IIT Madras

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

Enabling Rural Citizens through Innovations in ICT

Enabling Rural Citizens through Innovations in ICT

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?

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

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

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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

21.2

15.8

12.8

5.8

3.22

0.8 0.9

0

5

10

15

20

25

100 180 260 360 520 840 1300 3500

Monthly Household income in $

Nu

mb

er

of

HH

in

millio

ns

Nos

of

HH

in M

Monthly HH Income in $

2001

2007

IIT Madras

Mobile Market in India boomed5 million 50 million 150 million 400 million

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

0

100

200

300

400

500

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Year

Pro

jec

ted

No

s o

f S

ub

sc

rib

ers

in

mill

ion

Just Like number of TVs in India rose from 10 million to 100 million in 90’s 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

India’s cement plants in 90’s 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 India’s 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 FlatBut you aint seen nothin yet

for the changes has not yet touched Rural India

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But Rural India is still struggling

637,000 villages, 700 million peoplePer capita GDP about $200Can ICT make a difference?

Rural Priority is Education, Health and Livelihood

Politically unsustain

able

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Changing Indian Affordability:150M rural homes

Nos

of

HH

in M

Monthly HH Income in $

2001

2007

102.1

1710

3.9 1.9 1 0.3 0.30

20

40

60

80

100

120

60 180 260 360 520 840 1300 2240

HH Income in $ per month

Nu

mb

er o

f H

H in

mill

ion

s

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

Fibre goes deep in India

Rs 10K per line deployed Exchange and tower in town

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

Innovative Business Models

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Rural Services – An Overview

Capacity Building– Education– Health

Income Generation– Agriculture– Entrepreneurship– Outsourcing

Enabling Services

– Finance– Markets

(exchanges /trading)

– e-Governance– Water

Management– Energy– Communication

s and Transportation

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EducationEducation

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

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

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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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Rural BPORural BPO

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

From London, Boston, NYFrom London, Boston, NY

To Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi

Then Jaipur, Mangalore, and Pune

Is it the turn of Shikrapur, Modaj and Mettupalliyam?

2

Audio Recording &

EditingWeb &

MultimediaDevelopment

Translation

Desktop Publishing

Engineering Services

Administrative Service

ITeS

Overview

11 Months 50 People 20 Villages 13 Clients

Services Provided….In English and Regional Languages

Input 2D drawing Output 3D model

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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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Rural ProductionRural Production

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

As Chennai becomes the As Chennai becomes the manufacturing hub for Nokia manufacturing hub for Nokia and BMW…and BMW…

Can Pinjavakkam become the production hub for Chennai?

1-

THETHE MODELMODEL

Design Order

CLIENTCLIENT

ROPEROPEROPEROPE

RPCRPC RPCRPC RPCRPC RPCRPC

RPC LEADER RPC LEADER RPC LEADER RPC LEADER

RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS

• Visual Access to production• Delivery of

order

CLIENTCLIENT CLIENTCLIENTCLIENTCLIENT

• Order• Skill Enhancement• Quality Management

• Infrastructure• Working Capital• Production

Processes

FOR

CLI

EN

T

FOR

LEA

DER

FOR

WO

RK

ER

S

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

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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

PRODUCTS

Banana Fiber Table Mat Banana Fiber Window Blind

BF with Jute Placemat Bamboo Fiber Placemat Korai Grass Runners

R O P ER O P E

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Training & Recruitment: Industry Client

RTBI: Networking, Logistics & Monitoring Operation

ICT Kiosk: ICT Infrastructure and Marketing

Focus Sectors:Security PersonnelSkilled Construction WorkersSales personsHome Service Agents

Vocational TrainingVocational Training

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HealthcareHealthcare

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

1+Telemedicine: Initial experiments with eye care and with

Veterinary doctors using the video conferencing tool

Moved on to video-consulting for GP & gynecology problems

Vet care with Veterinary collegeRemote Eye Care with Aravind Hospitals

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ReMeDi™ Tele-medicine solution

Healthcare Delivery

Identification of village healthcare delivery centers

Linkage with a hospital partner via ReMeDi™ telemedicine solution

Supply and delivery of essential medicines

KioskOperator

PharmaCompanies

ReMeDi™ Telemedicine KitReMeDi™ Telemedicine Kit

Local Partner Hosp

RP RP RP RP

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AgricultureAgriculture

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

1-

Managing Risks for farmers

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

AfterBefore

In a Village in Madurai, the Lady’s Finger

(Okra) cropwas 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”

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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 exchangesforward pricing and Options Can one get small farmers to use it?

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

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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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Financial ServicesFinancial Services

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

1

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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

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

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Rural Business, Transportation, Energy & othersRural Business, Transportation, Energy & others

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

0+

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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

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?

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Community Oriented Services

Rural Development programs Water Management Soil Management Road construction

Social harmony and religious tolerance Promoting entrepreneurship

To Sum UpTo Sum Up

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

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

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

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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