BackBandhana | Documenting data with mobile devices
Entrepreneur Arjun Ekbote's social start-up provides mobile apps, cloud services to automate data collection and assessments by NGOs
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Bangalore: Arjun Ekbote sounds like a wise entrepreneur who’s been in the business a while.
“An entrepreneur is not somebody who comes up with the right answers, but somebody who asks the right questions and gets the right people to find the solutions," says Ekbote, one of the three founders of Bandhana, a social start-up that helps non-profits with documentation and report generation.
Ekbote and his two co-founders—Malay Singh and Saurabh Maurya—cannot be reached before 5pm on weekdays. They would be attending second-year classes at the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences in Pilani. They are just 19 years old.
Bandhana provides mobile apps and cloud services to automate data collection and assessments by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The app is available on Android devices and is a customization of an open source offline form filling platform. The data visualization—such as report cards generation, charts and graphs—provided by the app helps organizations monitor assessments, perform quality checks and analyse data collected from the surveys. NGOs need these reports to substantiate impact during fund or grant application processes.
“Most jobs can be automated to avoid human errors. What we have is a part product, part service business. The offline mobile app is the product, while the services include survey designs, analysis and cloud services," said Ekbote.
NGO field workers typically go out into the field and collect data manually; Bandhana aims to change this by digitizing inputs and analysing the collected data within a short span of time. Though the collection happens on an offline interface similar to Google Forms, once the device gets connectivity to the Internet, the forms can be submitted on the cloud.
The student entrepreneurs, while balancing academic course-work and revisiting business models, have already provided questionnaires and analysis in two pilot projects: for Nirmaan, a volunteer-run on-campus organization that provides educational and employment support in the villages of Rajasthan; and for Pratham, one of India’s largest NGOs that works towards improving the quality of education provided to underprivileged children in the country.
It all started with a course called New Venture Creations, which the three teenagers took as an additional credit to their core academic subjects. They had to come up with a business idea for the class. They scouted for a problem they could address, and approached the Pilani Resource Centre (PRC), an on-campus organization founded by the BITS Alumni Association and Pratham. More than 1,000 student volunteers work towards better elementary education in and around the town of Pilani.
The wannabe entrepreneurs knew that they wanted to help these volunteers document data with their mobile devices, but did not know how to do it.
“We just went to PRC and saw the situation. They were having a huge problem. We did not ever study about these things either, but we analysed that there was a problem. And we knew we needed more people to be able to solve this. We needed Android programmers, website developers, data analytics experts to help us build the mobile tool we had in mind," said Ekbote.
The idea was conceptualized in July 2013, but it took them until December to come up with their initial product offering. They hired two more students, Amit Sharma and Swarnim Singhal, from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, for technology development.
In January, Bandhana designed and created oral and written aptitude tests for Nirmaan to assess the academic performance of a group of 20 students in the Nat Basti village in Pilani. The scores were collected on ODK (open data kit) Collect, a free and open-source set of tools for mobile data collection, with a field for the student’s photograph too. The results were then sent to a remote server, from where the analyses were ready the same day. This was their first proof of concept and first step into entrepreneurship.
The success of the Nirmaan pilot got them their first commercial project from Pratham —with whom they will work closely in the months to come.
“We have always been looking to use technology to track our projects better, and this was our opportunity to shift. These kids were always engaged and interested in doing things for us. Whatever we wanted, they would happily do," said Rishi Rajvanshi, cluster head, Pratham. “I am also talking to other heads across the Pratham network to give these guys a shot."
“We haven’t made any money till date, but we are excited that our first commercial project is with Pratham," said Ekbote. “We still don’t know how to price the product and what we can expect for it. It will take some time to figure these pricing points out."
While the business is taking off smoothly, the founders prepare for mid-semester exams and class quizzes, so that their academic records don’t take a beating. “We fare well in exams, but we could do better. In many ways, we compromise a little on our careers, but we are sure that this is our passion, and we will pursue it till the end. We have all the support needed," said Ekbote.
In the next few years, Bandhana will go through various iterations to become more flexible, robust and platform-agnostic, the founders said. Will they do this alone? No. The National Entrepreneurship Network, which provides resources and support to student entrepreneurs across the country, will provide Bandhana with the mentoring necessary to achieve their goals. They also hope to be incubated in BITS Pilani’s business incubator in their final year.
Mint has a strategic partnership with National Entrepreneurship Network, which hosts the Tata First Dot awards.
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