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<p class=MsoNormal>Hi everyone,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I’m travelling to India next week and would love to meet an
Asterisk development company to discuss a project. We’re a non-profit based in
France (<a href="http://www.internews.eu">www.internews.eu</a>) but are funded
to set up a pilot project to launch business news services aimed at the SME
sector and microfinance borrowers. The mobile phone is going to be the biggest
single (though not only) platform to distribute these news services, and we aim
to set up 50 autonomous mini-news agencies in a franchise arrangement with a
wholesaler – each with the ability to populate their own IVR menus, SMS in-out
etc.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A Delhi or Kolkota meeting would be ideal as I will be there
anyway. But I could probably also make Chennai, or Bangalore.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Please note: we’re *<b>not</b>* talking here about providing
a full-service call center, rather the tech development and support to allow a
bunch of small businesses run their own phone apps. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Please contact me off list. I paste a fuller description of
the project below...<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Thanks<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>John West<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>***<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b>MYSMENEWS – A NEWS AGENCY FOR SMALL BUSINESS <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Over
two years, Internews Europe and its partners in India will innovate business
news services in print, radio and mobile phone for some 300,000 recipients of
microfinance loans, and for small and medium enterprises in the Indian state of
West Bengal. The project comprises three elements: first, a series of <i>personalised</i>
and <i>customisable</i> news services called <b><i>My SME News</i> </b>that
keep small businesses abreast of their existing and potential future markets;
second, broadcast programs that will reach microentrepreneurs and SME
owners with business information and spread awareness of small business
services and the microfinance movement in the broad population; third, detailed
research, from a baseline through the life of a pilot, and dissemination across
the microfinance sector in India, Nepal, and other Asian countries.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>It
has long been recognised that information improves markets. Business news
companies such as Reuters, Boomberg, and Dow Jones are multi-billion dollar
enterprises which shape the flow of international capital and commodities. The
microfinance sector is growing rapidly across Asia in part due to the
increasing availability of information that allows even the relatively poor and
isolated to identify markets for their goods and services, and negotiate with
wholesalers and middlemen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>But
so far, this increase in information flows has happened largely as a by-product
of a growth in infrastructure of the Internet and the mobile phone . <b><i>My
SME News</i> </b>will be the first service to target specifically microfinance
borrowers and SMEs in developing countries as a natural market for business
news and information. It will explicitly exploit falling barriers to entry to
media and information systems to target the tens of millions of small
businesses which represent the single biggest sector contributing to the
reduction of poverty across India and the rest of Asia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The
news services will dovetail with a microfinance institution that runs a network
of 204 branches across West Bengal. An editing operation in Calcutta will
create a bank of news relevant to small business, then create individually
customised versions for each of 15,000 self-help groups, available both on
paper and by mobile phone. Subsidised in a promotion period, the services will
gradually be converted to fee-paying.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Radio
programming over state and commercial radio in West Bengal and Nepal will reach
the wider microenterprise and SME community with broad issues of small
business development, cross-marketing the customised services. A baseline study
of information use among the target demographic will be constantly updated
through the two year pilot. The publishing platform will be developed with open
source software, and all editorial and business methodologies explained for
possible wider adoption.The editing service will be structured to facilitate
full commercialisation at the end of the project.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Different
models will be examined for replication elsewhere in India both as product
differentiation offered by microfinance NGOs, and as standalone businesses,
either as start-ups or by existing media groups, and also as franchises at the
micro-level affiliated to regional networks. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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