Serving Mankind, Smartly !!!

Connecting BoP
through

Local SMS Community

Newsletter
Let us be clear…
Half-educated, unemployed youth, with
no prospect of being integrated into a
better future is a prescription for
disaster.
If young people do not have a stake in
the existing social order and political
order, if they do not feel there is a
way for them, why should they
sacrifice today for a better tomorrow?
Why should they have an interest in
protecting the stability and social
safety of that system?
Ismail Serageldin, Vice President,
Therefore this project is designed for
…
 School-college dropped outs
 Opportunity less – street wanderer
 Socio-politically sadden youths
 Financially backwards youths

… to promote social entrepreneurship

in them & help them gain social
prestige and enough m o n e y for
livelihood.
Introducing….

Local SMS Community

Newsletter

Winner of
 Youth Employment Summit Award - 2008 by
Clinton Global Initiative & Microsoft Unlimited
Potential Program
 Manthan Award - 2007 for best e-Content in India

A social entrepreneurship project by

Ravi Ghate
 …Mobile…
 This word has changed the entire communication
scenario of the World.

 In India, mobile brought the communication

revolution so suddenly that nearly 29 Crores of
Indian Population is now connected!!!

 Right from street hawkers to businessmen every

one is connected.

 And Indian Government is expecting around 50

Crores of Mobile users by 2010.

 This will definitely result in very high number of

SMSs
 …Figures and my perspective…

 As every Mobile operator is busy adding their

own users, why not unite all the users of all
the operators under a single umbrella?

 Why not create Location based

Integrated, Interconnected, Interactive
Local Community?

 Why not establish a Media of these affiliated

communities cooperatively?

 Why not distribute the Power of Media

amongst the Self employed youths of India?
 …My Idea…
 A self employed youth running a Free SMS
newsletter for the local community
(Local community consisting of 1000 mobile users
as members).

 He will send Social as well as Promotional SMS

to serve the community.

 Citizens will be updated free of cost.

 He will earn around Rs. 6-10 Thousand every

month.

(RESULT : 300 communities are working successfully in 21 districts)

 Definition
It’s a
Location based
Citizen centric
Information & knowledge focused
Update & alert service through
SMS
Which is free for the members
And which is run by a
local – social entrepreneur
 Why LoCo
 To develop citizens own local-micro media
 To amplify citizens voice
 To bring them together under a single
umbrella to encourage their participation
 To update citizens with all latest local
happenings on various fronts like social,
political, governmental information
 To enhance affection and oneness in the
members
 To empower local school-college dropouts
A : 18 Cr A: 10 Cr
B: at home
C: 2-4 Ch
Why SMS as media B: Home-off
C:10 papers
D: Audio D: paper
Vanishes Vanishes
E: City/ E: City-Rural
District Separate edition

A : 29 Cr
B: Always with U
C: 1 message
D: SMS gets stored
E: Micro Location based

A : 15 Cr A: 3 Cr
B: at home B: at office
C:100 + Ch C: unltd websites
D: Picture D: News
A= Penetration
Vanishes B= Availability
Changes
E: TV-State C= Options E: City, Special
/Cable TV -City D= Visibility area-cause
E: Coverage
LoCo Memberships

Students

Farmers
Citizens

Co-op Sector

Politicians

Businessmen

Women SHG

NGOs, Social Workers

Artisans, Professionals, Workers

1000 members from above categories

LoCo Members in different
roles
Human
Beings
Product/Service
Citizens
Providers

Members in
different roles
Professionals Voters

Beneficiaries Buyers
 Operations
Considering different roles of citizens, different
SMS are sent to the community members

Types of SMS send

4. Social
5. Promotional

Ratio
1:4 = 1 Social= 4 Promotional

No bombarding of SMS
We send only 1 SMS per week.
Maximum 5 promotional SMS per month
Annually maximum 60 SMS
 SMSing is King !
 Voter Awareness, RTI
 Local News
 Birthday Wishes to all members
 Local happenings like cultural programs, lectures, stage shows,
Ganeshotsava, Navratri shows, programs on National Days etc.
 Water & Power shutdowns & due dates,Telephone bills due dates
 Municipal taxes & due dates
 Road/Traffic congestion/ Road closures
 Local/Municipal/Sate Government /Indian Government important
announcements
 Local Social activities like … Eye Testing,
Health checkups & different camps
• Political
 Climate changing alerts • Co-operative
 Local Police important instructions • Commercial
 Emergency medical services like Blood Wanted etc. • Social
• Government
al
 …Self-sustainability…
 Every Self employed youth take care of his Local
SMS community. So he knows how many
promotional messages to be send against
every social message. He will recover the free
social messaging cost by sending promotional
SMS. And he never could be in loss.

 Entire money collected @ Rs. 1 to Rs. 5 per SMS

would be the profit of the young man.

 What other source can give him this much money

on one time work of mobile numbers data
collection?
 …Scalability…
Just consider

 There are 29 Crore mobile users.

 We will connect every 1000 users under one Local SMS

Community.

 That means we can give DIRECT self employment to

2,90,000 youths in India.

 Considering lowest 8-10 % success ratio, we can

definitely provide DIRECT Self Employment to at least
30,000 youths in India.

 And as mobile users are adding up in millions, we can

provide self employment to thousands of youths from
India.

 This model can be replicated nationwide.

 Current Status & scope
Local
300 2 Lack
Communiti
es
Citizens
connected 2 Lack 50 20 Crores
Thousands

Self
Employme 330 2 Lack 25
Thousands
nt
 …Bridging the Digital Divide…
 In Indian society, an earning member has got a
mobile phone. Communicating with him/her means you
are accessing all members of his family. Now just
consider, if Self Employed Youth sends a Health Camp
related SMS, then the SMS would be discussed amongst
all the members and the needy members of the house
attends the Health Camp arranged by some NGO. Also
they will inform their neighbors about the health
camp.

 Or consider a different case, if he sends a SMS stating

that please attend the Spiritual Lecture by some Saint,
then the elderly members of the house will definitely
attend the Lecture.

This clearly shows that irrespective of whether the elderly

members or kids having mobile or not, or literate or
illiterate, but we are reaching them through this SMS and
 …Social Networking…
Serving through SMS has tremendous impact
on Local Communities.

 Just see, one social SMS impacts on at least 5 members

of the house. And we are connecting 1000 mobile users
in a Local community, which clearly means that we are
communicating with not less than 5000 citizens. We
have managed around 30 such groups consisting of
groups of School parents, Political Voters, Educational
Netwoks etc.

 Likewise we are forming at least 1,000 such

communities in Maharashtra, that clearly means we are
networking more than 10 Lac Maharashtrian mobile
users under one roof.

 You can call this as Social Networking.

 …Uniqueness…
It’s a first attempt to …

 Offer Self-employment to the 10th-12th Failed –

undergraduate youths without any huge investment.

 Develop a Media, Fruits of which could be shared by all Self

employed youths.

 Distribute lifelong benefit to Self employed youths for one

time work.

 Integrate mobile users of all operators.

 Run a Location based SMS newsletter.

 Update members through Local News & Happenings

speedily.
 That’s not all…
In the history of India, no one,
including Govt of India has tried to
bring every household together
through any communication media
.i.e - ICT

Once you connect every citizen….

Value added services (VAS) follows

you…
 VAS
 mCommerce  mGovernance

 mDiscount  Samples
coupons  mResearch
 mAuctions  CoBiz by
 mBazaar Youths
 mVillage
This was about the SMSONE project
which connects communities
affectionately…
& now…

about Co-operative Business (CoBiz)

which will empower the Base of the
Pyramid.
 Phase I LoCo Benefits to
Establish LoCo Net 1000 members Unemployed Youths

Rural & Urban LoCo

In Phase I : SMSing is the only service. Every Community is a stand alone model.

Top-Down approach

Phase II Benefits to
Enrich with various Unemployed Youths
SE Youths, Institutions
product & services
LoCo
1000 members

Rural & Urban LoCo

 Benefits to
Phase III Youth Groups,
Connect Rural-Urban Women SHGs
LoCos & CoBIz Village Enterprises

LoCo LoCo
1000 members
1000 members

Rural LoCo Urban LoCo

Benefits to ALL
Phase IV Bottom-Up approach
Farmers, Artisans,
Producer 2 Consumer Youth Groups,
Women SHGs, VLE

C
O
Rural BoP Urban BoP as
R - U
as Producer, Consumer, user,
B
Entrepreneur, Nationalist
U I R
Service Provider Citizens
Z
 Questions before us…
 Should we continue to suck the BoP
by selling them- branded clothes,
cold-drinks, unnecessary mobile
conversation & grab 1 $ out of their 2
$/day ? Social Entrepreneurial thinking
 Why look at BoP as buyers,
consumers as of the mentality of
MNCs? Individual Growth
 Why don’t we think in terms of
empowering them as producer,
service providers or entrepreneurs &
 ? 4 me

SMSONE Media Services Pvt

Ltd
A 211, Parmar Trade Centre, Sadhu Vaswani Chowk, Pune
Station,
Pune – 411 001 (MS)