Rural distribution network project wins $140,000 innovation grant

From Times of India

AHMEDABAD: The RUDI Sandesha Vyavhar (RSV), a unique mobile-based management solution, developed collaboratively with Vodafone Foundation, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), has been given a GSMA mWomen Innovation Fund Grant. The $140,000 grant will be used to enhance the functionality of the RSV application and also integrate Vodafone's M-Pesa mobile money payment platform to expand the RUDI network for fostering livelihoods of more rural women.

The project enables RUDI women — the rural distribution network of SEWA — to order stock from the field and have their goods delivered, receive real time updates from RUDI on price changes or marketing schemes, and for RUDI to transfer the entire management of the RUDI business from a paper-based system to an electronic backend.

Since its launch at the Mobile for Good Summit, December 2012, London, UK, more than 1000 RUDI women have been using the RSV tool. RUDI women who earned INR 4,000-5,000 per month now generate monthly incomes of Rs 12,000-15,000. Women involved reported that they can now afford two meals a day for their family and children can be schooled. Further upscaling will benefit nearly 2,500 rural women, touching 2.5 million people by 2015 in Gujarat.

The technical enhancements of the RSV tool, based on feedback from the RUDI bens using RSV, will include elements such as SMS alerts on orders, a mobile app for customers to place direct orders with Rudibens and a feature that will enable the transfer of customer-specific transaction data from the phones of the RUDI women directly to the RSV backend. Incorporation of Vodafone's M-Pesa service into the RSV tool will enable RUDI women to make payments to RUDI for stock and receiving payments from their customers remotely. This will significantly reduce costs of travel and risks associated with cash-based transactions.

According to Vodafone, the project is innovative because there is no other rural supply chain that has developed its own bespoke MIS tool that runs on simple feature phones.

Reema Nanavaty, director, SEWA said, "The grant will help strengthen the RUDI supply chain, increasing operational efficiency which will help forge more business partnerships. The technology will be the tool for empowering our rural members — making them more informed better entrepreneurs and equip women to fight poverty and gain economic freedom."