dr. CKP's Pyramid.
· Size of a loan ranges from Rs.3000 - Rs.12,000.
· Without MF, clients pay from 50%-100% annualized interest rate (Money lender system)
· MFI's charge 12%-24%
· Repayment rates are above 99%.
· Agency for rating MFI - Example, http://www.m-cril.com/rating-microfinance-rating-methodology.html

Characteristics of Web 2.0
· An architecture of participation and democracy
· Users exercise control over the data
· Network as a platform
· Some social networking aspects
· A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface.

How Web 2.0 is useful for MF?
· Is a bridge for world wide fund investors and the beneficiary.
· Agents like Papal etc will help in mediating the money which is flowing to the MFI.
· The opportunity here is that instead of investing money in banks or financial institutions, Web can play a role in mediating and providing an opportunity for people to invest in Micro financing for better/equivalent returns.

Existing Models
· www.Kiva.org· www.fundable.org
· www.microplace.com

PictureSquare.com - An initiative by 2 IIT Mumbai guys

This is similar to flickr or any other photo storing solutions.

Problem: How to connect back to home (India) with pictures - HardCopy... thats interesting.

Solution: www.PicSqaure.com

USP: You can upload, share and print picutres which can be delivered home.

I think today really added value to my exposure. Definitely made new contacts and am waiting to see if I can be of help to anyone.

BarCamp Bangalore 2.0 is almost closing and am waiting for the BarCamp Bangalore 3.0