Byrraju and IBM join hands

In Andhra Pradesh, Byrraju Foundation the NGO arm of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services has joined hands with tech behemoth IBM to create a voice-enabled web portal that will help village communities offer their services and products to the world at large.

All that a person "" be it a cobbler, potter or a farmer "" needs to do to is to dial a toll-free number and register a message including the services and product offerings, and the same would be recorded in the portal.

The user too needs to dial the toll-free number to utilise the villagers' service. The portal service would be managed solely by IBM

"The project is currently in the pilot stage and we have already recorded voices of ten villagers. It will go live in the next three months. Our idea is to create a portal each in all the 185 villages in six districts of Andhra Pradesh," says Verghese Jacob, lead partner, Byrraju Foundation.

The foundation has on its panel, retired and serving scientists for each crop. They access the photographs, record their advice, and send them to the village coordinator through email. The coordinator, in turn, will take a print out of the advice and hand it over the same to the farmer at his doorstep.