cultivators knowledge companion WHY To maximize return on investments, cultivators want to know • Weather forecast to make decisions on right timings of crop harvesting • Current prices for their crops at different markets to decide on where to sell • What government schemes or subsidies are available on crop harvesting In order to address the above demands, the Indian government has invested heavily. However; • The contents are only in English language, which 90% of the cultivators do not understand • Cultivators do not have Internet access in rural areas • 70% of the cultivators do not have smartphones WHAT ü The tranSMS is a translated short messaging service offered in 22 Indian regional languages to provide information on weather forecast, crops prices and agricultural schemes or subsidies to 118.9 million cultivators in India. It works on low cost feature-­‐phone on low bandwidth without Internet access. HOW • PULL content from sources such as government and market places • PROCESS content with custom translation APIs • PUSH content on the cultivator’s mobile phones Business Model • Total market 118.9 million cultivators in India • Government pay per SMS transaction • Cultivators pay for annual membership fees • Agriculture-­‐based companies pay for advertisement and big-­‐data analytics WHO • Sunil Khandbahale, Sloan MBA, MIT • Dappo Osaka, Sloan MBA, MIT • Abhishek Suryavanshi, MA, TUFTS • Jiwoong Chung, Sloan MBA, MIT 16 Greenwich Park, Boston MA 02118 USA | +1(617)460-­‐7686 | [email protected]