Access and Development
India lives in its villages, but not all villages are alike in India. The differences touch a range of economic, social, and environmental issues including access to information and communication technology (ICT) and related infrastructure. Differences in the latter are now leading to a “digital divide”, access that divides the villages as developed and not developed villages. Direct access to land, water and credit and indirect access to caste hierarchy and political linkages determine the course of development in Indian villages for its people. In addition, in this era of globalization, there is another critical access point that determines rural development. It is access to information, the difference it makes is unequal access to knowledge. Development experts worldwide are concerned that the problem of unequal access is increasing inequality and leading to a “knowledge divide.” ICT, the new silver bullet can cut across barriers of caste, power and politics if it is culturally aligned with the belief system and knowledge of the communities and used for the right purposes. Jack Balkin of Yale University says that information is like capital and will establish and control relationships between persons and groups. He says very aptly that it is essentially a demand for justice and an issue of economic development, individual participation and human liberty. For sustainable development to be achieved in the rural Indian context whole villages are not yet ready for participation in the information-enabled economy thereby are losing on competitive advantage and failing to determine global wealth for the increase in economic growth the benefits the rural sector specifically.
“Computers on Wheels” in Khilla Ghanapuram
Low GDP areas do not attract investments or infrastructure and are generally low on overall literacy levels. To cut across these barriers, an innovative project “Computers on Wheels” for people-centered development started as a last mile solution in one such low GDP areas in Khilla Ghanapuram Mandal of Mahbubnagar in Andhra Pradesh in India in September 2003 (http://www.vidal.org.in/node/25). The project is a finalist for Computerworld honors 2001-2002, Stockholm challenge global award, 2006 and winner of the prestigious Development Marketplace Award for 2003-2004. In the past few years, it established access to information to the people with and without Internet usage, provided information services to people in health, education, agriculture, animal husbandry and other commercial services, (http://www.vidal.org.in/node/26) passed on the ownership of the project delivery and maintenance to a village youth Panduga Bhuapal Reddy (http://www.vidal.org.in/node/9).
Villages in Development and Learning Foundation
Villages in Development and Learning Foundation (ViDAL) is the umbrella organization under which COW project operates. ViDAL is registered as a not for profit trust with Government of Andhra Pradesh in 2004 and is granted 12 A and 80G by the Director of Income Tax uptil 2008 March.
Need for alternative rural livelihood
Citizen welfare is a state of being that can be achieved when basic needs of food & security are met by civilians. Due to the widespread poverty in the region COW project remained successful because of its relevance to usage but did not sustain a pay per use model. Though people use COW for various purposes like health, agriculture management there is an urgent need to support people in the villages for building alternative livelihood streams, preferably by using COW in the fold as it gained support by the village populations already. An alternative stream of economic activity could also partially arrest migration. Currently 20 to 40 % of the population from the villages is continually migrating to towns and cities in western India.
Past few years experiences led to knowledge assimilation and alternative thinking by COW group. Experiential knowledge was compared with ever-changing global paradigms like bottom of the pyramid (BOP), niche market development, creating markets vs. anchoring to existing markets and approaches to projects and development were defined.
Potential Opportunities
Fundamental single factor leading to poverty in this area is lack of sustainable livelihood activity due to recurrent failure of agriculture. However there are several hidden potential opportunities in the rural living embedded in the knowledge and experience of people, which could spin to develop livelihood if a new tool like ICT is used. There are possibilities to develop various occupations like growing pest-resistant, less-water consuming, traditional varieties of paddy and moving them on to organic domain; building on already existing craft and skill sector; develop paddy straw based luminous paper manufacturing and many more such ideas and innovative initiatives. It is important to develop a sector of economic activity that shall not interfere with already fragile ecology of the place.
Two Paths to choose from
There are two paths people in the villages can take to link themselves to markets; either anchor themselves to markets by becoming producers by virtue of buying and using latest gadgets or become niche` producers and create their own markets so that they enhance flow of rural wealth in due course of time. Current proposal takes the second path so as to ensure democratizing commerce from the development perspective.
Markets and ICT
Every producers dream is to enjoy a sustainable ever demanding market scenario. In the wake of new ICT playing a crucial role, traditional perceptions of market has changed significantly. There are unbound possibilities led by Globalization - in shrinking supply and value chains that result in emerging additional share of the pie that can be routed to the producer; in establishing connection that is humane and individualistic due to the vast experience of narrative and story telling techniques used via internet; in opening of whole new market through specific communities via game space, blog space etc., We live in the era of possibilities which weigh far superior compared to the challenges that exist. The weapons to put these activities in place have more to do with enhanced process efficiency driven by a dedicated team of people chosen from the local community and external world with divergent skill sets. Research and studies by Chris Anderson (http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/) show that the niche` market sales sometime outweigh the hit market sales. Process leads to institutional frameworks therefore sustainability and a way of wealth creation. Clearly there is hope in future due to these findings especially from development perspective for ICT enabled activities.
Product possibility waiting to be reaped
Sometimes existing problems also show solutions in special situations. The same agriculture failure led to availability of a base of human resource in the form of young men and women who took to embroidery work thanks to the effort of a yester year NGO in the village of Moosapet. It spread like wild fire in several surrounding villages. Their dedication towards embroidery comes partly because of the spare time that has become available and also because of a need for money. Most villages with a twelve to fifteen hundred populations have about 20 to 50 young men and women engaged in embroidery work today. Ironically they have become partial bread winners for their families currently. They have no access to any formal market except extended family, friends and friends of friends so far. Occasional sale of their products to outside people helped them recognize that they have a marketable skill in hand. However, the challenge in their opinion has been lack of exposure to innovative designs that was limiting their product from moving to a high value market range.
The IDEA, “rural e.vyapaar” enabled sustainable rural livelihoods.
Funding is sought for the first phase of project being proposed. Total project period is three years and three phases.
Phase I
First phase will be completed in the first year. First phase covers following specific activities. To create an e-commerce website “rural e.vyapaar” as a platform to establish a market space for the niche` market producers from the villages, to facilitate linking communities with industry, markets, and other agencies for trade support, to set up a digital platform in the villages to facilitate trade, and to establish a research centre in the village as a hub for commerce, learning and welfare activities.
“rural e.vyapaar” initially will house embroidery work from the villages since the skill and human resource exists right away. An activity like embroidery does not leave effluents into the environment and also can be achieved at a house hold level. This unique advantage makes it desirable, and with necessary support mechanisms in design development, marketing and financial management, it could grow like a Pochampalli or a Kalamkari industry but without any environmental pollution.
In order to help them position themselves in the market driven economy and gain meaningful livelihood skills, clearly three needs are identified by and for the embroidery group.
· Togetherness and collective action for making economic sense and scale of operations.
· Exposure and training in product related aspects.
· Preservation and restoration specific to art and culture.
Web solution strategy covers 2 layers, the backend and front end. The backend covers appropriate software solutions. Initially existing open source software solutions will be used to avoid cost implications and also test out functionality aspects. Software solution development can take place based on the complexity, security, privacy and copyright issues, if a demand is perceived at later stage. The front end will concentrate on product line descriptions with visuals, narratives, stories of people in villages, invitations for volunteer designers and other professionals and financial transaction modes. This web space will be used to develop a blog space, a digital space, a design space and a transaction space for the purposes of creating specialized communities of buyers, designers and well wishers of the initiative. The website design will be based on consumers need and will be user friendly.
Electronic usage will not be constrained to supply chain management. All aspects of business electronically from advertising and marketing, through to sales, ordering, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, after sales support, and replenishment of inventory will be incorporated in the product life cycle as far as possible.
External support will be sought in design development and marketing of the product till communities are equipped with necessary capabilities for performance as well as identification and engaging consultants as they deem fit. Personalized and web based marketing efforts will be combined in the initial stages of creating market position for the products. Additionally, to be able to make this whole effort manageable, fast reaping, “rural e.vyapaar” project will target specific internet communities like corporate communities through their intranet services and otherwise web browsers. While emotion will be used as a means to connect up buyers and sellers and as binder, emotional selling will not be sought as a strategy. Professional development of the people and their skill as a long term business strategy will be concentrated upon.
COW integration with “rural e.vyapaar” will be to facilitate process efficiency for e-commerce transaction through electronic and non-electronic mediums, on the other side it shall initiate welfare services catering to the communities’ inclination. COW experience has shown that education and health services are the needs of these specific communities. It is hoped that beginning of economic development shall create an opportunity to undertake information enabled development activities like education and health services to the participating communities.
A research and development centre will be set up in one of the villages for streamlining the process and knowledge integration. The R& D centre will work with craft community giving individual people tools to think with, build with, form sub communities with, and then enabling them make their own knowledge and information goods, either individually or through peer production models. There is clearly a need to set up a place that serves the needs of men and women in this activity. The idea is to set up a center that works as a common community space of shared goals, which belongs to all involved in the activity of self-reliance. This has to be independent of their caste and community hierarchy. The center should be a space of meeting, sharing knowledge, innovation and ideation. This collectivism it is hoped will move them towards independence in thought and action and better standard of life, which they can attain, by tapping into their enhanced creativity and skill. The center will be become a hub for product related research, resource material development, design development, packaging, logistic planning etc., In the long run it is hoped that the center will also be a hub for developmental activities identified by the embroidery group.
After careful deliberations together with the embroidery group, it was felt there is a need to ensure that the women are independent decision makers who can cater to a market of their choice. This surely requires training in product design and marketing. It is proposed to engage a consultant designer to help create exclusive marketable range of products, to identify and analyze skill levels and conduct appropriate training for up gradation of their skill level to match market needs. The consultant will also provide materials like Training Manuals, information on Internet links and engage in other resource building activities like creating a network of designers for the women to access. A group of academicians or an Institution will be engaged to equip the villagers with all aspects of operations management at the organizational level. They will guide the entrepreneurs to identify and access markets, network with other clusters of initiatives and markets.
There is an unstated goal that requires to be mentioned at this juncture. It is observed that in majority of the spears connected to rural life, every time there is loss of culture it impacts economic situation directly or indirectly. In the context of design and art, it is worthwhile mentioning that due to the penetration of consumerism in to all nooks and corners of India including rural areas, traditional patterns and designs are getting lost rapidly as there is no room of nurturing culture and culture embedded design. For example, the traditional colors that were used in the villages are no more found. Casual enquiries reveal that the kinds of colors and patterns used in design by mothers and grandmothers are replaced by very common town prototypes of contemporary nature. However, in the high value range one often finds that the so called “ethnic patterns and colors” that are often found in export markets are none other than the traditional ones. It is worthwhile opening the eyes of the embroidery group to this reality and engage them in their intellectual sphere to work towards creating a statement of purpose for preservation in the area of design.
Effort will be made to link this effort with an academic institution for guiding the “rural e.vyapaar” community with all aspects of operations at the organizational level. The institution will guide them through creating manuals and reference library for all business related aspects.
Phase II
Phase two will be year two and will be consolidating and establishing product line outside the embroidery work. This phase will do the initial exploration for defining appropriate institutional framework for the initiative across for profit, not for profit and cooperative domains. If software design development is required, it will be initiated in this phase.
Phase III
Phase three will be year three and will be in helping set up the institutional framework by the community and gradual withdrawal of ViDAL’s direct intervention from the project activity. However, ViDAL will continue to be available for support if the communities desire so.
