The Role of Mobile Infomediaries: A Bottom of the Pyramid Approach

eINDIA International Conference, 25-27 August 2009, Hyderabad, India

The Role of Mobile Infomediaries: a BOP approach

By: M.S. Kiran1, Jerry Watkins2, and Jo Tacchi1

Abstract

In this paper we explore an information and communication technology (ICT)

initiative in the state of Orissa, India that provides asynchronous Internet access

to otherwise unconnected rural communities. It uses technologies in innovative

ways, combining computers, Wi-Fi and local buses, to provide low-cost services

that are designed to improve access to information and products that are

unavailable locally. Its entrepreneurial approach in bringing emerging ICT to a

potentially viable rural population reflects to some extent the Bottom of the

Pyramid (BOP) model of economic development, by generating low margins from

a wide potential customer base.

We argue that one of the most important aspects of this initiative is how it

promotes engagement with its services and products through human

“infomediaries”. This network of travelling sales staff is supported by

technicians, telephone sales agents, and village-based franchises. These

infomediaries provide a human interface for customers, which is helpful in

establishing trust and overcoming some of the barriers to ICT use – such as

mobility, literacy, caste and gender. This supports previous research by the

authors which clearly indicates the contribution of human infomediaries to the

sustainability of ICT initiatives for development.

1 Queensland University of Technology2 Swinburne University

Conference organized by: Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, India 1


1. BackgroundIn 1644, John Milton addressed the British parliament and argued for unhindered access to

information and knowledge. Over three and a half centuries later, creating a “knowledge

society” (UNESCO 2005) via informed citizenry (Milton called them “knowing people”) has

become a developmental goal. The World Bank's World Development Report (1998)

emphasized “knowledge for development” and acknowledged that knowledge is the key to

economic growth and well-being. The Digital Opportunities Task Force (2000) and Digital

Opportunities for All (2001) by G8 countries proposed that ICTs can narrow socio-economic

divides and enhance wealth creation. The 2005 WSIS-Tunis Agenda for the information

society – influenced by the Geneva Deceleration of Principles – laid the foundation for

various stakeholders:

“financing of ICT infrastructure in most developing countries has

been based on public investment. Lately, a significant influx of

investment has taken place where private-sector participation has been

encouraged, based on a sound regulatory framework, and where

public policies aimed at bridging the digital divide have been

implemented.”i

The WSIS-Tunis Agenda highlighted the need for a collaborative effort that includes private

players to “improve the lives of what C.K. Prahalad has called the 'bottom of the

pyramid'”(Heeks 2008), a metaphor which describes over four billion people who earn less

than USD 2 per day.

2. Bottom of the PyramidIndeed, it’s been suggested that “a whole new world of opportunity will open up” if low-

income earners are considered as latent consumers (Prahalad 2005, p. 1). The poor have little

individual spending power; but en masse they represent a huge potential market, described in

the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) model which maps income distribution to global population

(Fig. 1).



Fig 1: Prahalad & Hart 2002

The sheer size of the BOP population presents a multi-trillion dollar market potential; indeed,

informal or extralegal economic activity at the bottom of the pyramid is estimated at 40 to 60

percent of overall activity in developing countries (Prahalad & Hart 2002). Prahalad and Hart

regard the potential of billions of latent Tier 4 consumers as the key to profitability at the

bottom of the pyramid; could this consumer-driven vision provide another strategy for

development projects? In India, personal consumption has played an important role in

development, corresponding to 67% of GDP in 2004; second only to the USA at 70%. In

comparison, China’s level of personal consumption was 41%, reflecting a more savings-led

philosophy (Aziz & Cui 2007). Yet for those agencies, businesses and entrepreneurs who may

subscribe to consumption-driven bottom-up approach, tapping into this vast market at the

bottom of the pyramid needs not just a portfolio of affordable products and services, but also

an appropriate infrastructure to support market activity. This is no trivial requirement; even

comparatively wealthy developing nations such as India are disadvantaged economically by

transport infrastructure that lags behind that of some of its Asian Tiger neighbours. Indeed, the

Indian government is attempting to regain competitive advantage by its heavy investment in

the Golden Quadrilateral, a highway construction project which links Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai

and Mumbai. Still, infrastructure-building isn’t restricted to roads; it also seeks to increase

rural teledensity from 12.62%, compared to 81.3% in urban India (February 2009 figures,

DNA 2009).



3. Missing Link: serving the underserved via mobile infomediariesHarris (2001) describes an “infomediary” as “an individual working in a telecentre and drawn

from the community that the telecentre serves, who is capable of using computer and internet

technologies in order to respond to requests from members of the community for information

or for help in solving some problems that might yield to an internet enquiry.” Heeks (2008)

says: “Effectively, every community will have at least some literate members who can act as

infomediaries, thus massively multiplying the accessibility of written materials, online or

otherwise.” Generally, this might be true; but there are very many illiterate communities, and

someone who can read/write might not be always available when needed.

In numerous Indian movies we have seen an outstation male protagonist communicating with

his illiterate female counterpart or mother through letters. In such situations, it is always a

literate postman who reads letters for the leading lady or mother, and also assists in writing a

reply. The postman, in this context, is essentially a mobile human infomediary. This is very

true at the ground level in real-time too: the postman is, in essence, an interface between one

of the oldest means of information and communication innovation and its users that

essentially “demands” literacy (i.e. letters/post). In sum, even when we talk about the oldest

institutionalized means of information and communication, human infomediaries have been a

critical component in a technology system (in this case, the postal service). Additionally, the

illiterate population trusts this infomediary at three levels as it:

1. Believes that the postman would help read letters for them or write letters on their

behalf,

2. Has a “granted” faith that any information that users communicate via postman (to

write/read) would reach their loved ones or any others, safely (which is the user's

bottom-line goal for using an information communication system, postal service), and

3. Appreciates personalized interactive assistance offered by the postman.

It would be greatly difficult to imagine the effectiveness of postal system, in rural contexts

where illiteracy is widespread, without such an interface/infomediary. Above all, the postman

would be an infomediary right at the doorstep of the postal service beneficiary. Such



accessibility is also particularly useful for those who have restrictions over their mobility

because of issues related to gender, caste, religion, and ethnicity. Without such a crucial

interface, probably, the “assumed” beneficiaries – both senders and receivers – might not be

inclined to use postal service at all.

New technologies, like Internet (e-commerce), are perceived to have started

“disintermediation” creating better value to consumer; such a scenario might be true in

Western contexts (Balaji 2003; Heeks 2001; Rajalekshmi 2007). However, currently, in the

developing world the poor owning ICTs is unlikely – so, donor agencies and governments are

reaching the poor by providing ICTs to various government agencies, NGOs and CBOs,

which Heeks (1999) refers to as “intermediary institutions”.

One can argue that institutional intermediaries might not be ideal for the poor themselves

“owning” ICTs (Heeks 1999). However, instead of considering such institutions as barrier;

they should be leveraged upon to access the poor in an effective distribution network

(Prahalad 2005, pp. 44). Today, the real barriers are lack of literacy, skills,

awareness/exposure; high-cost (owning a computer; internet etc), and so on. Oftentimes, even

reaching the poor via institutional intermediaries might be a challenge because of issues

related to gender, illiteracy, caste, and ethnicity. Thus, even in non-ICT initiatives, particularly

that don't demand literacy, the concept of “community mobilizers”, or “agency (local

individuals)”, or “change leaders (local level)” are crucial for civil society organizations and

local governance [institutional intermediaries], who are necessarily information mediating

actors at the local level. We argue that it is similar with ICT initiatives. In the BOP markets,

Bill Gates argues, the poor are excluded from various services as they lack the means to

engage with the current markets (2008). In this context, for ICT initiatives that aim to serve

the poor, mobile infomediary – similar to postman – would be a critical means to reach,

include, and engage the poor.

3.1 Case of United Villages

The example of the postman shows that the effectiveness of a traditional communication

system can be increased when infomediaries are embedded in the system. In the following



example, we can see how the same is true for an ICT system. United Villages Networks

Private Limited has developed a low-cost Internet access model called DakNet (literally

translated, post network). It uses a network of rural DakNet Service Providers (DSP), like

kiosks, who sell subscriptions to access a range of services on the DSP’s computer. Through

the computer data is uploaded through Wi-Fi transceivers mounted on local buses that pass by

these kiosks which are all on a well used, major local bus route. Uploaded data is stored until

the bus gets to the bus station where it is transferred to the Internet via wireless protocols.

Likewise, at the bus station the bus downloads data for delivery along its route to the network

of kiosks. This store-and-forward system allows DakNet to offer an asynchronous network

communication model to users at low cost. United Villages' most successful service is e-

shopping. A paper catalogue is provided to assist e-shoppers, but they will also source non-

catalogue items. After placing an order in a kiosk, it is sent to the Bhubaneswar hub via

DakNet from the computer in the village, via a local bus with the Wi-Fi transceiver. The

goods are purchased from wholesalers in Bhubaneswar and sent to the villages, again using

the same Wi-Fi-mounted bus network.

A rather interesting phenomenon is beginning to surface through the use of mobile

infomediaries. Traditionally in Orissa (as in many other parts of rural India), household items

are bought at the local market by men; indeed, the market is a largely male environment. Not

only do women not visit the market, they also do not go to DakNet centres. However, when

mobile sales reps visit families in the village, women are able to take their own purchasing

actions through the rep/infomediary. Ideally women should themselves visit DakNet centres

for placing e-shop orders; if they want to order non-catalogue items (which is most likely),

then they are required to send an email request for the product as opposed to choosing from

the online catalogue, which requires literacy and knowledge of English (as no local language

option is available). Most women would be illiterate or lack English language skills; however,

the sales rep/infomediary facilitates the purchase by actually sending the orders by email on

behalf of the women.

It’s no surprise therefore that the majority of e-shopping customers are women, who place

orders for baby food, quality food grains, cosmetics, chocolates etc. It’s a sales model that has



some similarity to that used previously in Europe and the USA by Avon cosmetics or

Tupperware utensils; and such instances of personalized engagement prove how important a

network of infomediaries is to the interaction between ICT and the end user. In other words,

simply providing Internet access to rural areas is not enough: there needs to be a compelling

reason to actually use the Internet, and infomediaries to support this use. Without a network of

such infomediaries, United Villages would lose majority of its customers – women.

In addition, the role of infomediary involves personal interactions, which might be helpful in

establishing trust. The following example demonstrates how United Villages’ level of personal

service is establishing some degree of brand loyalty. The company operates a train ticket

booking service, since interstate travel by train in India bears some resemblance to pre-Web

European train travel. Advance booking is difficult and unreliable; the traveller usually has to

book his/her next travel leg at each station of origin; and you can usually be sure that the

ticket seller does not speak any of the languages that you do. After such an experience on a

previous holiday, one Orissan villager used United Villages to book a rail tour of South India

for himself and his family; the company’s operator booked the whole journey in advance for a

small mark-up. So impressed was the traveller by this level of service that when he needed to

make an unforeseen cash withdrawal during the trip, he phoned the United Villages sales

representative to see if the company offered any means to transfer funds to him that was

cheaper than an ATM withdrawal. Unfortunately it didn’t; but this example demonstrates how

quickly United Villages is establishing itself as a trustworthy brand in underserved regional

and rural niches – perhaps creative capitalists should take note. Also, the traveller’s family

particularly his wife uses e-shop via sales rep. Trust would also be important to engage the

users in an ongoing manner – it facilitates user-company long-term relationship.

Similar explicit use of mobile infomediaries could be found in Pallitathya Kendraii

(Pallitathya Centre) initiative in Bangladesh – a group of over hundred ICT common access

points/centres – where “[c]ommunity beneficiaries would not have to own computers, phone,

television o[r] other ICTs, as they can come to a common access point and use ICTs free of

cost or for a small fee, with the help of a ICT literate person if necessary”, additionally,

mobile infomediaries go door-to-door with mobile phone, laptop, and internet connectivity.



“The introduction of infomediary made the Pallitathya model able to introduce ‘no exclusion

policy’. It is to be mentioned that Pallitathya model proposes two types of infomediary:

infomediary at Pallitathya Kendra and mobile infomediary, which is known as ‘mobile lady’.

Introduction of ‘mobile lady’ addressed the mobility problem of women beneficiaries, who

seldom go out of home for livelihood purpose.” However, the role of mobile infomediary,

including in DakNet, is not necessarily confined to dealing with mobility, literacy, gender (or

even caste, religion and ethnicity) aspects; poor people are busy individuals who would be

involved in various day-long income generating activities and/or household work – here the

role of mobile infomediaries would also save precious time of a potential user. Such a

phenomenon could be found even among urban users like in various “home delivery” services

– including the successful pizza delivery model.

Additionally, DakNet also builds upon the traditional and trusted idea of well-used bus service

that plies between towns and villages. Importantly, bus drivers have often been used to send

remittances or other goods to relatives, often from the city or town to the village. Added to

this are newer technologies such as the Wi-Fi and the computer – which act as non-human

mobile infomediaries. Thus, DakNet is a hybrid that mixes both the traditional (often trusted)

and the new technologies.

3.2. Bottleneck Identification

We were also involved in the Finding a Voice (FaV)iii research project that ran from early

2006 to late 2008. We worked with 15 community-based ICT initiatives across India,

Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Hevalvani Samudayik Radioiv in Uttarakhand was part of

FaV. Hevalvani is active in numerous villages including Jugargaon, a village situated in the

mountainous range – that takes one hour by foot to reach from nearest motorable road. Such

inhospitable location particularly makes it difficult for women as they had to spend more than

an hour daily by foot to fetch drinking water. This also affected their farm related work and

also household chores.

Safe drinking water was a common problem in Jugargaon as piped water supply was not

working. The villagers wanted a solution; so they asked the volunteers' help make their voice



heard. The volunteers recorded the villager's problem for a radio program. They took the

recorded program to the concerned government officer in the district administrative

headquarter and played it in front him. The officer, however, claimed that the villagers were

“getting water regularly”, and a while later alleged that “the local politics in the village” was

the reason behind the problem. The response of the officer was recorded and was narrowcast

in front of the Jugargaon villagers. After listening to the officer’s response, villagers decided

go for a signature campaign. A formal complaint (letter) was written with the help the

volunteers and every household member signed it. This complaint was later submitted to the

concerned government department. Result: after three days regular water supply resumed.

The Jugargaon example is a powerful example that emphasizes volunteers of a community

radio acting as mobile infomediaries between villagers and local government. Of course, the

village had few literate individuals including radio volunteers from the same village, but

literate individuals other than volunteers lacked skills to write an official complaint letter and

to approach local government. Basic literacy is a formidable first step; however, overcoming

community problems might need well-informed citizens. Here, informed mobile

infomediaries who were embedded in the Hevalvani community radio system was effective.

However, one of the challenges with intermediary institutions which essentially facilitate and

house mobile infomediaries is that they are not always ideal for long-term sustainability of

program goals. FaV research found that the challenge comes from the fact that non-profit

organizations tend to raise funds from an array of potential donors, which forces some

organizations to address a multiplicity of issues in order to fulfil their sponsorship obligations.

Therefore existing social change programs are dropped for new ones. For instance, the Delhi's

Seelampur community's Open Knowledge Network (OKN) centre focused on encouraging

informal education for small children (both boys and girls), to help them enter mainstream

schooling – an issue of enormous importance for Seelampur. But, this vital program was lost

when the NGO got funding from Delhi government initiative Gender Resource Centre (GRC)

that supplanted the OKN centre (Kiran 2008).

However, flawed policies of both, a) local organizations that simply abandon their existing



issue-based programs for newer ones to raise funds; and b) various donors/funders who ignore

existing local organizations' activities and support donor-mandated issues/programs – might

risk spoiling trust established by mobile infomediaries. In such bottleneck scenarios – where

local organization lack enough resources to deal with multiple issues with equal importance:

instead of going for different programs altogether; a reasoned approach for effectively

sustaining continuity might be either to, adopt issues that complement existing focus or to

fund organizations that are already working on issues that support a donor/funder mandate.

4. Concluding RemarksWe have discussed a number of initiatives which demonstrate how mobile infomediaries can

be instrumental for ICT initiatives to engage over four billion poor at the bottom of the

pyramid. Using the common movie depiction of the role of the postman in the communication

process, we argued that initiatives with embedded mobile intermediaries – like sales

representatives, ‘mobile lady’, and volunteers – can form an effective distribution network

with which to access BOP markets, where issues related to gender, mobility, caste, ethnicity,

religion etc. are commonplace. Such infomediaries can also help establish trust between the

poor and the technology initiative by offering their advice, skills, knowledge, and services.

Certainly the BOP model is built around financial profitability. However, oftentimes, a sole

focus on financial profitability would overlook equally important long-term engagement with

the communities that an initiative intends to serve. Both for-profit and non-profit

organizations that aim to target the BOP markets raise funds from venture capitalists, funders

and donors. Indeed, BOP markets are increasingly being approached through collaboration

between civil society organizations, government bodies, policy establishments, donors, and

private firms. However, collaborations are not devoid of bottlenecks: we have identified a

few of these (there would be many more) and argued that collaborations including funding

should be among/between organizations with a similar or at least complimentary focus on

either issues or services.



Acknowledgements

Our research in Orissa is part of the Moving Content project, which is investigating the United

Villages DakNet system in three village panchayat areas. The research is supported by the

Australian Research Council’s Centre for Creative Innovation in collaboration with the Intel

Corporation, USA. The Finding a Voice project was supported by the Australian Research

Council, in collaboration with UNESCO and UNDP.

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M.S. Kiran is Senior Researcher on the Moving Content research project, funded by Intel

Corporation. He has expertise in the fields of journalism, teaching and research. He has

worked on various education and technology literacy programs and holds both a BA and MA

from Bangalore University; and a Masters in Development Studies from Uppsala University.

His research interests are public leadership and collaborative/network governance

Jerry Watkins has a 20-year track-record in communication design and has provided

consultancy to some of the world’s leading organisations. He researches creative

communication and participatory content creation at Swinburne University. Jerry holds a BSc

with First Class Honours in Communication and IT from University of Westminster, and a

MSc in Human-Computer Interaction from University College London

Jo Tacchi has contributed to the growing fields of media anthropology and media

ethnography. She holds a MA from University of Sussex and a PhD from University College

London. Jo is an Associate Professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland

University of Technology, and a Fellow of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of

Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation


i http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc2/off11ann1rev1.html ii www.pallitathya.org iii http://findingavoice.org. Funding was supplied by the Australian Research Council, UNESCO and UNDP.iv A community radio initiative

http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc2/off11ann1rev1.html

http://findingavoice.org/

http://www.pallitathya.org/

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The Role of Mobile Infomediaries: A Bottom of the Pyramid Approach