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In March earlier this year, Turn.io, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced a cohort of six organisations selected to participate in the Chat for Women’s Livelihoods Accelerator. This initiative aims to help these organisations leverage the latest chat technology to scale their impact and enhance women's livelihoods globally.
Selected from a pool of over 300 applicants, the final six organisations chosen have a proven track record of enhancing women’s economic skills, market access, income-generating opportunities, and access to services. They have all identified chat solutions as a crucial tool to scale their services and accelerate their impact.
The 2024 Chat for Women’s Livelihood (CWL) Accelerator is already underway and the cohort has already gathered at a Meetup in Cape Town to advance the services they are developing.
The cohort includes Circle Women (Pakistan), Clafiya (Nigeria), Frontier Markets (India), Karya (India), Sauti (Kenya), and Tech HERfrica (Nigeria).
In this six-part series, we will outline each organisation's work and share insights into their vision for using chat to scale their impactful work.
The first profile in the series features India-based Frontier Markets, a pioneering social enterprise that invests in and enables rural women entrepreneurs to drive long-lasting social impact in their communities.
Frontier Markets (“FM”) is a social enterprise that enables access to products and services to the last mile in rural markets through its network of 35K+ Sahelis (digitally enabled gig workers and women entrepreneurs) using its proprietary technology platform called Meri Saheli App and its network of over 200 products and service solutions partners.
Since its inception, through its Saheli network, Frontier Markets has unlocked access to products and services worth US$100M across e-commerce, FMCG, healthcare, digital banking and financial services, climate and agriculture to over 1 million households in India. Its innovation lies in its locally designed technology platform which is used by rural women gig workers, rural women entrepreneurs, and field staff for data collection, awareness campaigns, training, and facilitating services to and from rural markets.
It is the first gender-inclusive designed platform to help facilitate access to products and services in deep rural India where most companies find it difficult to enter. The Sahelis have emerged as trusted influencers and leaders in their villages, advocating for community needs and significantly contributing to their families' economic prosperity. To date, they have generated over $30 million in income, empowering themselves and investing in their children's futures.
In line with its commitment to continuous innovation and scalability, Frontier Markets is now working to establish a chat solution aimed at onboarding, training, and supporting women who own small businesses, in part by helping them download, register on, and use their existing Meri Saheli app. As such, the chat service provides an easily accessible, helpful, flexible, and user-friendly entry point for women to increase their digital literacy and to become confident in their use of the Meri Saheli app, as part of increasing their financial and business literacy through using the app itself. The women will also be able to connect and chat with a human helpdesk operator via the chat service if needed. As part of making the chat service useful for a large and diverse population of women, it is designed to be available in English, Hindi, and Marathi. Additionally, Frontier Markets’ aim is to enhance engagement between their Saral Jeevan Sahelis (small women-owned businesses) and last-mile rural customers, thus fostering a thriving ecosystem of economic opportunity and empowerment.
Participation in the 18-month Chat for Women’s Livelihoods Accelerator is providing the Frontier Markets team with the support, guidance, access to technology solutions, and financial backing needed to fast-track their chat solution and to realise their vision of helping 100 million rural consumers join the online market experience with a powerful salesforce of 1 million digitally savvy women.
“At Frontier Markets, we believe in the immense potential of rural women entrepreneurs, and want to leverage the Chat for Women's Livelihoods Accelerator to empower these rural women and elevate their income. While technology can be a barrier for some, we are committed to bridging the gap through our Meri Saheli App, a chat solution that removes barriers by providing accessible, user-friendly support in local languages.” says Aravind Uppala, Vice President Product & Technology at Frontier Markets.
For more information on on the Chat for Women’s Livelihood Accelerator visit www.turn.io/community/cwl-accelerator-24
Watch the Chat for Women’s Livelihoods video here
For more about Frontier Markets visit www.frontiermkts.com
