The TTSL Outreach Program, along with the BREW application that can download data from satellites, is all set to change the fishing industry.
The safety and well being of those venturing into the sea to get their livelihood is a primary concern for fisherwomen, who anxiously wait for the safe return of the fishermen in the wee hours daily. But for fishermen, the daily fish catch is the only thing they worry about.
There is a saying down south that you don’t need to work if you know how to fish. Technology has its impact on every aspect of life and fishing is no exception. Fishermen use fish traps
or nets to catch fish. Now, the mobile phone will act as fish trap and will guide fishermen toward the fish.
In a bid to help fishermen, Tata Teleservices has partnered with Qualcomm, the Nasscom Foundation, the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and the Indian Center for Oceanographic Studies, to run a pilot project that will be launched sometime this year. The users of Tata Indicom will be able to locate the exact position of fish in the sea on their cell phone.
What an Idea!“Every market has a space and every space has a market. You just need to have the eye to identify it,” says Yogesh Kochhar, head, Corporate Sustainability, Tata Teleservices. On a trip to South India, Kochhar and his team noticed that not too many people use mobile phones in coastal regions. People in coastal areas have minimum connections with the outer world. They get married in nearby locations and everybody is engaged in fishing. Therefore, logically, they don’t need a mobile phone. “When I asked a person why he doesn’t use a mobile, the person
laughingly said, ‘because fish don’t use mobile phones,’” says Kochhar. Though Kochhar laughed off the reply as casual and humorous, deep inside he was troubled and shocked by it. There were two options available to his team. The first and easier one was to laugh off the idea about fish using mobile phones, and the second was to take it as a challenge and make fish talk. But how would fish use mobile phones? After few brainstorming sessions, they finally got the underlying statement in the fisherman’s reply. The idea was to connect fishermen to the fish through mobile phones. Kochhar was quite happy with this finding, though he knew it was not going to be an easy task. “At least I got an objective and am very clear about what to do. The only remaining part is execution,” exclaims Kochhar.
The safety and well being of those venturing into the sea to get their livelihood is a primary concern for fisherwomen, who anxiously wait for the safe return of the fishermen in the wee hours daily. But for fishermen, the daily fish catch is the only thing they worry about.
There is a saying down south that you don’t need to work if you know how to fish. Technology has its impact on every aspect of life and fishing is no exception. Fishermen use fish traps
or nets to catch fish. Now, the mobile phone will act as fish trap and will guide fishermen toward the fish.
In a bid to help fishermen, Tata Teleservices has partnered with Qualcomm, the Nasscom Foundation, the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and the Indian Center for Oceanographic Studies, to run a pilot project that will be launched sometime this year. The users of Tata Indicom will be able to locate the exact position of fish in the sea on their cell phone.
What an Idea!“Every market has a space and every space has a market. You just need to have the eye to identify it,” says Yogesh Kochhar, head, Corporate Sustainability, Tata Teleservices. On a trip to South India, Kochhar and his team noticed that not too many people use mobile phones in coastal regions. People in coastal areas have minimum connections with the outer world. They get married in nearby locations and everybody is engaged in fishing. Therefore, logically, they don’t need a mobile phone. “When I asked a person why he doesn’t use a mobile, the person
laughingly said, ‘because fish don’t use mobile phones,’” says Kochhar. Though Kochhar laughed off the reply as casual and humorous, deep inside he was troubled and shocked by it. There were two options available to his team. The first and easier one was to laugh off the idea about fish using mobile phones, and the second was to take it as a challenge and make fish talk. But how would fish use mobile phones? After few brainstorming sessions, they finally got the underlying statement in the fisherman’s reply. The idea was to connect fishermen to the fish through mobile phones. Kochhar was quite happy with this finding, though he knew it was not going to be an easy task. “At least I got an objective and am very clear about what to do. The only remaining part is execution,” exclaims Kochhar.
Idea Meets Invention
After initial planning, TTSL discussed the plans with the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Puducherry, to identify the community and area where the pilot can be carried out. Together they decided on Veerampattinam on the outskirts of Puducherry. Kochhar went to meet the director of the Indian Center for Oceanographic Studies (INCOIS), and spent a day with him talking on the possible roadmap. INCOIS is an organization that maps the sea region throughout
the country on different parameters. They research on the availability of resources in the sea. But they don’t provide any report on fish availability.
After several discussions, it was found that INCOIS provides the location of chlorophyll in seawater. “This was something like a eureka for us. Since chlorophyll is life for them, wherever there is chlorophyll in the sea, fish will be there,” Kochhar says happily. “There is a isconception
that fish is available everywhere in the sea. I have personally seen fishermen going in to the sea and after three-four hours coming with as low as a 10 kg catch,” he adds.
Invention Drives ExecutionOn the execution level, the challenge was to map the longitude and latitude of the places where there is chlorophyll in the sea. In addition, the measurement of wave heights and wind velocity was also important to forecast weather conditions and to prevent fishermen from going into
the sea during bad weather. When all this was done, TTSL developed a special application with
Qualcom, called BREW. This application downloads data from the satellite that maps chlorophyll in the sea on servers installed at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and this will uplink through the TTSL network via the BREW application, thus showing fishermen where the fish are available in the sea, also informing them about wave heights and wind velocity. This will bring
down fishermen’s time at sea, keep them safe, and help them return to the shore with a bigger catch. The MSSRF is regularly keeping a track of the developments, and the initial responses have been encouraging. And things won’t end there. The objective is that the phone also provides fishermen with market linkages. “There is a great disparity in the delivery and price mechanism. Fishermen get at least ten times less than the price at which fish are available to customers like you and us,” laments Kochhar. “We will try to remove those middle layers that
make most of the profit and bear minimum risk,” he adds. Fishermen will be provided with information on mandi prices across coastal areas and it will be connected to MCX in the
near future.
On the whole, through the use of Tata Indicom mobile phones, not only will fishermen get big catches, the phone will also ensure the best price for their catch. Simply put, this project hopes to be a benchmark for the power of communication.
Going AheadTTSL is eyeing the 8,100 km coastal area of the country as a business opportunity for this service. Kochhar doesn’t forget to thank his friends from Qualcom, who looked over the application development part, MSSRF, INCOIS, and some NGOs involved in the project. Rajiv
Narayan, vice president, Corporate Affairs, TTSL, guided the whole project. Kochhar sums up by saying: “There was a space and we created the market.”
Fish search chlorophyll for their life and now the mobile will also search chlorophyll. Both are looking for the same thing, but the purpose is different. While the fish looks for chlorophyll to save its life, the mobile will search for it to save the livelihood of fishermen.
After initial planning, TTSL discussed the plans with the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Puducherry, to identify the community and area where the pilot can be carried out. Together they decided on Veerampattinam on the outskirts of Puducherry. Kochhar went to meet the director of the Indian Center for Oceanographic Studies (INCOIS), and spent a day with him talking on the possible roadmap. INCOIS is an organization that maps the sea region throughout
the country on different parameters. They research on the availability of resources in the sea. But they don’t provide any report on fish availability.
After several discussions, it was found that INCOIS provides the location of chlorophyll in seawater. “This was something like a eureka for us. Since chlorophyll is life for them, wherever there is chlorophyll in the sea, fish will be there,” Kochhar says happily. “There is a isconception
that fish is available everywhere in the sea. I have personally seen fishermen going in to the sea and after three-four hours coming with as low as a 10 kg catch,” he adds.
Invention Drives ExecutionOn the execution level, the challenge was to map the longitude and latitude of the places where there is chlorophyll in the sea. In addition, the measurement of wave heights and wind velocity was also important to forecast weather conditions and to prevent fishermen from going into
the sea during bad weather. When all this was done, TTSL developed a special application with
Qualcom, called BREW. This application downloads data from the satellite that maps chlorophyll in the sea on servers installed at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and this will uplink through the TTSL network via the BREW application, thus showing fishermen where the fish are available in the sea, also informing them about wave heights and wind velocity. This will bring
down fishermen’s time at sea, keep them safe, and help them return to the shore with a bigger catch. The MSSRF is regularly keeping a track of the developments, and the initial responses have been encouraging. And things won’t end there. The objective is that the phone also provides fishermen with market linkages. “There is a great disparity in the delivery and price mechanism. Fishermen get at least ten times less than the price at which fish are available to customers like you and us,” laments Kochhar. “We will try to remove those middle layers that
make most of the profit and bear minimum risk,” he adds. Fishermen will be provided with information on mandi prices across coastal areas and it will be connected to MCX in the
near future.
On the whole, through the use of Tata Indicom mobile phones, not only will fishermen get big catches, the phone will also ensure the best price for their catch. Simply put, this project hopes to be a benchmark for the power of communication.
Going AheadTTSL is eyeing the 8,100 km coastal area of the country as a business opportunity for this service. Kochhar doesn’t forget to thank his friends from Qualcom, who looked over the application development part, MSSRF, INCOIS, and some NGOs involved in the project. Rajiv
Narayan, vice president, Corporate Affairs, TTSL, guided the whole project. Kochhar sums up by saying: “There was a space and we created the market.”
Fish search chlorophyll for their life and now the mobile will also search chlorophyll. Both are looking for the same thing, but the purpose is different. While the fish looks for chlorophyll to save its life, the mobile will search for it to save the livelihood of fishermen.
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