The Rural Push

It is more powerful than the Internet ever was. It has greater reach and is
convenient to use. No one needs any training to use it, even being literate is
not required. All you need to know is how to talk, and how to hear. The It
thing that we are talking about here is nothing more than the mobile. And that
is where the power is. And they say that is what is going to bridge the great
divides that exist in our nation.

Mobile, gradually has become the only medium in India to reach the unreached.
And needless to say that it has a huge potential to touch the rural population.
But is that potential being explored? If we were to have a look at Handygo, the
answer to that question might be yes. And although it is just a penny in the
piggy bank, it is at least a beginning and is already creating waves, literally
and metaphorically.

Handy Information

Handygo, a provider of mobile entertainment and value added services was started
in the year 2000, by Praveen Rajpal with a team of three technocrats. He
established the company with a vision to offer unmatched products and services
in the wireless telephony space. Today, this 250 people strong entity has been
developing and delivering value added services to different mobile network
providers in India and in the Middle East.

Handygo was the first and the only company that developed content in Arabic
language, targeting the mobile subscribers in the Gulf region. It also claims to
be first one to introduce the most secure, robust and DRM enabled multi-purpose
mobile content delivery platform (MCDP) for MTN Nigeria. In India, Handygo
started its operations with just one partnerYahoo!. However, with its emphasis
on R&D, today it is associated with all leading mobile operators like Airtel,
Vodafone, MTNL, and BSNL.

Handygo offers a comprehensive range of applications and content for
entertainment and infotainment purposes. Handygo offers are available through
its short code55678. The company provides subscription services; community
based portals and solutions to telecom and improve the usage and retention of
their subscribers communication tools like SMS and caller ring back tones (CRBT)
service.

Most of their solutions are multi-platform, multi-carrier and of multilingual
capability. On the basis of customer usage and platforms (IVR/SMS/GPRS),
Handygos services can be broadly categorized into segments like entertainment
(games, contest, blogging, music, love zone, reality shows, Bollywood); learning
infotainment (agriculture, education, health, finance, livestock, fisheries) and
communications (push/pull, CRBT).

Fair Weather

A memorandum with the Indian Meteorological Department, and extensive region
based researchthats what it took for Handygo to come up with its weather
services. These services are primarily aimed at the farmer community and
provides information on selection of crops and their varieties, proper sowing
time, pest and disease control, choosing optimum time and dose of fertilizer,
post harvesting advice, irrigation management, and other weather based farm
decision making.

The technical content support for the project is being provided by IMD, which
has a strong backup, thanks to the state agricultural universities and ICAR
institutions. According to Praveen Rajpal, CEO of Handygo, "We tailor the
services and reach every farmers doorsteps."

The project, though still in its nascent stages is being touted as a
prominent step towards empowering through the cell phone. Says Dr LS Rathore,
head Agromet and additional director general of Meteorology, IMD, "Our
association with Handygo is vital and their contribution in rural sector is
overwhelming. We are proud to have such associates in the wireless markets. Also
it is a good example of public private partnership (PPP) to render service for
rural India."

As of now, the service has been launched in twenty-one districts of Punjab
and twenty districts of Haryana. Another major focus area for Handygo right now
is Andhra Pradesh, where they are covering twenty-three districts. They are also
expanding their focus in Gujarat, West Bengal and Maharashtra. The company plans
to rollout pan-India services in a phased manner.

To make the weather services more user friendly and diverse, Handygo provides
these in twenty different languages.

According to Siddharth Saxena, project manager, Handygo, the company did some
extensive research before extending their hand out to the rural community. "We
shortlisted some eight odd areas including education, health, rural finance,
weather, fisheries, etc," he says. It was then that they came up with its rural
community services called Behtar Zindagi. The service which is available on
55678 from almost all mobiles provides farmers and other community members
with information related to agriculture, mandi rates, weather, animal husbandry,
fishery, finance, education, and health.

Behtar Zindagi covers the entire 128 AMFUs of the Indian Meteorological
Department, covering 596 districts across twenty-seven states. The crop related
advisories are given out by expert scientists of state agricultural
universities. Well renowned universities are planning the research and analysis
on a continuous basis to update this service and enable Behtar Zindagi to reach
every village, every farmer. The number of subscribers for Behtar Zindgi have
have crossed the half million mark.

Something Fishy

This one is a unique initiative that the company has come up with. This
service is for the fishermen of India and spans all along the coastal regions in
the country. The service was launched keeping in mind the unpredictability of
the fishing trade. Using this service, the fishermen can find out about the
potential fishing zones, wind speed, wave height along with the weather suitable
for fishing.

Handygo has tied up with Indian National Center for Ocean Information
Services (INCOIS) for all technical content support. After the content is
provided, Handygo with its in-house experts and researchers classifies and
disseminates the information in the local regional languages. The information
for fishermen is disseminated district wise in 130 plus nodes. Handygo provides
information like where to fish, when to fish, potential fishing areas,
suitability of weather, etc. As a part of the service, Handygo updates the
information on potential fishing zones thrice a week and the information on wave
height and wind speed on a daily basis. The information is claimed to be highly
accurate and reliable.

Handygo is also in the process of imparting knowledge to the fishermen
community, processing workers, technicians, etc, in fish quality management,
conservation of fish resources as well as sustainable fishing. Fishermen from
eight statesnamely, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa,
Maharashtra, Kerala, and Goa can dial 55678 and get access to the services as
per the requirements. With these services, Handygo aims to help the fishermen in
reducing risk and increasing their productivity.

Mehak Chawla

mehakc@cybermedia.co.in