Over the last 4 months, we have been working on ground in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Nagaland, in order to understand the role of product/interface design and other factors that influence and enhance the usability of smartphone based agri/financial services. In previous posts, we laid out the context, and our findings from an initial… Continue reading Using smartphone-based applications: Some challenges faced by farmers
“You will need to wash that off after 15 minutes”, says Mamta, instructing me on how to remove the face pack she has just applied over my face. Mamta works for a company that offers various professional services to customers in the comfort of their homes. These include salon services; customers can book the… Continue reading People of Bharat: Mamta, Ahmedabad
Photo by Tukaram.Karve on Shutterstock Meet Deepak “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” This Albert Einstein quote has deeply inspired Deepak to pursue his entrepreneurial passion and direct his drive towards the fintech ecosystem. Deepak is an engineer and a management graduate with a keen… Continue reading Byte the Coin — Designing Digital Money for Bharat
BotGo was started in 2007 by Ravi Panchal, an engineer, after he lost motivation to continue at a managerial role at his job. A hands-on technical person, Panchal was inspired to create an underwater tank-cleaning robot. He started BotGo by bootstrapping it with his savings and roped in his friends for key positions in… Continue reading BotGo: Determining Product-Market Fit for a Robotics Venture in India
“You see that there?” Chandrabhan says, pointing to a close circuit camera perched on top of a pole at a moderately busy intersection. “I have to stay within its range, else my supervisor will raise a complaint” he continues. He motions me to pull up a chair, so that I may be comfortable as we… Continue reading People of Bharat: Chandrabhan, Ahmedabad
Photo by shameer pk on Shutterstock In the previous blog, we discussed about the significance of informal finance in the lives of slum dwellers and outlined some of the legislations related to moneylending activities issued by various states in India. This blog discusses why informal lending market is sticky and not easy to substitute with formal lending; and… Continue reading Why formal loans may never substitute informal loans
I buy my weekly stock of vegetables from Tulsiram. His handcart is almost filled with 40 varieties of vegetables in winter; a riot of solid, comforting colors in green, white, red, yellow, purple and orange. While I regretted my purchases from elsewhere, I often wondered where he came from and how he always managed to… Continue reading People of Bharat: Tulsiram, Ahmedabad
Photo by Santhosh Varghese on Shutterstock Imagine if a person came on her/his feet or on her/his two-wheeler and offered you credit in way that seems inexpensive and customized. The lender is also able to sympathize and act as a life coach to your financial problems. Now imagine this to be a lived reality for a substantial… Continue reading How do slum dwellers borrow?
As highlighted in our previous blog, researchers often face numerous issues relating to politics, local culture, corruption, natural calamities etc. during field research. While many of these issues can be resolved by instating protocols and processes; at times, however, these can result in changes to the research design, methodology, or the sample. We briefly discuss… Continue reading Part 2: Field Research- Turning challenges into opportunities
Photo by Alena Dafna on Shutterstock Abdul is a high school teacher in a school in Delhi. He has a stable income source, a job that is unlikely to disappear and most likely the first stable income earner in his family. Abdul’s household is a representative Indian household: financial dependents that are old (parents) and young (children),… Continue reading Why do suboptimal financial products work?
I stand outside the door of her flat and ring the bell. Then I step back and see pictures of both Christ and Ganesha on the door. This is Neeta’s house, a woman who sells sprouts in a local vegetable market in the southern part of the town of Surat in Gujarat. Neeta welcomes… Continue reading People of Bharat: Neeta, Surat
Photo by Thunderstock on Shutterstock. When we started with the idea of Project Kish, we were enthralled by the blank canvas we had and the work that we could do in this regard. But as we went along, we quickly realized that an idea so radical needed a radical solutioning approach. Where a captive designer would give… Continue reading The difficulty of being earnest