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Warana Unwired
Kentaro Toyama
Assistant Managing Director
Microsoft Research India
Based on work with Rajesh Veeraraghavan
TCS Excellence in Computer Science
January 9, 2008 ± Pune, India
With an Examination of Rural PC Kiosks
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People
Lead Researcher ± Rajesh Veeraraghavan
Collaborators ± Kentaro Toyama ± Ken Keniston (MIT) ± Vibhore Goyal ± Sean Blagsvedt ± Nimmi Rangaswamy
Interns ± Naga Yasodhar (Cognizant) ± Renee Kuriyan (UC Berkeley) ± Savita Bailur (London School
of Economics)
Rajesh visiting a farmer¶s family in Warana
Photo: Rajesh Veeraraghavan
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Rural Kiosks
Definition (for the purposesof this presentation):
± Rural center with PC as thefocus of services
± Typically run as a smallenterprise
± Socio-economicimprovement as a goal Photo: Kentaro Toyama
ITC e-Choupal kiosk in Kodia, Madhya Pradesh
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Rural Kiosks
A ³bouquet of services´ to generate value and revenue
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Data sources:
± Extensive kiosk surveys 300 kiosks, 1 year so far, 4
times each, 5 customers, 1operator per kiosk
± Ethnographic studies Longitudinal kiosk life-cycle
± In-depth interviews with kioskagencies
At least six organizations
± Over 30 site visits in India
and Africa ± Discussions with third-partyobservers
± Literature in journals, books,web sites, whitepapers
Methodology
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Projects examined:
± n-Logue (Tamil Nadu) ± Drishtee (North India) ± ITC e-choupal (Madhya
Pradesh) ± TARAhaat (Uttar Pradesh) ± MSSRF (Pondicherry) ± Dhan / SARI (Tamil Nadu) ± Akshaya (Kerala) ± World Corps (Andhra Pradesh)
± Bhoomi / Comat (Karnataka) ± Rural e-Seva (AndhraPradesh)
± Warana WDV (Maharashtra) ± Datamation (Delhi) ± Etc.
Methodology
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Srinivasan, Janaki (2004)The Effects of e-Governance Implementation on Women:
A Study of the Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) Project, Madurai.Masters Thesis, Indian Institute of Information Technology.
Kiosk in Tamil Nadu
Kiosk Business a Challenge
Rural kiosk in Tamil Nadu
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12-year-old boy taking typing lessons in Retawadi, Maharashtra
Vigyan Ashram monthly report (Nov 2004)
Kiosk Business a ChallengePhoto: Kentaro Toyama
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Proud father of printshop and kiosk owner in Sirsa, Haryana
Private e-mail communication
Kiosk Business a ChallengePhoto: Kentaro Toyama
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Various published articles
Sustainability is nearly impossible!
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Difficult to Break Even
Dhawan, Vivek (2004)
Critical Success Factors for Rural ICT Projects in India,Masters Thesis, IIT-Bombay
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Even surviving kiosks are
supported by other business
6
In Rs.
gri
abour
usiness ar ing ovt ob etty
trader
vt ob etired hop
o ner
orking
student
nski ed
abour
MONTHLY HOUSEHOLD INCOME vs. KIOSK INCOME
onthy Househod n o e
iosk n o e
Microsoft kiosk survey (2005)
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Over 0% of population earn livingthrough agriculture
Mostly small and marginal farmerswith 1-3 acres of land
Typical income of <$2 per day
Agriculture in India
Photos: Rajesh Veeraraghavan
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Warana is withinKolhapur district, Maharashtra
Warana, Maharashtra, is a
subdistrict of Kolhapur (second
wealthiest rural district in India)
Sugarcane cooperatives and
refineries
first one in 1959
now numbering 25
Warana Nagar
Tatyasaheb Kore (1914-1994)
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Warana¶s main cooperative: 75 villages 50000 farmers 25,000km2
1998: Asia¶s first projectto ³Bridge the Digital Divide´
54 PC kiosks in 54 villages
Cost: Rs.2.5 crores(US$ 25,000)
50% central gov·t
40% state gov·t
10% cooperative
³Warana Wired Village Project´
Warana sugarcane processing plant
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Factory
FTP
PC
WaranaFarmer DB
Standard PCnetwork
Weigh stations
Landline phone
PC enabledKiosks
³Warana Wired Village Project´
WWVP technical infrastructure
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Bring Warana Nagar on NICNET [and Internet]
Create database of villagers on various socio-economic aspects
Provide Tele-education to both Primary and igher EducationalInstitutes
Facilities such as remote health service (tele-medicine), publicgrievances and redressal will be provided through this booth
Provide following facilities:- Computer based education- Open University access (IGNOU)
Original Goals of WWVPhttp://www.mah.nic.in/warana/#About Wired Villages
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Summer, 2005: two months
Participant observation Structured interviews
± 200 farmers (users andnon-users)
± 15 kiosk operators ± 3 cooperative leaders ± 5 cooperative staff
Technical analysis Survey
± 47 kiosks ± Self-reported usagestatistics
± Kiosk logging
One all-hands meeting of kiosk operators
Ethnography and Data Collection
Joint work with Ken Keniston
Interviewing in the field
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Bring Warana Nagar on NICNET [and Internet]
Create database of villagers on various socio-economic aspects
Provide Tele-education to both Primary and igher EducationalInstitutes
Facilities such as remote health service (tele-medicine), publicgrievances and redressal will be provided through this booth
Provide following facilities:- Computer based education- Open University access (IGNOU)
Were goals being met?
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Why not«?
Technology ± No local language interface
Plans to localize exceeded budget
± Connectivity poor Dial-up, no more than 10kbps
Round-trip time for data still two days
Infrastructural ± Centers not designed for students, patients, etc.
Social / political / economic
± Lack of budget to fulfill expectations ± Farmers¶ awareness of PC function limited ± Farmers¶ need for Internet/multimedia functionality limited
Interest in PC and Internet existed, however
± Lack of training and qualified trainers
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Internal account MIS:
Register land
Issue harvesting permits
Sell fertilizer through credit
Query quantity of sugarcane
harvested
± 10 times a year for farmer
± Small matrix of numerical data
Actual Use
WWVP village PC kiosk
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High maintenance cost ± At any time, a few in disrepair
Intermittent power
Network flakey ± Low-quality dial-up
PC not optimally used
Cooperative considering discontinuation of system
Mounting Challenges
PCs not in best condition
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Can we preserve the functionality of the
existing PC-based system while making the entire system cheaper and more
effective?
The Design Problem
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Warana U nwired!
SMS-enabledmobile phones
PC-based kiosks
Warana«
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Factory
FTP
PC
WaranaFarmer DB
Standard PCnetwork
Weigh stations
Landline phone
PC-enabledkiosks
Original PC-Based Set-Up
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GSM/CDMA
SMS network
Factory
PC
WaranaFarmer DB
Standard PCnetwork
Weigh stations
SMS-enabledphones
New Mobile-Based Set-Up
SMS
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Pilot Experiment
Implementation
Begun October 200 ± Naga spent 1.5 months at location
SMS Server implemented at processing
center ± Based on SMS Server Toolkit [Goyaland Blagsvedt]
7 pilot villages and 7 kiosks ± PC-based system left in place, but
kiosk operators asked to use only if necessary
Under auspices of cooperative¶s managingdirector
Involved IT manager at WWVP
Questions
Technical: Can SMS-based systembe implemented in thisenvironment?
Usability: Is SMS a viable mediumfor farmers?
Social: Will farmers transition touse? Inhibiting factors?
Financial: What are actual costs of system?
Other: Any adverse impacts?
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Software logs of« ± SMS Server ± Central database
Survey of kiosks ± 7 pilot (mobile) ± 7 non-pilot (PC)
Interviews with kiosk operators
Interviews with farmers
Data Collected
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Implementation and Usage
System required one month of tweaking in field to customize.
Running continuously since October 200 . ± 24-hour access
SMS Server requires reboot once a month.
1238 unique farmer requests served in first three months. ± Slightly more than expected number, based on statistics from PC-based
system
80% of requests are about sugarcane output.
Response time is generally on order of seconds.
Results
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WaranaWarana UnwiredUnwired± ± Estimated Cost SavingsEstimated Cost Savings
System Cost/Farmer /Year (INR)
New PCSystem
394
SMS Mobile(kiosks)
159
SMS Mobile(withoutkiosks)
111
GPRS (nokiosks / SMS
discount)
91
Current system
Potential savings: 1 million
Rupees per year, over 54
villages ($25,000)
Costs
Achievable with GPRS or with
SMS discounts
$30 000 savin s er ear
Annual cost of PC system
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Other Issues
Good
Advantage of mobiles ± Mobility
± Battery power ± Fast, 24-hour access
± Potential democratizationof access
Bad ± SMS not suitable for all
queries or data
Land registration not
implemented via SMS ± Data-availability dependent
on server
± Minor error rates (3.2%)due to SMS unavailability
In all cases, a repeatquery solved the problem.
± Per-SMS cost accrues tofarmer
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Qualitative ResultsQualitative Results ± ± Solution Truly MobileSolution Truly Mobile
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Farmer from Satve village (one of pilots)
Initial disbelief turns to excitement:
³The information is exact and it is very good.´
Farmer from Angali village (not in pilot)
³I saw messages are coming on the mobile phone.There is no problem. So where is the question of success? Let us have it, also.´
Farmer Responses
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Outline: Warana Unwired
Rural PC Kiosks
Warana Background
Initial Ethnography
The Intervention
Results
Discussion
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Related Work
Rural kiosks ± Heeks, 1999
± Jhunjhunwala, 2000 ± Keniston, 2002 ± Roman, 2003 ± Pal et al., 2004 ± Kumar, 2004 ± Toyama et al., 2004 ± Nedevschi et al., 2005
± Srinivasan, 2005 ± Kuriyan et al., 200 ± Rajalekshmi, 200 ± Ali and Bailur, 2007 ± Bailur, 2007 ± Etc.
ICT for agriculture ± eSagu
± e-Choupal ± aAQUA
Advantage of mobile phones ± Duncombe & Heeks, 1999 ± Donner, 2005 ± T he Economist , 2005 (³The Real
Digital Divide´) ± Jensen, 2007
SMS-based solutions ± Banks 2005 ± Goyal & Blagsvedt, 2005
Veeraraghavan, R., N. Yasodhar, K. Toyama. Warana Unwired: Replacing PCs with MobilePhones in a Rural Sugarcane Cooperative, in Proc. IEEE/ACM Int¶l Conf on Informationand Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2007), 2007.
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To our knowledge, Warana Unwired is the first project to replace anexisting ICT4D PC-based network with a mobile-based system.
Expensive many-PC system replaced with an affordable single-PC
system
Is this development?
± Minor impact on farmers¶ lives (e.g., savings of $10 per year)
± Cost savings to sugarcane cooperative (e.g., $25,000 per year)
Shouldn¶t overstate case for mobile phones
Future work: Simple IT systems for agriculture cooperatives
Discussion
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Thank you!http://research.microsoft.com/~rajeshv/warana.htm
[email protected] ; [email protected]
Photo: Rajesh Veeraraghavan
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