Meteorological and Related Services Ltd (MARS Ltd)
Meteorological And Related Services Ltd. (MARS Ltd.) has been formed to provide value-added and customized weather advisory services
The 'Climate Change' due to 'Global Warming' has increased the devastating weather activities in many folds. There is no other country like Bangladesh where severe thunderstorms kill more than a hundred people each year, damage huge crops and properties. These weather activities cannot be stopped; only right time right weather service can minimize this damage of lives and properties. The susceptibility of Bangladesh to weather and climate extremes, the country’s meteorological information services, forecasting, and multi-hazard end-to-end early warning systems still weak. To reduce the severe effects of extreme weather events, MARS Ltd. has been providing its customized weather advisory services round the clock to the City dwellers, farming communities, brickfields, tea garden, etc. through SMS, Voice call, & email for their safety of lives and properties to attain greater economic growth
Impact of ‘Global Warming’ Bangladesh is frequently affected by some severe weather activities, like Cyclone, Tornado, severe thunderstorms/lightning, heavy rain, flood, heatwave, cold wave, etc. Most of our farming community and local people are not aware of the signal & warning of bad weather issued by the national authority or available in the different website because of their ignorance, less education and non-exposure with modern communication equipment like a smartphone. Moreover, lack of access to accurate and timely weather forecast is causing the economy to suffer from billions of losses and lives. For example, 11.2 Billion crops loss by farmers due to bad weather in 2017. Tea gardens suffer the economic loss of 120 Million/year if rain occurs soon after fertilization. Brickfield suffers 2.5 Billion/Season economic loss for only one unforecasted rain. Every citizen or community somehow affected by bad weather in Bangladesh.
Our weather services can help farmers to make appropriate operational decisions about planting, harvesting, irrigation, adjusting cropping patterns, and Thereby minimize agricultural risks and enhance agricultural productivity. Brickfield owners can cover raw bricks by getting timely rain forecast. Tea garden managers can plan when to use pesticides and fertilizers.
Weather influences human lives and all spheres of economic activities in various ways and badly affects the development processes. If anybody is aware of the right weather information at the right time and in the right fashion can greatly benefit from various weather phenomena.
MARS Ltd. provide all types of weather and climate-related advisory services to fulfill the needs of Users. Due to climate change, the extremities of weather events are increasing, and impacts of those events become intolerable. To reduce the severe effects of these extreme weather events, MARS Ltd. has been providing its customized weather services to the following sectors through SMS, Voice call, & email:
a. City dwellers can take decision when to go out? When to carry an umbrella? How to saving valuables?
b. Farming communities & Tea garden managers can take decision when to fertilize? When to irrigate? When to harvest?
c. Brickfields owners can take decision when to stop production? When to cover raw bricks? How to maximum use of available daylight?
e. Airlines people can know inflight and destination weather, location of the jet stream.
f. Principals of Schools and colleges can take the right decision about his operational activities.
Various weather services offered by MARS Ltd are tailored to the specific users for the purpose of pro-active decision-making that would certainly benefit the users. MARS Ltd is providing weather services very effectively for the following purpose.
a. Safe & Coast effective Operation of private Airlines
b. Safe & Coast effective Operation of Shipping and Launch services
c. Safe & Coast effective Operation of Offshore Installations
d. Coast effective planning and execution by Construction Companies
e. Coast effective operation and management of Brick Fields
f. Coast effective planning and operation of Tours & Travel agencies
g. Coast effective planning of Agriculture Sector
h. Keep updating Mobile Operations & customers with weather information
j. Providing Climate data for Research Work
k. Other related services
The following raw data are analyzed for the preparation of forecast:
a. Synoptic (surface) data: It includes surface wind speed & direction, humidity, cloud coverage, surface air temperature, present weather condition (thunderstorm, rain, lightning, fog, mist, sunny, etc.), air pressure, etc. These data are received every after 03 hours from each recognized Meteorological stations of World Meteorological Organization (WMO
b. Pilot (wind) data------It includes vertical wind speed & direction from 1000 feet to 40000 feet over a particular area every after 6 hours from each recognized Meteorological station of World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
c. T-Ø gram data --------It includes the thermodynamic data of the lower atmosphere (troposphere) like Showlter index, Lifted index, SWEAT index, K index, Total total index, Convective Available Potential Energy, Precipitable water (mm) for entire sounding etc.
d. Cloud (Satellite) picture-------There are number of sources from where we get the cloud picture every after half an hour. From cloud picture we get cloud top temperature, water vapour, brightness, colour composite, cloud motion vector, water vapour wind, visible, infrared, low cloud, medium cloud and high cloud, sea surface temperature, convergence, divergence, precipitation etc
e. Radar image------The radar imagery are getting from Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD),Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and Bangladesh Air Force.
f. Numerical weather prediction (NWP) model: Due to remarkable advancement in the field of science and technology, the forecasting technique has been changed from the conventional forecast. The NWP model is developed with the help of 6 thermodynamic equations by which short term to long term forecast can be given.
- Accelerate economic growth and create high-paying jobs across geographies and demographics in Bangladesh, especially among marginalized populations and youth
- Support economic development and food security in rural Bangladesh through sustainable farming and agricultural methods
- Agriculture
- Technology
- Growth
Innovation and reforms in the services arena around the world are inevitable as civilization changes. The promised operation of MARS Ltd is such an innovative and unique one in Bangladesh as it would deliver Meteorological and Related Services. In Bangladesh, where uncertainties and extremities of various weather phenomena play a dominant role in the economic activities, MARS would be an exemplary organization to promote the safety of lives and properties and thereby help accelerate the development process through economic gain.
MARS weather service is unique from other internet-based weather services, which are available in the market like BBC weather, Google Weather, Accuweather, Weather underground, WeatherBug, etc. MARS weather service is different from others because:
- MARS weather service is customized, timely, user-friendly and one to one service.
- No internet connection is required for MARS weather service.
- No smartphone is required for MARS weather service.
- Any users can make a telephone call to the MARS Operation room to clarify their dought.
- Accuracy of MARS weather service is around 90%
- MARS weather services are very much precision.
- Dissemination of MARS weather forecast through SMS (English and Bangla) (1-3 SMS per day as and when required) and voice mail (make the clients more clear and for immediate action). Queries are clarified through voice call if any.
People will buy our service because they are getting a customized and real-time advanced weather forecast, which reduce the negative impact, thereby they are getting economic gain.
Theory of Change: The theory of change of MARS weather services are describe in this link: https://drive.google.com/open?...
In this link we can see the some of the evidence: https://drive.google.com/open?...
In this link you can see the evaluation result which was done by jointly British American Tobacco and MARS ltd. All supporting data are available with MARS Ltd: https://drive.google.com/open?...
We have also conduct a survey in school/colleges of four coastal district (Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Khulna & Shatkhira) of Bangladesh. During survey we have taken interviews from head teachers of 14 upazilla of those four district. Result was very much appreciable and positive. This survey was conducted in Bangla. All data are available with MARS Ltd.
- Elderly
- Urban Residents
- Low-Income
1. Current number of people we are serving:
a. City Dwellers (only Dhaka City): 5335 Person
b. Farming Community: 3 (120 farmer)
c. Tea garden ( Sylhet, Maulvibazar & Srimangal): 22 Garden
d. British American Tobacco: 06 District
e. School & Colleges: 250
f. Brickfield: 242
g. Bangladesh Military Academy
h. Ramu Cantonment
2. The number we will be serving in one years:
a. City Dwellers (only Dhaka City): 10,000 Person
b. Farming Community: 8 (320 farmer)
c. Tea garden ( Sylhet, Maulvibazar & Srimangal): 30 Garden
d. British American Tobacco: 10 District
e. School & Colleges: 500
f. Brickfield: 342
g. Bangladesh Military Academy
h. Ramu Cantonment
j. Service will extend another 7 Divisional Cities.
3. The number we will be serving in five years:
a. City Dwellers (all over the country): 1,00,000 Person
b. Farming Community: 1000 (20000 farmer)
c. Tea garden ( Sylhet, & Chittagong areas): 50 Garden
d. British American Tobacco: 30 District
e. School & Colleges: 5000
f. Brickfield: 1000
g. Bangladesh Military Academy
h. Ramu Cantonment
j. Service will extend more 30 district Cities.
It is needless to say that weather impacts either positively or negatively, every sphere of our lives. Adverse weather badly impacts many sectors like agriculture, airlines, shipping, brickfield, tea garden, construction companies, etc. None can really stop or control the weather, but with the advancement of science & technology, we can better forecast impending weather well before they occur. Our men & materials can thus largely be saved by the timely weather forecast. MARS Ltd has been established with a goal to develop customized weather forecast and deliver user-friendly services round the clock to reduce the uncertainties of occurrence of weather. MARS is committed to providing the best possible and timely weather forecast in Bangladesh. We proudly claim that our sincere, hardworking, and experienced meteorologists can make a quality weather solution for your benefit that would ultimately boost the social and economic development of Bangladesh.
Our goal is to ensure multi-hazard early warning and climate forecasts for the farmers to mitigate climate-related agricultural production risks. Within next two years, a system will be developed to provide early warning about rainfall, thunder, Kalbaishaki, etc. and other climate forecasts to the farmers through mobile messages (Bangla or English), so that they can take appropriate decisions to minimize agricultural risks and enhance agricultural productivity. At present the contribution of agriculture to GDP is more than 15%, our five years’ goal is to increase the contribution of GDP to agriculture by 1% and make the contribution of agriculture to GDP more than 16%.
Financial & marketing system is our only problem
We are looking for a grant or partner to overcome our problem
- My solution is already being implemented in Bangladesh
At present we are serving more then 20 district of Bangladesh. In this you can find our present client: https://drive.google.com/open?...
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
At present:
Full-time staff: 05
Part-time staff: 03
Contractors: 03 (Variable)
Worker: Requirement basic.
The following Experience people are working for MARS Ltd
Air Commodore Mahbub Jahan Khan (Retd) served Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) for 27 years (1989-2016) as Meteorologist. He has in his credit one-year research study on “Effectiveness of Farmers’ Primer on Rice Cultivation”. He has presently serving as Part-time faculty at Dhaka University. Importantly, he received training, offered by Japan Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2014 and 2015 on use of satellite data. He proudly served for three UN peacekeeping missions as meteorologist.
Mamun
Md. Mamun-Or-Rashid earned his PhD degree in Wireless Sensor Network from the Department of Computer Engineering, Kyung Hee University, South Korea in 2008. He is now working as a Professor in the Department of CSE, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He contributed in developing one of the largest network, BdREN, the national research and education network for Bangladesh. Now he is working in developing agricultural Sector and climate smart aquaculture.
Wing Commander Sultan
Wing Commander Md Sultan Masum (Retd) is a co-founder of MARS Ltd., the private weather company in Bangladesh. Being a Bangladesh Air Force commissioned Officer, served 23 years as Meteorological officer in various key appointments.
Wing Commander AHMED ALI
Wing Commander Ahmed Ali (Retd) is a co-founder of Meteorological And Related Services Ltd (MARS Ltd), the only private weather company in Bangladesh. Being a Bangladesh Air Force commissioned Officer, served 24 years as Meteorological officer in various key appointments. He proudly served for two UN peacekeeping missions as meteorologist.
At present we don’t have any partner
Business Model Canvas of MARS Ltd:
1. Purpose:
- To develop real time, customized & smart weather information.
- To develop a dynamic system for deliver weather information to end user.
- To reduce the uncertainties of weather occurrence.
2. Impact:
- Farmers can do better planning.
- Promote the safety of lives & properties.
- Economic gain.
3. Customer Segment:
- Farmers/Production manager of Agro Industry.
- Regularly impacted by weather
- Concern about weather hazards.
4. Problem:
- Crops loss by farmers due to bad weather (11.2 Billion/Year)
- Tea gardens suffers economic loss (120 Million/year) if rain occurs soon after fertilization.
- Brickfield suffers huge economic loss (2.5 Billion/season) for unforecasted rain.
5. Solution:
- Timely & accurate Weather Forecast
- Increase Disaster Awareness.
6. Channels:
- SMS
- Call Center
- Video Content
- Personalize Consultancy.
- FB
- App (Future plane)
7. Unique Value Proposition:
- Real time advanced weather forecast.
- Reduce negative impact.
- Economic gain
8. Size & Growth Market:
- Potential Market:
- Farming Community :20 Million
- Brickfield :05 Million
- City Dwellers :60 Million
- Growth: Nov 17 Nov 18 Rate
- Farming Community: 14 29 107%
- Brickfield: 22 241 995%
- City Dwellers : 250 944 277%
9. Revenue:
- Individual Subscription : USD 06/year
- Farming Community : USD 75/year
- Brickfield : USD 60/season
- B2B : As per contract
- Tea Garden : USD 40/month
10. Key Metrics:
- Customer Acquisition Cost: 1.33/unit
- Retention Rate : 62%
- Margin: 60%
- Accuracy:>90%
After three years our revenue will be the main financial sustainability. Before that we require fund either grant or investment capital for sustain.
We are applying to the Tiger Challenge for financial support, IT support, marketing support and if possible making partnership with Tiger IT.
- Technology
- Funding and revenue model
We are trying to making partnership with Channel I (Redhaya Mati O Manush)
Co-founder of MARS Ltd