Shillong: Medarisha Lyngdoh is among a handful of women from the North East who have made a mark in the IT sector. Lyngdoh, who completed her MCA from Banaras Hindu University, is part of the team that started eSamudaay, a platform that is decentralising marketplaces. She is the co-founder and COO of the venture that is based in Bengaluru, the IT hub of the country.
In a conversation with Business Northeast, Lyngdoh talks about women in the IT workforce, the changes that eSamudaay envisions to bring in online commerce and the challenges in doing so. Excerpts:
BNE: What made you interested in technology?
ML: I love creating things and figuring out how to make work faster and easier. Technology fits the bill perfectly. There is no joy like the joy of seeing the piece of code you write perform “magic” and giving the aha moment to so many who struggle with doing things manually prior to technology helping them.
BNE: As per studies, India has one of the fastest-growing numbers of women in technology-related sectors. Nonetheless, the figures are not impressive, especially in the NE. What, according to you, is the reason?
ML: One reason could be that we do not have many engineering colleges in North East. There is not much awareness about career opportunities in this sector, which I believe is changing in recent years and I am hoping to see the figures improving. There are also not many technology companies in the North East, which means anyone who wants to work in this space has to move out and that is sometimes a distance much more than just the kilometres.
BNE: You are one of the co-founders of eSamudaay. What is the story behind its inception?
ML: Our CEO who is spearheading the vision of eSamudaay has the burning passion to ‘Democratize Digital’ much before eSamudaay was born. Over the past 50 years, our communities have ceded our self-reliance to large corporations. The largest of them all are the global internet companies, which harvest our data to assist in globalisation. The ‘Democratize Digital’ vision is to reverse this trend and reap the benefits of the Internet within our communities… We started small by declaring Udupi District as a ‘Digital Republic’ with the creation of Udupi eSamudaay, the world’s first local commerce company. Through this effort, we are creating a Digital Platform for Udupi that is democratically governed and focused on community development.
BNE: eSamudaay is a grassroots-level venture. But given the digital literacy, how challenging was it to encourage people?
ML: One of the first challenges we faced was to be able to connect with the grassroots. That was the reason we set up our living lab in the quaint town of Udupi where fur out of the five founders have grown up. This gave us the perspective of working from smaller towns and set the tone for our further communication with the next set of entrepreneurs. One of the key things we did was to talk the native languages with our entrepreneurs as much as possible which also led me to test out our product by setting up a hyper local marketplace even in Shillong with the help of local entrepreneurs.
BNE: Can you explain the eSamudaay model for laymen?
ML: In very simple terms, eSamudaay is a set of software tools which can enable local digital entrepreneurs to set up their digital businesses. The tools have helped entrepreneurs set up local marketplaces in tiers 2 and 3 cities. The tools have helped entrepreneurs set up an ONDC seller network in Meerut. The set of tools has also evolved into helping entrepreneurs build solutions on ONDC. The same tools have also been used in NITK campus to set up a campus ecommerce solution for the students run by the students.
BNE: What are the critical success factors for you as an enabler?
ML: First, to have any chance of success I believe a team that performs together is critical. Investing in the right kind of people is critical to how your life and company will shape up. At eSamudaay we have people who have worked together for decades and has stuck with each other through thick and thin. We also have young people who are passionate about their work and that is very important.
Second, as a technology enabler company it is critical for us to understand that there are so many nuances required by the market, and to be able to achieve that we have to ensure that our product is flexible enough to handle these nuances.
BNE: Is there any plan to expand eSamudaay in the North East?
ML: Yes, we do want to focus on rural and semi urban areas more from the supply side. eSamudaay is passionate about enabling producers and helping them get fair value. Just a few days ago I got to know farmers in Meghalaya are selling tomatoes at Rs 4 while people in Shillong are buying them at Rs 80/kg. This is due to lack of information and access to Market. We are working on a project to work with producers from remote areas like the North East to help solve this.
BNE: How do you cope with poor internet connectivity?
ML: First thing we have done is expect bad internet connectivity as a norm instead of an exception. Then we built various features that work in the absence of the internet as well. Delivery agents are able to mark orders delivered even without internet.
BNE: How ONDC can be beneficial?
ML: Today the works of e-commerce is heavily skewed in favour of buyers at the expense of sellers. Marketplaces like Amazon charge heavy commissions from sellers for the eye balls of buyers. With ONDC this will change. All seller apps will be able to provide access to every buyer connected to ONDC. This means access to users will be commoditised and commission will be for other benefits (eg. cataloging). This will enable smaller sellers to profitably sell online.
BNE: Where do you see eSamudaay after five years?
ML: After five years we want to see eSamudaay in every corner of India with local entrepreneurs running successful local eCommerce and connected to PAN India via a robust network of ONDC as well as the eSamudaay network, to form partnerships with. We would also have a network of developers who are building modules to the eSamudaay tech stack and helping these local entrepreneurs meet their digital needs.
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