Hello everyone! I lead Nokia's Life Tools service globally. Nokia Life Tools attempts to bring the benefits of the Internet and mobile services to enhance the daily lives and livelihoods of the millions in the emerging markets. Nokia Life Tools is a range of Agriculture, Education and Entertainment services addressing the millions of mobile consumers without timely access to their daily information needs, who probably would never use a PC. Before taking up this new challenge, I was the Director of Multimedia Experiences for Nokia in Asia Pacific bringing to market consumer services and experiences on Nokia mobile devices spanning across Music, Imaging, Games, Internet, Mobile TV and Location based experiences. I am looking forward to the disucssion in this forum![img]

The first time a mobile phone comes in anyone's lives it increases our sense of control. This comes with bringing in a bit more predictability in our lives with increased access and communication be it in the professional or a social context. With a mobile phone, the possibility for farmers to keep in touch with the traders in the market or the labour contractor or calling a helpline for advise/information surely has an impact to livelihood. While this is a proven fact, the way i interpret Michael's question is "is there concrete proof of farmers enhancing their income using a mobile 'service' specifically designed for agriculture." Multiple pilots, studies and research so far has given us insights on what the ingredient for a successful service will be: relevant local content, timely delivery of the info when you need it, accuracy and credibility of the information, in vernacular language and some more. A commercial service targted to farmers will be sold/offered on a subscription to consumers to make it sustainable. There are instances of Agriculture mobile services wherein people are paying monthly subscriptions. My point in the thread earlier was that if consumers are paying for such a service, in addition to his regular talktime and sms charges, then that is concrete proof that the information provided via that service is useful in ensuring a higher yield or making possible higher savings. Nigel, this is the point I was making in my earlier post. Hope this clarifies a bit.

Michael has raised a very interesting point. While there is lots of academic research and anecdotal evidence, the number of mobile services on agriculture are few and far between. The real proof according to me is when a consumer pays for a service. That is a very big reflection of value since the consumer will continue to pay only if there is tangible benefit that he experiences i.e. more money to be made or more savings that are directly attributable to the information that he receives via his agri service on the mobile. There is Proof! Take a look at [url=http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL0134842920071001]R… Market Light.[/url] They started a pilot in Maharashtra which ultimately culminated in commercial service launch on Oct 07 offering weather, agri advisory and market prices. Recently, they have opened up operations in a second state in India - Punjab. Also take a look at [url=http://europe.nokia.com/lifetools]Nokia Life Tools[/url] which was recently announced will also offer consumer services on agriculture and eduaction. For the pilot that we (Nokia) will conduct in Maharashtra, we will be working with Reuters Market Light for the agri offerings. Nokia Life Tools is intended to be commercially available in India in 1H'09. So you will start seeing some movement in this space!

Hi Toru, Yes indeed, this is the first instance of a mobile phone manufacturer packaging a Agriculture service. The Nokia Life Tools interface is graphicaly very rich including display in tabular formats for easy readying of price data. This service is intended to work anywhere your mobile phone works, given that most rural/remote areas there will be no GPRS/data coverage. So we use SMS as the bearer to deliver the information directly to the Nokia Life Tools service UI (not in the messaging inobox). The pilot is offering the agriculture services on a monthly subscription basis.