Prototyping a Scalable Smart Village (B)

Abstract

This case focuses on the development of Smart Villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP), India. The case study allows students to consider how to overcome economic, cultural and political obstacles in order to engage in Open Innovation that inevitably leads to wealth creation and greater happiness. The directors of Smart Villages must find a way to encourage investment and effect a cultural shift while navigating deeply entrenched but ineffective present systems.

This case was prepared for inclusion in Sage Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial purposes.

2024 Sage Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Resources

Exhibit 1: Organizational Chart

Figure

Source: Darwin, S.

Exhibit 2: Village Footprints

Exhibit 3: Village Digital Mall Cash Flow

Figure

Source: Village Digital Mall

Exhibit 4: Income Satisfaction by Age Group

Figure
Methodology

Income satisfaction was measured on a 5 point Likert scale with 1 being strongly dissatisfied and 5 being strongly satisfied.

Data comes from a conducted survey among over 1,000 small family businesses in Andhra Pradesh, India to research how digital transformation affects micro-sized entrepreneurship in rural India.

In the course of an Open Innovation seminar, Jonas Soluk already presented his preliminary outcomes to Henry Chesbrough and other research fellows at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. A paper by Jonas Soluk (WHU), Nadine Kammerlander (WHU) and Solomon Darwin (UC Berkeley) will be finalized later in 2018.

Source: Darwin, S., Smart Villages Movement

Exhibit 5: Mori Village Initiative Outcomes

  • Community involvement—1700 villagers visited the Co-Innovation Lab to share feedback over three prototyping phases.
  • Villagers became the experts. After getting acclimated to the new technologies that were introduced, the villagers quickly learned to use each new technology to its greatest advantage. End users (villagers) quickly began offering valuable feedback about their needs and how the technology could meet them.
  • Created franchises through access to outside firms
    • Cygni Solar Corporation made it possible for an ambitious young entrepreneur to establish and market a solar energy-based company.
    • A shrimp farmer adopted sensor technology through the cFog company to monitor present and future chemical balance and temperature among an array of parameters that keep his ponds healthy and shrimp production thriving.
    • StoreKing increased the profit margin for a storekeeper who now orders materials and sells on line using Paytm, SBI, Buday and a swipe machine to make payments.
  • Business expansion through access to finance for textile, weavers. A shop working with textiles, especially hand woven saris, now displays its wares on the internet and purchases can be made electronically. The middleman was eliminated, costs were lowered and profits jumped.
  • Online project sale set-up. Connectivity established with public-private partnerships brings powerful, indispensable commercial opportunities via advertising, attracting a customer base and, importantly, fast, reliable methods of payments for orders. Google Free Space Optics installation allows households, rich or poor, to access the internet. Television, Wi-Fi, landline services, mobile phones and laptops are now available at an affordable cost. Villagers can now apply for jobs online and access Facebook, Whatsapp, video calling, and power billing. It is a significant communications breakthrough. Test marketing of hand loomed saris attracted tenfold more sales.
  • Access to global markets through Potential.com where would-be village entrepreneurs learn about the tools and methodologies to deliver optimum business objectives. Potential.com coaches them on the best practices and offers guidance on how to see beyond the bottom line in order to survive business boom and bust cycles.
  • Access to Snapdeal, one of the largest online market places in India for online purchases of millions of products.
  • Market acceptability. 400+ Mori Handloom saris sold through test marketing.
  • Expanding Mori cashew business
    • Changed process and distribution channels for cashew processors. Increased output from 50 kg/week to 500 kg/week
    • Added two more distribution channels over two months
  • Job training center. Hella Technician Academy: 25 trained; 19 job placements; 2nd batch in progress.
  • Established 5 Centers across different disciplines
    • Tele-health Training Center—Empowering health workers with digital technology
    • Farmer Training Center—Empowering farmers through digital training
    • Automotive Training Center—To create new jobs in rural villages
    • Solar Micro-grid—To generate new revenues for Mori village and the state
    • Smart Village Accelerators—To generate entrepreneurs already established

Source: Darwin, S.

Exhibit 6: Corporate Partners

List of Firms Participating in the Smart Villages Project

Company

Value Proposition

Activity

GoogleX

Free space optics fiber internet connectivity for regions disconnected to lay cables

Piloted across Godavari River

New Sun Road

White space technology to get internet to villages

Waiting for permissions to pilot

Agrinos

Highly effective ‘Green Biofermentation Technology’ products with unique Plant Growth Promoting Microbes and Biostimulants to deliver greater crop yields and crop quality.

Piloted in Chittoor—100 Acres in West Godavari and Srikakulum

BigHaat

India’s largest one stop digital store for agriculture inputs to facilitate accessibility for quality products and knowledge.

Piloted in all 5 districts, onboarding farmers

cFog

Integrated approach to aqua farming using IoT sensors, machine learning and predictive analysis to provide actionable insights to increase shrimp yield.

Conducting awareness meetings for aqua farmers in Kaikaluru and Undi constituencies.

Drona Maps

Landscape 3D Mapping with Drone and Blockchain Technology

Piloted in E.G for Polavaram Rehabilitation project and Pallapalem 3D mapping.

Kalgudi

Open Agriculture Platform to offer needed information, advice, market access and increased yields for farmers.

Educated farmers across 5 constituencies on Digital tools in Agriculture.

Ketos

Provides farmers with real-time, actionable data on water usage, pressure and quality/safety through remote, continuous automated smart monitoring.

Piloted at 16 sites across the state.

WeFarm

Sharing vital information for farmers to improve lives without access to the internet.

Wefarm will be ready in couple of months

Ripe.io/StatWig

Provide full food supply chain transparency with block chain technology.

Finding best usecase to pivot

Ecozen

On-farm solar powered cold storage provider to offer farmers cold storage capacity on demand on rental base.

Innovation business models for fishes & shrimps. Testing usecase for Tomatoes in Chittoor

Statwig

Using Internet-of-things (IoT) and Block-chain technology to provide real-time tamper-proof end-to-end tracking that identifies problems and inefficiencies agriculture supply chain.

Antervedipalem usecase to be piloted soon.

Thanos

Introducing Drone technology for agricultural purposes such as spraying pesticides, to increase yields and address labor dependency. Non-Paddy.

Showcased demo in 3 districts. Working to showcase in 2 more districts

FarmX

Precision Agriculture solutions to optimize farmers yield by rich data analytics in farm management.

Pitched to govt on the usecase

R Tech Engineering

Innovative certified tree climbing solution to empower coconut industry.

Conducted Coconut farmers meet in East and West Godavari Districts, Few of them are interested to buy the device, if subsidy is provided.

Plantix

AI-Driven Mobile Crop Advisory Application which can diagnose plant diseases, pest and nutrient deficiencies.

Piloted and educated farmers across 5 districts

Ericsson

Connected Aquaponics and Water Grid Management IoT solutions to improve farmers yield and to optimize water distribution.

Piloted the aquaponics in Mori Village

Trringo

Revolutionary tractor and farm equipment rental business making farm mechanization accessible, affordable and reachable to every farmer.

Trringo to pilot with us in couple of months.

Ceres imaging

Spectral imagery technology to provide data for yield estimation and precision farming.

Exploring ways to involve and find best usecase

Orbital Sidekick

Hyper spectral imagery technology to provide data for yield estimation and precision farming.

Exploring ways to involve and find best usecase

Ninjacart

India’s leading Agri Marketing platform connecting farmers directly with businesses through smart supply chain.

ninjacart to pilot with us in couple of months.

Paper Boat

Juice company using local farmer supply to provide authentic, indigenous and traditional beverages.

Worked on the use case for procurement.

MIT sprayer

Solution developed in MIT labs that enhances usage of pesticide reducing the consumption of pesticides and soil pollution

Trying to pilot in July

Licious

Licious is one-stop fresh meat delivery shop with access to Chicken, Lamb, Seafood (Fish, Prawns, Crabs), Marinades & Cold Cuts. Fresh fish platform

Piloted with 10 fishermen in EG

PayPal-Village Digital Mall

Providing a virtual digital mall solution for villagers and farmers to display their products to access new markets and customers.

Onboarded Lepakshi, APCO and Girijan Products, Dry runs done. Partnered Logistics company

SAP

Providing access to national markets by connecting Entrepreneurs to the largest b2b tradeplatform and enabling rural sourcing transparency.

Searching for usecases for the right fit

StoreKing

Transforming already existing small stores to digital access points for rural India.

Piloted across 5 districts with more than 200 outlets

LinQ

Providing access to e-commerce services for villagers.

Piloted 17 stores across 5 districts

Shotput

Simplifying commerce and logistics with hi-tech operations.

Piloted in Mori village

Wehelio

Information Centers providing access to rural people for information and online services to conduct business transactions.

Piloted in Srikakulum. Needs publicity

Lal10

E-commerce platform to sell authentic handicraft products from India.

Studied all handicrafts & handloom items across 5 districts

Sahaj

One stop information center for financial inclusion, financial services, customer service and skill development.

Piloted in E.G. Centers running well

Learn on mobile

Education Tool to teach English with real time monitoring functionality.

Piloted in 5 Schools across 5 constituencies, consisting of 82 students. 74 Amazon fire tablets were distributed among these 5 schools.

Guru G

Providing teacher a framework to better structure lectures and curriculum to uplift teaching quality.

Piloted in 2 schools from East and Chittoor districts, feedback has been collected from 4 teachers.

Online Tyari

Online Curriculum to prepare aspiring students for Government Jobs.

Piloted this application with 122 aspirants in 5 districts

Choice Solution

Digitization of the relationship between schools and parents with a transparent accountable monitoring system.

Did pilot in East, West, and Chittoor, Many of the schools find it difficult to upload the details in app. It is not showing much progress. Feedback was that this type of application is not suitable for Rural set up

Cosine Labs

Providing certified treatment and diagnosis to the villagers at their door steps by linking RMPs with professional doctors. Powered by GE, Philips and Medal.

Ecosystem of health service providers has been developed and MoUs signed with all the players.

Health cubed

Innovative portable device to perform 30 basic diagnosis to assist healthworkers and doctors when treating villagers at their homes.

Discussed with Chittoor District Collector and ready to provide services in Chittoor District.

Med Tel Integrate in Healthcare Ecosystem

Health portal providing telemedicine services to rural populations.

Launched one Health Service Center in Srikakulam.

A3 RMT

Health ATM, through which patient can consult a doctor and few diagnosis also can be done.

Piloted in 5 Villages with Nurses and ECG device

Care Hospitals

Creating value to patients in rural areas based on Public-Private-Partnerships with local hospitals.

Piloted with A3. Telemedicine platform to consult patients

Yolo Health

Building next generation virtual healthcare technologies enabling virtual care delivery, remote patient monitoring and improving access to healthcare.

Automated Health Screening. Doctor Consultation, Instant prescription generation and medicines dispatch.

Tech Mahindra (Hygge)

Smart Energy Micro Grid Systems for Village to improve reliability and quality of power supply.

MoU signed with the state to establish this in Mori Village.

SeaB Energy

Modular easily configurable and scalable waste management systems to address bio waste to provide energy, fertilizer and bio gas in return.

Raising funds – Gates Foundation, Fundraiser and MLAs

Kaneka

Transforming every household and farm into renewable energy producer and user by providing high quality solar solutions without up-front investment.

Exploring collaborations

New Sun Road

Modifying energy flow through cloud based Smart Micro-grid platform to facilitate integration of renewable energy and to provide stable and reliable energy without redesigning the infrastructure.

In talks to pilot the white space technology in villages for internet

Zero Mass Water

Uses solar energy to produce drinking water from Air

Piloting in Kuppam

Cygni

Providing off grid DC Solar solutions for households.

Provides inverterless DC solar system consists off the following:

  • Solar Panel
  • Li-ion battery
  • DC bulbs-2
  • DC Tube light
  • DC Fan
  • Power Socket.

Wipro

Unique provider of micro loans starting from Rs 1000 per day with 32 times less transaction costs. Reducing time and costs to get loans by offering this in village general stores.

Submitted the Micropayments and SHG Blockchain model

IDFC

Payment solution to pay cashless with biometric authentication in rural shops.

Selected 22 members – E. G. Srikakulum

SBI

Providing loans to Entrepreneurs for kick starting their businesses.

SBI working with us for Mudra Loans.

tyco

Surveillance via CCTV cameras to improve safety and security of public.

Piloted in Mori Village (70% village covered). 5 CC cameras with monitoring system installed worth 5 lakh rupees.

India Stack/Village Stack

Bringing India’s population into the digital age by establishing presence-less, paperless and cashless service delivery.

World Bank

Fighting poverty through sustainable solutions to provide interest free loans and grants to government for capital programs.

The following list reflects programs initiated for rural skill development offered by private sector companies. Five Professional Development Centers were established to offer such courses.

The Professional Development Center

Company

Value Proposition

Hella

Automotive Technician Training to facilitate job placements at OEM service centers, which enhances the income level of employed youth by above Rs.10,000.

OSSS

Enhancing technical Professionals (ITI – Diploma) with vocational training for growing demand in construction and manufacturing in the state & country.

USHA

Facilitating Skill Development on Tailoring & Certification with a go-to market plan. Specific training on e-commerce and design trends helps to increase income for women in rural Andhra Pradesh.

Atom

Providing training on basic programming such as Python and Java.

Collabera

Providing training on programming and app development to build IT professionals on IOT & BIG DATA for future jobs by giving tools & global exposure.

IBM

Educating on revolutionary technologies like AI & Block Chain for technology driven market demands.

Dell

Training rural Entrepreneurs on repairing computer components and maintenance to equip youth with advanced level of hardware servicing, maintenance and repairing skills.

Hitachi & Johnson Controls

Tyco & Hitachi together bring a collaborative training program on maintenance & servicing of security cameras, Electronics and Air conditioners. Creating better livelihood by upskilling youth in AC repair and electronic devices.

Ambuja Neotica

Training skills for affordable and better quality home construction with new innovative methods to foster Entrepreneurship and giving villagers access to affordable housing.

Global 3D

Training on 3D printing technology for future employment needs and opportunities in new and upcoming markets.

BigHaat/Plantix Workshops

Training on different crops and modern agricultural technologies to let farmers learn and use relevant available technologies and techniques.

Creya

Giving a competitive edge to rural professionals in the market by complementing skill development courses through Design Thinking.

Agrinos

Training on yield improvement using organic bio fertilizer technology to increase farmers’ income.

Hero Motors

Two-Wheeler mechanical training for unemployed youth in rural areas to generate professional workforce skilled in two wheeler mechanics.

C Fog

Teaching installation, servicing and maintenance for IoT related technology solutions.

Tech Mahindra

Saral Rozgar platform facilitates blue collar job placement for unemployed youth. Connecting blue collar job seekers with employers by bridging information gap.

Care Hospitals

Training in primary healthcare practices & Introducing high quality medical services by skilling and reskilling local health workers in technology.

Apollo Hospitals

Making medical facilities available at local PHC or other existing facilities. Increasing the healthier living and maintaining living standards through ongoing education programs.

Source: Darwin, S.

Exhibit 7: The World Bank

The World Bank is an international organization that helps emerging market countries reduce poverty by providing low-interest loans, interest-free credit, and grants to improving education, health, and infrastructure. It also uses funds to modernize a country’s agriculture, natural resources management and to modernize a country’s financial sector.

The World Bank functions as an organization of 189 member nations that share ownership. The objective is to fight poverty by offering developmental assistance to middle-income and low-income countries.

The World Bank Group set two goals for the world to achieve by 2030: End extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 a day to no more than 3%. And, promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40% for every country.

Source: http://www.worldbank.org/

Exhibit 8: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an international organization that works with partners to tackle critical problems in developing countries in several program areas. The Gates Foundation’s goals and efforts are to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.

The Gates Foundation’s Global Health Division aims to reduce inequities in health by developing new tools and strategies to reduce the burden of infectious disease and the leading causes of child mortality in developing countries.

The Gates Foundation’s Global Development Division aims to improve delivery of high-impact health products and services to the world’s poorest communities. The Cloud Doctor initiative is an example of a high-impact solution that can support this goal and give the local population the opportunity to lead healthy, productive lives.

The Gates Foundation promotes global growth and opportunity, creating and scaling market-based innovations to stimulate inclusive and sustainable economic growth. People are poor because markets don’t work for them. Gates promotes innovative products and policies that break down barriers to economic opportunity, help people lift themselves out of poverty, and deliver sustainable and inclusive growth.

The Gates Foundation’s Global Policy & Advocacy Division builds strategic relationships and promotes policies that help to advance its work. The Foundation promotes innovative products and policies that break down barriers to economic opportunity, help people lift themselves out of poverty, and deliver sustainable and inclusive growth that benefits everyone.

In India, the Gates Foundation has a strong focus on innovations that can transform the agriculture ecosystem and allow it to grow and prosper. Agriculture is a source of livelihood for a large number of people in India. Agricultural advancements have the potential to simultaneously relieve poverty and malnutrition.

Source: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

This case was prepared for inclusion in Sage Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial purposes.

2024 Sage Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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