Peter Van Dijck’s Guide to Ease

1. Six days with the Akshaya project: day 1: overview
2. Day 2: technology
3. Day 3: entrepreneurs
4. Day 4: promotion
5. Day 5: training
6. Day 6: conclusions

The Akshaya project uses an interesting business model: local entrepreneurs run individual Aksaya centers, and are expected to become profitable by themselves. This way the project won’t die of lack of funds once the initial interest or funding dries out. Sustainability.

Entrepreneurs have been selected by the Akshaya project. They had to apply to become Akshaya entrepreneur, and the project selected them based on entrepreneurial skills, computer skills and such.

Each entrepreneur is given exclusive access to a small market, based on local governement structure. Location of the center is decided by the Akshaya project based on things like availability of power. Because the project wanted to have Akshaya centers within walking distance for everyone, centers are at about 4 km from each other. Each center serves about 1000-3000 households. Because markets are based on a local governement structure, Akshaya can produce, for example, a complete list of all households in their markets that the entrepreneurs can use.

An example Akshaya center.

Entrepreneurs were asked to train at least one person in each household within their market in basic computer skills. More about how they achieved that tomorrow.

They got several types of support from the state:

1. The state selected entrepreneurs (1 out of 5 applicants got the “license”).
2. They got help getting loans at good rates: they didn’t need to have a security to underwrite te loan, which made it a lot easier. (No fincancial help, just help finding loans.)
3. The state organized an IT expo fair so they could get cheap hardware.
4. They were provided and promotion training materials.
5. They were given a market (with names and addresses of people).
6. The state promoted the concept.

Each entrepreneur had to invest in getting their center going. They had to buy minimum 5 computers. They got good deals through an IT fair the governement organized where prices went down a lot. The average initial investment was about 200,000 - 300,000 Rs. (200,000 for equipment and 90,000 for furniture.) Each entrepreneur got about 5 computers (256RAM, 40Gig, 1Ghz, local brand), a UPS (uninterruptable power supply), a scanner, a webcam, a printer and networking stuff.) After training 1000 people, they’d get 120,000 Rs back from the governement - over half of their investment.

After the initial training, other sources of income had to take over. Internet usage (browsing) provides a small income, but not by far enough to keep the center running. So now, the Akshaya project is coming up with a whole bunch of business models to help generate regular income for the centers. The 620 entrepreneurs are divided into groups, and each entrepreneur gets access to some of these business ideas, depending on demand:

1. Investment. Akshaya collaborated with and Indian business to develop a financial consultancy service the centers can provide.
2. Product marketing.
3. Hardware. Akshaya works with Intel, who provide training and a certificate, so the centers can become an “authorized Intel service center”. They also provide cheaper hardware: a PC now costs 15,000 Rs, with the program it will be 12,000 Rs.
4. Vocational training: centers will be able to provide (e)training for things like electrician, carpenter, …, using multimedia training packages.
5. Health kiosk: tools to measure things like blood sugar are made available through a tie-in with a private Indian hospital. They are also starting a telemedicine program, where doctors can be consulted over the internet.
6. Market research & tourism: centers can function as tour operators for certain types of tourism, and conduct market research (questionaires) for private companies.
7. Data processing: the Indian state needs to digitize loads of information (birth records, land records, …), and Akshaya centers can get work from there. This should provide a stream of income for years to come.

Another really useful service the centers are starting to provide to their users is electronic payment. In india, paying telephone or electricity bills often involves going to a governement building and waiting in line for half a day. Akshaya allows people to pay online.

Here’s another thing some centers do: they organize social activities, like kids (registration Rs50) or womens clubs. The idea, again, came from an entrepreneur and was then promoted to others by the Akshaya center.

One entrepreneur told me how he has a kid visit every household in his region, and ask if they want to do payments online. The kids gets a small fee per payment, and the entrepreneur makes a small amount of money per payment. The households save a long wait at some governement building. The Akshaya people are on the lookout for innovations like this, and then spread the idea to other centers.

Another service the centers can provide is elearning (training for things like Excel and such). In Malapuram, a large percentage of households has someone working in a Gulf country. People want to develop skills that are marketable there, like computer skills. The elearning is much more expensive than the initial computer training (which was sponsored by the state), but still cheaper than other training opportunities available before the Akshaya centers where there. (450Rs vs. 1500Rs). The elearning was introduced after the intial training period (getting one person per household started) was over. It was popular for a few months, but then the school holidays finished and popularity of the courses dropped. This is when the ebusiness activities mentioned above were introduced.

Selling software: the Koran (the area is mostly muslim) translated in Malayalam.

Some of the centers I visited where having problems generating enough income. The Akshaya project is trying to address these problems by creating the business opportunities I mentioned above.

I talked to 4 different entrepreneurs. One of them explained me how his center runs. He has a market of 1200 families, and he knows them all. (He was given a list of people.) It took him 6 months to finish the basic computer training for one person of each household. The day we spoke, he had 13 people coming in for training activities, students taking what he called the “Gulf package” (MS Office) at 1200Rs for 2 months, 2 hours a day. Other courses he provides include DTP&Photoshop (2200 Rs, 3 monts, 2 hours a day), Internet browsing (150Rs for one week, 7 hours) and the “Akshaya 2nd level course”, at 450Rs for two months, includes MS Office, self learning (no teacher needed to go through the materials).

He was the one who told me he had local boys visit homes to collect bill payments every two months. The boys get 1Rs a bill. Bills include telephone bills, water, university fees. The entrepreneur makes 5Rs per bill paid. Kids also come to play games after school on the computers (15Rs/hour). He didn’t have internet access yet when I spoke with him. He also assembles computers and sells them, and resells internet connections.

Another center I visited was close to the real countryside where there are tribes living that have little contact with the outside world. The enthusiastic entrepreneur of this center told me how he had to convince the tribe elders to come and visit the center, and how he planned to convince them this was worth their while. This particular center wasn’t profitable yet, it was one of the centers still not connected to the internet. Here are some pictures:

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