Winner of the m-Billionth Award South by the Digital Empowerment Foundation, were announced at an event in New Delhi South Asia , was given in nine categories that included m-Inclusion, m-Infrastructure, m-Entertainment, m-Governance, m-Health and m-Education and Learning. Some of the winners are profiled below: Category: m-Business & Commerce Title: Electronic Money Transfer Ser vice of Bangladesh Post Producer: Bangladesh Post Office The service allows people to send or receive money through money orders within minutes within the country using mobile phones.
“It is money transfer in a moment”, Mohammad Sirajuddin, director, Bangladesh Post, de- scribes the electronic money transfer service that was started as part of the country's postal service in May 2010.
The process is simple: any- one who has to send money can visit a post office to make a transfer. The sender gets a confirmation code that has to be conveyed to the receiver of the money. The receiver can then go to a post office with the code and a proof of identity to get the money. The process is done through mobile phones.
The money transfer service is in line with the Bangladesh
In June, nearly 240,000 people used this system to remit about Tk214 crore. The mobile operator gets Tk7 for each transaction and Bangladesh Post about 1% of the money transferred.
Category: m-Governance Title: Interactive Voice Response System based Daily Monitoring Sys tem of the Mid Day Meal Scheme in Uttar Pradesh Producer: Mid Day Meal Authority, Uttar Pradesh The project envisages an automated management information system to make available daily data on all children availing midday meals.
Welfare schemes sponsored by the government are plagued by leakages at various levels.
The IVRS-based daily monitoring system of Uttar Pradesh's midday meal scheme aims to tackle such leakages.
The IVRS-based daily monitoring system of Uttar Pradesh's midday meal scheme aims to tackle such leakages.
Sudhanshu Tripathi, chief finance officer of the state's mid- day meal authority, says the trigger for conceptualizing the idea was the difficulty in getting information on how many children actually took midday meals and how many schools provided these meals.
“The idea was conceptualized way back in 2007 when we had 1.52 lakh schools in UP spread across to the far ends where children from the deprived section were coming”, he said. “Unless we had the ex- act information, nobody could take remedial intervention”. Category: m-Business & Commerce Title: Kumari Bank Mobile Cash Producer: Kumari Bank Ltd Western Nepal is a rather in- accessible rural area. But it has the only bank branch in the surrounding region.
This has required people living around the area to travel 7-8 hours by road to cover a stretch of about 15km so they can send money to their children studying in Kathmandu , capital of the Himalayan nation. There were no other options until a few months ago.
Kumari Bank of Nepal
“In Nepal, because of the landscape and lack of physical infrastructure, one way to get to people in the hills and the mountains is the telcom, the mobiles, where the user rate is growing at 30-40% in the country”, says Radhesh Pant, chief executive of Kumari Bank. “We wanted to be the first ones to launch mobile wallet so that we could focus on 70% of the people who really don't have any banking or financial access”. A person using the service doesn't need to have an ac- count with Kumari Bank but has to be registered with it.
They can then approach the bank's agents to pay and load an amount into their mobile accounts, which they can then transfer to other accounts any- where in the country.
They can then approach the bank's agents to pay and load an amount into their mobile accounts, which they can then transfer to other accounts any- where in the country.
With more than 13,500 users already and about 200 transactions a day, worth about NPR 5 lakh, the network is growing fast. Category: m-Travel & Tourism Title: M-ticketing Train Ticket Reservation System Producer: Mobitel Pvt. Ltd.
It has computerized the Colombo Kandy Intercity train ticket reservation system and has made it possible to purchase tickets over mobile phones.
The train ticket reservation system of the Sri Lankan Rail- ways is one example of how technology, especially mobile phones, can make life simpler for millions of people.
While in the past people had to wait in long queues to book train tickets and sometimes leave unsuccessful, his company's mobile-based reservation system has simplified the process, said Jeewapadma Sandagomi, manager, ERM and revenue assurance, Mobitel Pvt. Ltd.
Passengers can dial into Mobitel's booking system, punch in the source code that's published across the country, and contact the customer care centre, which will check for avail- ability and book the ticket on- line. “Ticket charges are de- ducted from the credit limit of the passengers and is charged at end of the month”, says Sandagomi. Mobitel is one of the largest mobile service providers in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka
(Source-mintlive.com)