TCS mKrishi on pilot run in Maharashtra- The Financial Express, Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009

Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) mobile-based advisory platform mKrishi has started pilot projects in Maharshtra. The information system for farmers will help them access localised information and advice on agricultural issues through graphic and voice formats in local languages.

 S Ramadorai, vice chairman of TCS, said: "We have to scale them up but the pilots are very successful. There are real clients who are trying out on the ground and we are trying to ascertain how effective that is." According to him, with 3G being rolled out, a lot of applications will go through hand-held devices. "Localisation of content is one of the biggest opportunities in the country going forward in the next few years," he said.

mKrishi has been developed to provide personalised information and expert advice to rural farmers in their local language using sensor technology. It is also adaptable to illiterate farmers who can make a query from a cell phone using voice-specific functions. Present at the national conference on leadership at the CII-Suresh Neotia Centre of Excellence in Kolkata, Ramadorai said TCS is looking for recruiting people from various parts of the country. "We make sure they understand building localisation of the content," he added.

Talking to reporters, Ramadorai said the deal pipeline for Indian IT companies is good and there are growth prospects in the international markets like the US as well as in India. While there are opportunities in Europe, they are a bit slow. Read more...

mKRISHI - Connecting India's Rural Farmers

Agriculture is a key contributor to the Indian economy and presents several business opportunities for ICT companies to deliver various services to farmers.

mKRISHI - developed by Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) is an innovative platform to offer personalized and integrated services to farmers. TCS mKRISHI platform combines multiple technologies to bring vital information regarding local weather, fertilizer requirements based on soil conditions, pest control and current food grain prices in local markets in a rich content format to farmers’ low-end mobile handsets. It allows them to send queries in their local languages, as well as images and voice-activated SMS through a mobile phone and provides personal responses with advice or relevant information in these languages.

Dr Arun Pande, Head - TCS Innovation Labs, Mumbai - speaks to CSR360 Magazine in an interview on mKRISHI and about TCS winning the Business in the Community (BiTC) Coffey International Award 2010 Big Tick. Read more...

Tata Consultancy Services working to turn its mKRISHI agricultural info service into a global entrepreneurial platform

For the last few years Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the IT consulting division of India’s mammoth Tata Group, has been developing a set of interconnecting technologies to help India’s rural farmers, all under the banner of mKRISHI (the ‘m’ is for mobile while “krishi” means farming in many Indian languages).

The mKRISHI system is a network of in-field weather sensors, back-office agricultural experts, data and software that all work in tandem with the farmers’ mobile phones via a custom mobile app. If the phone is not sophisticated enough to support the app (which can happen quite easily in India) or if the farmer is illiterate, the farmers can also connect to the service via voice SMS. If the farmer has a camera phone, they can send pictures to mKRISHI as well. Read more...

TCS Wins Technology Innovation Award From WSJ For mKrishi (October 1, 2008)

Indian based TCS said it has won the US publication Wall Street Journal’s global innovation technology award in the wireless technology category for 2008. Wall Street Journal has selected the company’s ‘mKrishi’ service, which offers mobile-based crop advisory service, as the winner of the award, a company release said. The award recognizes companies, individuals and organizations across the world for technological breakthroughs in areas such as medicine, software, internet, wireless and consumer electronics. TCS’ mobile-based crop advisory service, mKrishi, is a novel approach to help rural farmers across the country to have better access to information through a cell phone application. It has been developed to provide personalized information and expert advice to rural farmers in their local language using sensor technology.

Further, mKrishi is also adaptable to illiterate farmers to make a query from a cell phone using voice-specific functions, the statement added. “This award is a testament to the culture of innovation in TCS and to our commitment to creating value for clients, the community and society through pioneering new standards of technology and business models. “We are truly honored to receive the prestigious Wall Street Journal Innovation Technology award for TCS mKrishi service,” TCS CEO and Managing Director S Ramadorai said.

The Wall Street Journal had received more than 700 entries for the innovation awards and the winners were chosen based on whether the technology represented a breakthrough from conventional methods, rather than just an incremental improvement, the statement added. Read more...