AMBITION

First we want to say that our solution is purely research based, inspired from grass root necessities and proven in the agricultural field from last 5 years.

There are more than 2.1 billion people in the world who suffer from food insecurity (and few of them from poverty) for the un-sustainability in food system due to lack of technical knowledge & supportive practical agro-implementation with mandatory inputs, scarcity in investment and appropriate market link etc.

In Ambition, we have developed a socio-technical app-based and practically-proven solution which will provide technically processed information and sustainable mandatory inputs for sustainable food system by protecting and renewing the natural resources and biodiversity with an innovative tool of investment for the investors to generate better livelihood. Producers’ revenue will grow 12% to 18% from direct consumer connect, incomes will become more stable from better visibility on demand and end consumers will get better prices.

We are solving specific problems regarding information based and technologically sound methodologies and inputs for the sustainable low-carbon resilience food system.

70% of the population in India and the target areas are composed of smallholder farmers (agriculture based) who depend on farming to make a living. However, these farmers are facing the threat and challenges due to the lacking of agro-technical knowledge, problems in sustainable supply of water & energy and the risks of low-production, insufficient capital investment & food waste and these are the major mentionable crisis for migrant labours due to Covid-19 pandemic and free prisoners and conflict-affected indigenous people, frontline-impacted communities, single mothers etc.

Our method is to provide the solution to

• Give the socio-agro-technical knowledge and other mandatory inputs like fog-dew-rain-hails harvesting for sustainable water supply & green energy
• Boosting up the agricultural production by providing quality input like seeds, fertilizers and equipment and training to vulnerable female farmers to combat hunger
• Creating marketplace for the rural farmers
• Creating the scope of attracting the investors and market link-up with several profit based spin-off effect through an APP.
• Carbon fixation by creating food forest and plantation 

• Our solution is to provide information based agri-economic & technical field support and creating a digital marketplace. The APP will collect data from the sensors and IoT and few other sources and will give technically processed information.
• The APP (with GPS for Geospatial Information) also will be connected with the local community and the natural resources databases.
• The Sustainable Water will be harvested from the fog, dew, rain and hails to use in the long dry seasons. The Sustainable Biogas Energy will be created and distributed through the waste to reduce the Carbon Di-Oxide (CO2) and Methane (NH4).
• Our APP will create and show an INDEX for the investors. This index also shows the situation of the community food and agro- financial status. This will create a transparent investment platform for the investor which causes the sufficient capital flow in the rural agro-community.
• Excess food and the business model will sell through the electronic marketplace which will generate an additional income for the community.
• Our solution is purely low-carbon socio-technical methods which makes a community more resilient, which also affects the religio-cultural scenario of a community. 

 

i.  The target communities within the target areas are well-awared with modern production techniques focusing better and beneficial agriculture farming

ii. The productivity of various agricultural products is enhanced by 32% to 40%% due to provision of quality inputs to target beneficiaries and control the food waste

iii. Modern farming practices suited for small land holding are promoted in the project areas, controlling the soil erosion, controlling the over-eating and food waste etc.

iv. Transportation and intermediation costs account for a more than 200% mark-up on the price of the food from farm to fork. Our solution reduces these mark-up to minimise the cost of the food in the market.  

Lack of use of the agro-technologies, lack of technical knowledge, lack of proper information, lack of available market link-up, inefficient water & energy supply, expert’s contribution etc are the primary deficiencies in the target areas.

• We are actively applying the agro-technical methods with sustainable water & energy, preventing food loss and waste
• By creating a distribution channel in low-income neighbourhoods - unexplored for most of our suppliers     
• By delivering food waste and crowd-sourcing last-mile logistics, we are reducing the carbon footprint of the industry. 

Our solution is very innovative from all sides. From farm to fork, from community to technology, from investment to market etc. Not only an APP, it is an integration of a total system with app, website, embedded system software, IoT and sensors to agro-technology, community link-up and investors interests and market. It is a total package. No similar type of solution is seen in the India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, we have enough networks and working experiences in these countries and that is why the problems were not solved in the previous time. Our solution is not only providing the information, but also the practical approaches of the field implementation are there by the experts. The cost of the raw materials, sources of appropriate labours, the product pricing, investor’s attachment, transportation, weather report, upcoming agricultural technologies, biodiversity, food eating practices etc will be there in the app’s database. Transparent information transmission on quality and production practices will help reward farmers using low impact and healthful cultivation practices and reduce the carbon footprint of value chains by shortening supply networks. Our work aligns directly with the “sustainable food systems” challenge.

Not only rural farmers, it also affects the migrant labours due to Covid-19 pandemic and free prisoners and conflict-affected indigenous people, frontline-impacted communities, single mothers, community leaders, political leaders and religious leaders etc.

To our knowledge, we will be the first in India to provide an interactive, scalable and expert moderated community market for farmers and end consumers.

1. Processed Information Bank and Digital marketplace: Our solution will collect the information several types of agriculture, technology (with geospatial info), economy and society related information from the manual entry, sensors and IoT and create a marketplace

2. Logistics Crowdsourcing and New Packaging Concept: we use traditional last-mile crowdsourcing technology.  We use local jute made packet to carry the food products.  

3. Sustainable Water & Green Energy: All our technology is proprietary. It is not based on existing models, that is being applied to resolve food security 

4. Investment: An community food index for the investors, such types of investment will not create the financial liabilities of the rural small farmers and communities, but this will increase the capacity of the communities for the large and better agriculture.   

5. Database: A database with real life technically processed and community connected data will be created, which is in the first time in our target areas, 

6. Intercropping: Another methodologies we have applied are intercropping, climate smart/resilient agriculture with organic farming, for both horizontal and vertical farming and aquaponic as a part of these. 

7. Plantation & Food Forest: Another way to take a step in the climate change & carbon fixation, this is plantation and protection of soil from erosion. Normally food forest will be created in the vest land and C4 plants will be used. 

8. New Openings/Job Opportunities: Another feature of our solution is to create new job opportunities for the Migrant labours due to Covid-19

The technology works since last two to three years which was started with the water harvesting from fog, dew, hails, mist etc. and use of solar energy. After raising local demand we are continuously developing the technology with several added facilities. Now the technology is sensor and IoT driven and embedded with a software and website. We got the appreciation from local authorities and other research institutions and other organisations in written format. 

Our solution is game changing. It will provide the processed technical data and give solutions and also provide the practical sustainable solutions with water and green energy and other related inputs, which were never seen in the target areas. Increase the volume of production, supply of sustainable water and green energy, better technical skill, protecting and renewing the natural resources, market link-up and investor meet are the game changing features of our solution. Our solution will give the information of the pest, weather, new technologies, recent market, investors involvement, climate change etc which will provide an invisible backbone to the rural deprived small farmers in the target areas. These will increase the capacity of the beneficiaries and communities and change the behaviours, these will enhance the economic capabilities of the target communities etc. 

We are currently applying the innovation to the 5000 people on a regular, basis; we also create economic value for a network of 30 suppliers, that include small farmers as well as large industrial food producers; and we create part-time jobs for a network of 30 drivers. 

In one year, we expect to be applying the innovation to at least 40,000 people on a regular basis; create economic value for a network of 45 suppliers; and create jobs for a fleet of over 100 drivers. 

In five years, we will be deploying our technology all across Asia - we're thinking India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philipines etc. - so we expect our growth to be exponential. We are targeting serving two million people on a weekly basis, a network of at least 2500 suppliers and a fleet of over 15,000 drivers.         

Our goal for the next year is to scale in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and grow our impact fourfold, defined as the number of people we feed on a weekly basis. 

In order to scale in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, we are using a new approach, different from the direct intervention. In Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar we are empowering a local team of community leaders with a franchise, and helping them drive Ambition forward in the country. The reason why we're taking this approach is that distributing food to the poor is such a sensitive social matter that there are many strong incumbent actors - such as national and municipal Governments, charities and community leaders - that already possess deep local knowledge and entrenched interests that are complex, and beyond our capacity to comprehend quickly enough from our desks in Indonesia, Philipines. 

This strategy of empowering local partners with a franchise has worked well so far in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, where thanks to our local partner we were able to strike a deal with the Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar City Government to land our first project, the largest fruits and vegetables market in the world. 

That's how we hope to scale in Asia as well.

Some potential barriers that could affect our growth next year and in the next five years are:

1. Technology adoption: our strategy is mostly focused on soup kitchens and convenient stores in low income communities ordering food online. And many times these users show low levels of digital penetration and skills. 
2. Nutritional culture: many times we have a hard time pushing healthy food in our clients meal plans, simply because they are not used to consume the product we're offering. 
3. Food rescue logistics: as we grow bigger, it is proving increasingly hard for us to manage the whole driver selection process ourselves. This is because the supply of professional drivers who are licensed to transport food is limited, and many times they work with large transportation companies on an exclusive basis.  

For each of of the barriers, we're taking to following approach: 

1. Technology adoption: we're integrating our technology with platforms widely used by users, such as WhatsApp, to notify them of current offers, or the delivery of their order. 
2. Nutritional culture: we are testing - such as product combos or special tied-offers.
3. Logistics: we imagine our future logistics solution consisting of a system of interconnections with transportation companies, from which we will assign trips to vehicles with idle space that are navigating in routes that are compatible with our assigned trips. We are not thinking of continuing building our own fleet, but of building partnerships with transportation companies that already use technology to optimize idle capacity and negative bandwidth

N/A

• 15 full-time staff
• 30      part-time staff
• 20 contractos (drivers and logistics consultants)
• 5 advisors

Our General Secretary Ms. Panchali Ray being an actress and fashion model, has the working experiences of 10 years designing and leading technology projects on Water Harvesting, Green & Clean Energy, Business Management, Community Development, Food Security & Poverty Alleviation, Waste Management. She has got several awards on these issues. Another experts in our team is Mr. Sayantan Chowdhury, working on IoT, Sensors, soil erosion, climate change etc from last few years with full customers and beneficiaries satisfaction. Mr. Subhrajit Guha Roy is anothe one in our team who has the capabilities and experiences over 17 years in the field of the sales, B2B Business model, Mr. Kunal Chakraborty & Mr. Jayram Das has the capacities of network building in abroad. 

Organisation:

1. Foundation of Resource Care & Evaluation, a research & technology based organisation

2. Swapnolok Welfare Society, a community development organisation

3. Siliguri Future Welfare Society, a project management institute

4. ClickArt, a software & website development company

Network Affiliation:

1. United Foundations

2. Accredited Networks

1. B2B Services: For the Franchisee model to spread our innovation model to he rural communities. 

2. Direct Selling & Supports: Directly selling of the equipment, seeds and experts supports to the rural farmers for the sustainable food system

3. Royalty: On the spin-off issues of our innovation

Actually we are applying to SOLVE because of the implementation of of our research based solution for the communities of the target areas. We  have mentioned few barriers here. And we know all the barriers can be overcome by the SOLVE for its unparalleled network and know-how. In spite of this, we are applying for the technology adoption for the rural farmers. We know we need to refine our technology and our distribution strategy if we want to scale globally.

On the technology, we understand that food waste and food consumption have different patterns in different countries, and we believe we need to develop a predictive tool that can allow us to combine food waste and non-waste in optimally nutritional ways that account for local tastes and preferences, and make that combo our signature product. 

On distribution, we are experimenting with direct expansion and franchising. It would be great to have support from experts in international growth to help find the best model to scale internationally. 

On marketing and media, we need help positioning our solution when we first enter a market, because what we do is counter-intuitive. In many countries,  the idea that building a for-profit company is the best way to fight against malnutrition is not always obvious to everybody, particularly among traditional segments of society. 

Taposya Social Welfare Organisation. For the Technological and Financial Support and also Monitoring and Evaluation.