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Executive Summary

In 2004, Byrraju Foundation’s proof of concept proposing a virtual platform for

provision of urban services in rural areas became the winner of the World Bank

challenge. The prize was two years of funding for a pilot programme they became

known as Ashwini. Partners Medialab Asia and National Institute for Smart Governance

(NISG) helped to implement two Ashwini centres.

In 2006, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supplied funding for the

upscaling of Ashwini to 32 centres covering 116 villages in the East Godavri and West

Godavri districts.

Ashwini was designed according to a ‘hub and spoke’ model, where a trainer conducts

its lessons from one studio and communicates with two to three surrounding villages

through a two-way video conference. For example, a teacher would conduct lessons

from the ‘hub’ city while students could tune in to the network from ‘spoke’ localities.

Prior to Ashwini, service provision required trainers located in cities to physically visit

those in remote localities, a costly method in terms of both time and money.

Implementation of Ashwini was incremental, namely because of the complex ICT

infrastructure envisioned at the time. Technologies available to serve the purpose

Ashwini aimed to fulfil have changed a great deal since the programme’s outset.

Therefore, it is important to note that the processes described here are not necessarily

the most practical today. However, the lesson that can be taken from this is that e-

governance projects must always consider the future possibility of technology change

and hence, be able to adapt with the times.

Key to Ashwini’s implementation was establishing ‘last mile connectivity’ – the final

step of getting the network up and running. With the help of Medialab Asia, the

necessary antenna and tower technology was developed. After the connectivity

challenge was overcome, video conferencing equipment was selected and purchased for

use. Buildings for centres were donated bringing the initial lump-sum investment to

around 3.5 to 4 lakh, including wireless equipment, furniture for centres (30 to 40

person capacity) and conferencing equipment.

Today, the Byrraju Foundation believes that the social objectives of Ashwini have been

achieved, but the economic side remains in progress since eight out of the 32 centres

have not yet reached their breakeven point. Implementers, however, remain optimistic

that economic goals will be achieved because the demand gap is not expected to shrink

for a number of reasons. First, there is substantial space for efforts to create further

programme awareness. Second, the service model can and should be revamped to offer

free services at the start of any new activity. Third, technology savings will rise over

time. Last, mobile solutions will bridge the digital divide and have the potential to be

leveraged for Ashwini services.

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Objective

To provide urban services (healthcare, education, livelihood training and agriculture) to

rural areas (PURA) through a world-class virtual platform

Stakeholders

Byrraju Foundation

Visionary and owner of Ashwini, Byrraju Foundation is a non-profit, Hyderabad-based

organisation started in the memory of Satyam group founder. It aims to build self-

sustaining villages across the country.

National Institute for Smart Government (NISG)

NISG envisaged a virtual delivery platform for the vertical areas within which Byrraju

focused (i.e. livelihoods, health, education, and agriculture). To fulfil this goal, they

concluded that a high speed fibre optic network with two-way communication would be

appropriate. NISG’s role in Ashwini was fourfold:

1. Funding and financial management

2. Facilitation of knowledge sharing between partners

3. Generation of programme awareness through dissemination of materials and

organising nation-level workshops

4. Ensuring outcomes were met and learnings were sent used to upscale to the

national level

Medialab Asia

Medialab’s role in Ashwini was namely to setup the network. They managed to

implement a broadband wireless connection based on 802.11 b/g Wi-fi technology. The

cost of the wireless infrastructure came to about 2.4. lakhs per Ashwini centre. Centres

ranged in distance of upto 50 kilometres from the hub location.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The UNDP funded the upscaling of Ashwini centres from two to 32.

Salient Features

� 32 centres providing virtual connectivity to over 115 villages

� Four sectors types of services given to rural population through virtual network

� Revenue model: nominal charges for services; eight centres have reached

breakeven point and as such, are on the path to self-sustainability

� Educational courses vary based on supply/expertise of teachers and demand of

students

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Box 1: Providers and Beneficiaries

What: Education: Desktop Publishing Course

Where: Antarvedi Palem (East Godavari) & Jinnuri (West Godavari)

When: Three months, everyday for one hour

How/Who: Training is provided in the local language of Telegu. The teacher has a BSc

in computers and has been teaching at Ashwini for two years. He is also physically

handicapped. He teaches two centres at one time over the network. Ten to fifteen

students attend the course at each centre. He also teaches an MS Office course through

Ashwini and feels there is a need to offer a multimedia course. He enjoys teaching at

Ashwini because he believes that private educational institutions are too expensive and

hence, the masses cannot afford to learn.

What: Livelihoods: Embroidery, Sandwork,

Pot/Glass/Fabric painting, handbags

Where: 4 villages

How/Who: The teacher received arts

training provided under a government

scheme. She has been teaching with Ashwini

for three years. There are 10 students in her

current class. She has her own shop for

which she approaches local customers for

custom orders. Then she delegates the work

to her students. Ninety percent of the

students are from Bhimavaran town and ten

percent from villages. There are other shops

in the town and villages that students often

take direct orders from in addition.

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Working Design

Ashwini provides four types of virtual services: telemedicine, education, livelihoods

training, and agricultural expert advice. Below is a short description of each service.

Telemedicine: City-based doctors diagnose patients over the virtual network.

Patients remain in their villages during consultations and local doctors provide

assistance.

Education: Teachers conduct classes in English

language learning and software training – MS

Office, Desktop Publishing etc. The main

objective for students is to obtain skills that will

enable them to obtain employment.

Source: Byrraju Foundation

Livelihoods: Women are

trained virtually in tailoring,

embroidery, fabric, pot, and

sand painting. Learning

these skills helps them to feel

empowered. Furthermore,

many students sell their

items in local stores adding

to their feelings of

empowerment through real

income generation.

Source: Byrraju Foundation

V-Agri & V-Aqua: Farmers receive virtual advice from experts about dry and wet

farming.

According to Byrraju Foundation Chief Integrator, Mr. Jacob Verghese, the most

successful initiative based on number of people availing the service is education. Users

are willing to pay for this service and the foundation has also adequately spread

awareness about its existence. Telemedicine is the most successful in terms of real

impact value. Livelihoods training is more complex to operate, therefore it requires

refinement to succeed in a way that is desired.

Monitoring is executed based on the use of four metrics. The first is the amount of

uptime – is the network connectivity working? The second is the number of people

availing the services. The third is revenue generation in regards to reaching the

breakeven point. The last is user feedback as obtained through surveys. There are also

onetime metrics that are used especially when rolling out the service.

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Key Achievements

� Services reach 115+ villages

� Anecdotal evidence indicates that trainers and users are highly satisfied with the

services. Trainers find their work personally gratifying. Users note benefits

including:

o Gainful employment after obtaining relevant skills

o Income generation through sale of products learned through classes

o Time and cost savings by avoiding travel

� World Bank prize for innovative Virtual Project

� Computerworld Global Best NGO for Tele-ECG initiative

� Manthan Award for the VoiKiosk project in the E-Inclusion

� 2008 Tech Laureate Award

� eINDIA2008 Award for Best NGO Initiative –telecentre

Methodology

OneWorld researchers developed this document through two major steps:

1. To determine Ashwini as a best practice, researchers found literature on its

background, objective, and major achievements on the NISG ICTD database.

Delhi-based stakeholder, Medialab, was contacted to validate Ashwini’s status as

an innovative programme.

2. Researchers went to Hyderabad to interview remaining key stakeholders at

Byrraju Foundation and NISG. Interactions with trainers and beneficiaries over

the virtual network took place to develop a first-hand understanding of how the

programme works and satisfaction levels of central stakeholders.

Data Analysis

SUSTAINABILITY

As shown in the charts below, cost per centre slightly exceeds current revenues. In light

of this we can say that there is still room for improvement in terms of making centres

financial sustainable. However, when combining the operating cost/revenue

breakdown with the tremendous impact of the programme on beneficiaries – how many

users are availing the service and how much they are saving by receiving this service

through Ashwini – it is clear that the programme does indeed provide a valuable

service.

Costs OPEX for running an Ashwini Centre

Operator 3,000

Electricity 1,000

Repairs & Maintenance 3,000

Broadband Connectivity 1,200

Misc. 300

Total 8,500

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Revenue

Service # of beneficiaries per

year times service charge

Per Annum

in Rs.

Per Month in

Rs.

V-Agri 100 farmers x 200/- per

farmer

20,000 1666

Livelihood 6 batches x 20 members x

100/-

12,000 1,000

Telemedicine 18 x 12 x 10/- 5,400 450

Tele-ECG 50 x 12 x 25/- 15,000 1,250

Virtual Tutor 50 students x 10 months

x 50/-

25,000 2,083

Income from virtual

& other services

12,000 1,000

TOTAL 7,499

IMPACT

Category of Service Number of

beneficiaries

per year

Opportunity

saving / year

in Rs.

Enhancement in

income / year

in Rs,

Telemedicine 7,000 6,30,000

Tele-ECG (per patient) 19,200 91,20,000

V-Agri 3200 1,60,00,000 1,60,00,000

V-Aqua 400 40,00,000

Livelihood 3,840 28,80,000

Education 3,200 9,60,000

Total 36840 3,07,10,000 1,88,80,000

Overall benefit in Rs. 4,95,90,000

*All data/charts are sourced from Byrraju Foundation

Lessons Learned

DEMAND

Services & sustainability

Creation of demand for services has been the biggest challenge for Ashwini. To

date, eight centres have managed to create enough demand for revenues to

exceed costs. However, with a model where ICT infrastructure is expensive, it

can be difficult to recover initial investment and moreover, sustain demand to a

level where operational costs are continually covered.

Uneven demand for services generates a problem of unstable revenue flows. For

example, if Ashwini centres offer a livelihood course for sandwork it may not

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attract as many users as an English language class does. Consideration of which

classes are most useful to offer has to be balanced between potential impact,

usage, and supply of teachers to provide the corresponding services. There are

other problems of demand as well. For instance, currently Ashwini deals with a

high demand for communication-related services, but struggles with providing

these due to language barriers.

Ashwini’s key stakeholders offer solutions to generating sufficient demand and

overall sustainability:

� Spreading awareness

� Balancing demand and supply

� Adopting new lower-cost technologies

SUPPLY

ICT Infrastructure

For an effort like Ashwini, a considerable amount of initial investment is

necessary to fill the infrastructure gap; however this can be compensated by

growing usage over time. Due to the rapid depreciation rate of technologies,

what cost Ashwini three lakh when it started, now costs one lakh. Moreover,

there is no longer a need for ‘last mile connectivity’ because fibre optic

connections are available directly in the villages. Due to the widespread usage

and increasingly sophisticated operations of mobile technology, some of Ashwini

services can be used on a mobile platform which would significantly reduce

costs. Technology has also come a long way for language compatibility; today,

text-to-speech applications are widespread.

Appropriate use of technology

Technology is often misplaced in communities because implementers consider it

as a separate entity, outside the local environment. Technology however is

always influenced by and influences the context it sits in. As such, it is

imperative that e-governance programmes carefully consider the context of use.

In a village setting, as the Ashwini model operates, technology needs to be first

and foremost user friendly through simplicity.

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References

http://www.byrrajufoundation.org/html/deliverymodulae.php?cat=d25

http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?articleid=1035&typ=Features

Interviews were conducted with Byrraju Foundation Chief Integrator, Jacob Verghese,

and Integrator & Lead Partner, VSN Raju; Scientist ‘B’, Gaurav Sharma, Research

Scientist, Dr. T.S. Anurag, and Research Scientist, Naveen Kumar from Medialab Asia;

and Chakarvarty from NISG.

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Appendix A: Interview Questionnaire

Byrraju Foundation

Jacob Verghese – Chief Integrator

VSN Raju – Chief Integrator and Lead Partner

Bapuji Kanaparthi – Head, Ashwini Project

1. Can you describe the working design of Ashwini – how it works and what the

target market is?

2. Who were/are the key partners in the Ashwini programme? What were/are

their roles? (NSIG, MediaLab)

3. How is technology used for this programme?

4. How does the revenue model work? Can villagers afford services?

5. What was the objective of this programme?

6. What were some of the challenges faced while implementing Ashwini?

7. Do you think that Ashwini has achieved what it set out to accomplish? If so, in

what way and how?

8. From our research, we found that Ashwini services target 4 major sectors –

health, livelihoods, education and agriculture – which of these do you feel have

been the greatest success? How do you measure this?

9. How does Byrraju monitor Ashwini services?

10. Do you feel that Ashwini can be replicated in other areas? Are there plans for

upscaling or enhancements?

11. Please provide us with data on programme scope – number of users,

breakdown by district/block/village.

12. Please provide us with data on programme impact per service delivery:

a. Telemedicine – number of doctors, patients, types of service

provided, consultation delivery time, patient’s status after diagnosis

b. Livelihoods – number of teachers (from where), number of

entrepreneurs, translation of learned skills into income

generation/empowerment

c. Education – number of teachers, students, frequency of courses,

course material

d. Agriculture – number of agriculture experts (from where), number

of farmers (crop and fish) seeking advice, results from advice

Medialab Asia - Gaurav Sharma, Dr. T.S. Anurag, Naveen Kumar

1. Can you expand on Medialab’s role in the Ashwini Project?

2. What was the timeline of the Ashwini project?

3. Who are/were the other key stakeholders for this project? What were their

roles? (UNDP, NISG, Byrraju, NASSCOM Foundation, ISRO)

4. Ashwini provides e-services in the areas of- telemedicine, livelihoods, education

and agriculture related services- can you tell us how well each of these services

is working? Is there one sector that is particularly impressive?

5. Do you know the current state of Ashwini? Has there been any monitoring of the

project from your side?

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6. What is the greatest advantage to this programme? What makes it unique/

impactful? (talk about cost effectiveness, sustainability)

7. How sustainable is it? How replicable?

8. Can you describe some of the challenges faced in working on the Ashwini

project?

9. Can you provide us with data on programme impact.

National Institute of Smart Governance (NSIG) – Amit Chakravarty, Manager ICTD

1. Can you describe your organisation’s role in the Ashwini project?

2. What do you see as the major advantages to the programme?

3. What were some of the challenges to working on Ashwini?

4. Can you provide us with data on programme impact.

Key Stakeholders (teachers/entrepreneurs; teachers/students)

1. How do you utilize Ashwini services? Do you find them useful? Why or why not?

2. What challenges have you faced in using Ashwini?