M- Agriculture & Ecology – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : RainbowAgri
ORGANIZATION : Greeno Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : thiru@greeno.in
LANGUAGE : English, Tamil
WEBSITE : www.greeno.in, www.rainbowagri.com
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rainbowagri.broadcaster&hl=en

Enabling farmers to access buyers, banks and share information

Profile: Rainbow is a mobile solution to create a self-engaging network of farmers living in even the most remote rural areas in the country. The initial version was developed on 2013 but was later fine tuned and the new product was rolled out in March 2014.

The application has five components – Rainbow Message and Rainbow Vet, Rainbow Buy, Rainbow Sell and Rainbow Groups.

Rainbow Message allows users to broadcast text and voice SMS to any mobile. Kalingarayan Canal Farmers Association in Tamil Nadu with 1034 farmers has been using the system since April 2014 to communicate prices of crops, dam water level and in scheduling various trainings and meetings.

Rainbow Vet is a variant of Rainbow Message and it has helped veterinary doctors in Gobi and Tiruppur districts in Tamil Nadu  to complete FMD vaccination for cows ahead of their deadline and also to successfully organized state level events at a short notice. As many 2234 farmers have benefited from 15000 vaccinations.

Rainbow Sell connects the farmer with street vendors, small stores and shops to reach the end

consumer. This eliminates middlemen. Rainbow Buy helps users to buy agriculture products and groceries available nearby using mobile phones.

Rainbow Group has been successfully deployed at the Salem Farmers’ Federation covering 400 farmer clubs, 1000 joint liability groups and 8000 farmers.

The system is built to be accessed on mobile with the mobile number being the identifier for each farmer. The farmer profile management tool has helped the federation to digitize and organize  data,  avail  credit  from  banks  without  any  collateral  and  has provided easy  access  to  information  and aggregate crop information.

M-Business & Commerce/Banking – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : BillBachao
ORGANIZATION : Digissential Enterprises Private Limited
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : anirudha@billbachao.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.billbachao.com
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.Billbachao&hl=en

Helping mobile users find right network, right plan

Profile: Launched in December, 2014, BillBachao uses an indigenously developed algorithm, big data technique along with crowd sourced information to enable mobile users to find out what would be the best plan and best network for them depending on their usage pattern to save on costs and get the best connectivity.

BillBachao helps users to “Monitor” their usage, “Find” the best network and plan and “Recharge” on the go all using BillBachao app.

The app monitors a user’s usage for the last 30 days – Voice, SMS & Data, checks what’s the best plan for the user from more than 50,000 plans available in the market, compares how much would the user save if he or she switched operators, purchase recharges for the user & family (on web) in one transaction, enables multiple recharges in one transaction for one user, enables multiple recharges for multiple numbers in one transaction – on web, estimates how long the purchased recharge will last depending on the historical usage pattern, finds out the best network around for the user, for the user’s home, work & any other location, enables the user to know what other users in and around the same locality are saying about different service providers, rates the user’s operator and compares download speeds for service providers around you.

All this enables the mobile phone user to keep track of usage and always be on the right network and the right plan depending on his usage pattern. It is an android app that can be downloaded free of cost from Google Play Store or from the Billbachao website. 

M-Education & Learning – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : Mindspark
ORGANIZATION : Educational Initiatives Pvt. Ltd
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : venkatesh.reddy@ei-india.com
LANGUAGE : English, Hindi and Gujarati
WEBSITE : www.mindspark.in, www.ei-india.com
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ei.mindspark

Self-adaptive software allows students to learn at own pace

Profile: Launched in June, 2009, Mindspark is an Internet-based, self adaptive-learning program that helps a child to improve his/her skills in Maths. It allows each student to follow a learning path that is based on the student’s current level and at a pace the he or she is comfortable with. The program is platform independent. Enrolled users can access it over the Internet using a login ID and password using mobile phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers.

Mindspark primarily uses questions to help children learn. The questions are ‘finely-graded’ meaning that there are a very large number of questions of gradually increasing levels of difficulty. Questions are specially designed to test understanding and to help students clear misconceptions. Increasingly, Mindspark student usage data is itself throwing up prevalent misconceptions. There is very little emphasis on instruction due to the belief that students learn when they have to think – either to answer a question, or to do an activity on the computer. The developers think of Mindspark as complementary to the teacher and in fact an unobtrusive professional development tool for the teacher himself.

Mindspark (developed in English and having higher order content for Elite private schools) has been under implementation since 2009 and currently has an annual coverage of 66,000 students across India. So far, around 172,000 students have been covered since 2009. The solution developed in Gujarati for government schools has been in implementation across Gujarat since 2010 and covers around 6000 students annually.

Mindspark has also set up centres for out of school children from economically underprivileged sections in 5 urban slum areas across New Delhi since 2011 and covers 2000 out of school children from the slums annually. These centres are technology-based remedial centres which help underprivileged students of classes 1-8 learn Hindi language and Mathematics. English is also taught for 30 minutes a week. 

M-Governance – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : M-ePay (Web service based Mobile application)

ORGANIZATION : Department of Posts

COUNTRY : Sri Lanka
CONTACT : anil@slpost.lk
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.slpost.eservices.gov.lk
DOWNLOAD THE APP : N/A

Sri Lanka Post enables citizens to make payments using mobiles

In June, 2014, Sri Lanka Post introduced a mobile app called M-ePay (Mobile electronic Payments System) to carry out all kinds of financial transactions that occur in sub post offices using mobile phones. All Main Post Offices of Sri Lanka Post are linked to the centralized server system through the Internet. Many of the Sub Post Offices of Sri Lanka Post which are the branches of the Main Post Offices and are usually located in remote rural areas do not have Internet connectivity. The M-ePay system links these sub post offices to the centralised e-pay system using mobile phones as mobile connectivity is available everywhere.

The following transactions can be done using the M-ePay service:

• Electricity Bill Payments
• Postal Money Transfer Issues / Payments
• EPF Payments
• ETF Payments
• Sri Lanka Telecom Bill Payments

All users need is a mobile phone and a valid user account. The user has to fill up an application form and submit to the nearest sub post office. The sub post office sends the application form to the ICT division of Sri Lanka Post which creates a new user account with a unique user ID which serves as a password to enter the system. This information on the registered mobile number and user ID is sent to the user as well as the sub postmaster. The sub postmaster can then carry out transactions on the national e-pay system on behalf of the user.

The M-ePay mobile transaction service uses the government SMS gateway 1919 which is also known as GovSMS. This service enables Sri Lankan citizens to send SMS request to government departments across GSM and CDMA operator’s networks and getting information back via SMS.

The M-ePay service has enabled Sri Lanka Post to improve customer relations, earn more profits and reduce manual work. It has enabled citizens across the island to use their mobile phones to make all kinds of payments – utility bills, money transfer etc.

M-Health – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : e-novatRx
ORGANIZATION : Naya Jeevan
COUNTRY : Pakistan
CONTACT : saima.shivji@njfk.org
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.njfk.org , www.enovatrx.branded.me
DOWNLOAD THE APP : N/A

Helping companies better manage staff health schemes

e-novatRx is a mobile app aimed at providing low-income workers affiliated with corporate value chains in Pakistan with access to quality medicines, electronic medical records and e-prescriptions. On the demand side, e-novatRx aggregates low-income, informal and formal workers in corporate value chains and enlists their corporate employers to provide them with e-pharmacy benefits. On the supply side, e-novatRx negotiates bulk volume discounts from ethical pharmaceutical manufacturers and extends significant, real-time discounts to consumers via an integrated digital health and digital finance platform accessible across a nationwide network of retail pharmacies.

e-novatRx provides its corporate clients and end-consumers with access to a technology-enabled e-Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) platform. e-novatRx integrates digital health and digital payment technology via a combined QR-code/SIM/magnetic-stripe smart card which stores recent e-prescription and EMR data.

Currently, the mobile app is in the developing phase and the first prototype of the mobile app has been built.

The benefits of the system are:

• Employees/purchasers will not be able to fill a prescription for a medication that is not consistent with their diagnosis (i.e. they will not be able to purchase medicines using their allowance for other conditions on behalf of someone else and/or resell them back to the pharmacist, etc.).
• A tiered formulary will be created in which preferred brands/generics will be prioritized according to efficacy & price.
• A major benefit for employees/customers who are participating in the e-novatRX™ system is that the e-novatRX™ cards will be pre-programmed with specific credit authorization limits (e.g. PKR 5000/employee/month).
• Consequently, customers/employees will not need to advance any monies to purchase medicines, saving them from the major administrative hassle of prepaying and seeking manual reimbursements.

Through e-novatRx, access to and centralization of Medical Records on Open MRS can be done and can be accessed in real time.

M-Travel & Tourism – 01

ORIGINAL TITLE : ixigo app
ORGANIZATION : ixigo.com
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : abajpai@travenues.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.ixigo.com
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ixigo&hl=en

 Comprehensive mobile app that makes travelling a breeze

Launched in July, 2007 ixigo’s mobile-based travel app allows travellers to find the best hotel rates across more than 200,000 hotels by comparing hotel booking sites, cheapest flight tickets across all over 100 travel websites, access destination travel guides, know about places to visit, things to do, restaurants, trains and buses all within a matter of a few clicks. The application is now available for android and iOS users.

A mix of native Android/iOS components and web components has been used to provide users with a fast, optimised and seamless experience. The design puts users first and is easy to use even for first time app users, while using capabilities like swipe and pinch to zoom to make it fun to use. It has been optimised to work in conditions of bad network conditions and also on lower end devices.

Some of the key features are:

• Compare air fares across leading airline websites and travel portals and find cheapest airline tickets
• Find best hotel prices and deals. Book 24,000+ hotels in India and 350,000+ hotels globally
• Call hotels for free and talk and book directly on the phone with hotels
• Millions of travel & hotel reviews with photos, maps and phone numbers
• Find lowest rates for flights and hotels across 100+ travel websites
• Plan your trip and see over 100,000 sightseeing destination travel guides, places to visit and things to do
• Share travel photos, write reviews and rate hotels and monuments
• See hotel photos, amenity information, room rates & availability
• Browse thousands of restaurants, dhabas and street food joints in India
• See aggregate ratings from hundreds of hotel review websites in the world
• Offers travel packages.

The app has so far clocked 4 lakh downloads and gets more than 4.56 million page views per month.

Juror’s Mention (01)

M-Inclusion – 01
ORIGINAL TITLE : Talking Eyes
ORGANIZATION : Champ Tech
COUNTRY : Bangladesh
CONTACT : toughdip@gmail.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : N/A
DOWNLOAD THE APP : N/A

Empowering visually impaired to play games on mobile phones

Talking Eyes is a mobile app that helps blind and visually impaired people to play various mobile games. At present there is no such app in the market. The target users are: people all over the world who are blind or visually impaired or have poor vision.  All users need is a mobile phone that has touch screen, good sound system and android operating system. At present it is available only in English language but a Bengali version is under development.

The app divides the mobile screen into 3 buttons. The upper one is for Yes or Play Type option. The middle one is for Introduction or Game selecting or Download option and the lower button is for other options like Quit or Main Manu option. Each button has own audio engine with instructions. The app has three major components – the WR or warning detector, the LR or logic robot and the AE or audio engine.

When a blind man plays any game, the warning detector detects situations and sends information to the logic robot which gives proper tips to the audio engine. Finally, the audio engine provides the right action instructions in audio format to the blind man like press right, press up, press in the middle etc.

The key features and advantages of the app are:

• Blind people can play games
• The app has in-built proper instructions
• Does not require help of other people
• Fresh Audio Engine Instructions
• Smart In-game suggestions
• Scoring and level system
• So far tested on popular games such as DX-ball, Ping Pong etc. New games will be updated once in a month.

The Beta version was ready in February, 2015 and the app will be published commercially once it is ready for use across all platforms.