spoken english for india...children with learning spoken english to enhance their social and...

Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative| Business Cases

Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative Business Cases June 2012

TECHNOLOGY FOR EMERGING MARKETS

MICROSOFT RESEARCH INDIA

SPOKEN ENGLISH FOR INDIA A Service-Based Educational Solution for Children in Subsistence Environments

FINAL REPORT MAY 5, 2008

TEAM MICROSOFT:

Nalin Saluja

Siying Chen

Mirela Muresan

Naren Balathandayutham

* This case is based on a comprehensive business plan developed by a student group in the course entitled Sustainable Product and Market Development for Subsistence Marketplaces under the supervision of the instructor, Madhu Viswanathan. The case was prepared by Madhu Viswanathan, John Clarke and Srinivas Venugopal and copyedited by Tom Hanlon. We gratefully acknowledge the organizational sponsor of the project and the students who contributed to it.



TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................................4

BACKGROUND ......................................................................................................................4

PROBLEM STATEMENT .......................................................................................................5

RESEARCH RESULTS.............................................................................................................5

PRODUCT DESIGN PROCESS................................................................................................8

EDUCATOR AND MARKET FEEDBACK.............................................................................9

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION.......................................................................................................9

PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS (Technical and Non-Technical)................................10

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................11

DETAILED PROCESS FLOW...................................................................................12

THE ENVIRONMENT.............................................................................................................13

INTERNAL (Company Characteristics) .....................................................................13

EXTERNAL (Market/Competition/Customer Information)........................................13

BUSINESS PLAN.....................................................................................................................18

SALES AND MARKETING PLAN (Strategy/Forecast/Marketing Mix)...................18

FINANCIAL PLAN.....................................................................................................19

DESCRIPTION OF PROTOTYPE ..........................................................................................22

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND FUTURE WORK........................................................35

APPENDICES...........................................................................................................................36

APPENDIX A: PROJECT PLAN: GANTT CHART..................................................37

APPENDIX B: QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS IN INDIA.......................................37

APPENDIX C: COMPLETE LIST OF PRODUCT IDEAS........................................42

APPENDIX D: CONCEPT EVALUATION MATRIX...............................................44

APPENDIX E: MARKET FEEDBACK FROM POTENTIAL USERS IN INDIA….45



APPENDIX F: FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES.....46

APPENDIX G: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR PROTOTYPE – JOURNAL WRITING...................................................................................................................................49

APPENDIX H: SCHEDULE OF TRIP TO INDIA......................................................54

APPENDIX I: REFERENCE........................................................................................55



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Technology for Emerging Markets group at Microsoft Research in India seeks to address the needs and aspirations of people in emerging-market countries. Four students from the University of Illinois (“Team Microsoft”) focused on identifying a need in a subsistence environment and developing a solution that caters to that need, while taking into consideration the various other aspects of their living conditions. Team Microsoft hopes that low-literate parents recognize the need to familiarize themselves and their children with learning spoken English to enhance their social and economic mobility. Hence, the team’s goal is to provide Indian children, aged 5 to 10 years, with the chance to become fluent in spoken English, using interactive and technology-based tools fostered in a community-based environment. Team Microsoft recommends an initial rollout of the proposed solution in urban school areas of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India, and will gain more knowledge of best practices and lessons learned before expanding the service-based educational solution to other parts of the country.

BACKGROUND English Language in India

The English language in India is a legacy from the British who colonized the country. The study of English was imposed to serve the sole purpose of serving the British Administration in India. From being a language rooted in colonialism, English has become the language that has given India an edge over countries where English is a foreign language. English has a status of an assistant language, but in fact it is the most important language of India. After Hindi it is the most commonly spoken language in India, and probably the most read and written. In terms of numbers of English speakers, the Indian subcontinent ranks third in the world, after the USA and UK. An estimated 4 percent of the population uses English, and even though this may seem like a small percent, that is about 40 million people (Hohenthal). This small segment of the population controls domains that have professional and social prestige. English plays an important role in the domains of education, administration, business and political relations, judiciary, industry, etc., and is therefore a passport to social mobility, higher education, and better job opportunities (Narayanan).

English in the Administration and Media

Although English is not classified as one of the 15 national languages of India, it remains as an associate language along with Hindi, which is an official language. English plays a dominant role in the media and has been used as a medium for interstate communication, the pan-Indian press, and broadcasting, both before and since India's independence. The impact of English is not only continuing, but increasing. The English press in India began serious journalism in the country, and English language newspapers are published in practically all states. It is estimated that around 11 million English newspapers are sold daily, in addition to a steady influence in the broadcasting media (Dolnick).

The Education System

In higher education, English is the premier prestige language. Careers in any area of business or commerce, or within the government, or in science and technology, require fluency in English. It is taught in schools, ranging from the most elite private schools to small government schools, because only this language is an acceptable medium of communication throughout the nation. It is also necessary for the many students who contemplate study overseas. Every Indian mother knows that English is the passport to her child's future – to a job, to entry into the middle class – and this is why English medium schools are mushrooming in city slums and villages alike. Schools in which English is the medium of instruction are



a "growth industry." English has quietly become an Indian language 50 years after the British left India’s shores.

The Social Setting

English is virtually the first language for many educated Indians, and the second language for many who speak multiple languages. Indian speakers of English are primarily bi- or multilingual Indians who use English as a second language. In urban India, it is very common to see young people code-mixing and code-switching between English and other Indian languages. In fact, Indian English is a recognized dialect of English, just like British Received Pronunciation or Australian English, or Standard American. It has a lot of distinctive pronunciations, some distinctive syntax, and quite a bit of lexical variation. It is predicted that by 2010, India will have the largest number of English speakers in the world. Thus, one of the positive things happening in India is the quiet democratizing of English. Perhaps for the first time in its history, there may be a common language to the masses and various classes, and acceptable to both South and North India (Das).

PROBLEM STATEMENT As previously mentioned, Team Microsoft identified a compelling problem from the in-depth interviews performed in India: the need to learn spoken English. Additionally, many students across the world complain that they understand English, but do not feel confident enough to join a conversation. Also, there are a number of reasons why this holds true, and Team Microsoft strongly believes that the service-based educational solution developed addresses these concerns, which include:

• Students are trying to translate from their native language into English.

• Production "blocking" is occurring due to nervousness, lack of confidence, etc.

• The speaker is looking for a specific word, rather than using simple language to describe what is meant.

• There aren't enough conversation opportunities in or outside of class. • Students aren't able to speak to peers (for example: mixed classes of adults and teenagers). • Exam preparation focuses on grammar, vocabulary, etc., and leaves little time for active use.

RESEARCH RESULTS Immersion Phase

Team Microsoft began their studies of subsistence marketplace with a poverty simulation, where each of us played a part in a four-week-long simulation involving poor families and individuals trying to make ends meet and sustain. This gave us an actual experience in poverty and insights into psychological reactions. The next couple of weeks were spent conducting several series of in-depth interviews of poor people in India. These were rich, unstructured interviews that provided insights into the living conditions in rural villages in India. Subsequent class discussions led to a wide-ranging discussion on a variety of issues about poverty and culture. Since the students in the class were not only multidisciplinary but also multicultural, it helped everyone in understanding the issues of poverty in other developing economies, not just with respect to India. It became increasingly clear that poverty was a global issue not restricted to any particular region in the world. In addition, the cause and effects of poverty at the global level are very much identical.



Emersion Phase

The emersion phase was mainly designed to understand the business principles in the subsistence marketplaces. It was mainly through well-known case studies and through the experiences of individuals and organizations working directly with respect to this context. The highlight of the case studies was converting of a social problem identified by the companies and solving them in a sustainable business manner. The solutions to the problems were innovative, varying from promotional campaigns as a part of awareness to a new supply chain system to incorporate transparency. Individual experiences were invaluable to our understanding. It ranged from micro-level understanding of people and cultures to broader approaches to developing businesses in subsistence markets. All the students taking the course learned a valuable lesson in that there is a serious need for innovative solutions for a sustainable business model. At the end of the emersion phase, and using the understandings and experiences of both the immersion and emersion process as guidance, Team Microsoft decided that the key areas to focus on while gathering market research during the trip to India would be education, healthcare, and finance.

India Trip

In January of 2008, Team Microsoft traveled to Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore in India. During the two-week trip, the team members met and interviewed 24 people living in subsistence. The interviews were located in urban and rural settings, consisting of various groups of people ranging from housewives, employed youth, entrepreneurs, school teachers, self-help groups, etc. These people were not the poorest of the poor in India but were very enthusiastic and had a strong desire to talk. The response received definitely motivated the team with an even greater responsibility to the success of the project.

The interviews were not rigidly structured, but rather conducted in a flexible and qualitative manner. Questions were open-ended and the interviews were purposeful about asking follow-up questions. The questions were mainly concentrated in the areas of education, finance, and health, as the team had identified these areas from the literature research. One of the main objectives for the team was to make sure the interviewees were comfortable in sharing their thoughts and ideas. There were concerns raised by the interviewees on the subject of how useful they can be, as they assumed that their educational level was not comparable to meet our needs. There was an assumption on their part that they had nothing to offer. Therefore, the most important step in the interview process was to explain to them the high importance of the interviews and how they were the center of the product creation process. This clearly signifies the fact that little of product creation targets people in subsistence markets. Traditionally, the product creation has been a top-down approach rather than bottom-specific or a bottom-to-top approach.

The questioning process had to be twofold. First, Team Microsoft had to identify the problems and needs of people living in subsistence and second, devise possible solutions to address those needs. However, the team tried to remain as neutral as possible when asking follow-up questions and deriving possible solutions to the problem.

During the interview process, Team Microsoft tried to equally explore all three areas. It became very clear that education was, in fact, the most dominating area of interest. By the end of the interview process, there



were several key takeaways that were identified from the interviews. For more details on the interviews in India, see Appendix B: Qualitative Interviews in India. Furthermore, it became clear that education – in particular, education in spoken English – was one of the main problems concerning the people of India. The team was quick to realize that this would be an exciting area to focus on and dig even deeper into the problem and explore possible solutions.

Summary of key insights gathered on education, finance, and healthcare categories:

Education

Education plays an important role in life, as it can lead to a better life and adds value to their lives.

English education offers an open door to a variety of job opportunities.

It is advantageous to know more languages. Interviewees were interested in learning English and Hindi (national language in India), apart from the local language of Tamil, which is spoken in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Parents are willing to learn English as well.

Children are annoyed when their parents try to speak in English since their responses are slower.

There is no enforcement in school for children to speak in English, as the teachers themselves do not regularly converse in English.

Parents feel that kids do not receive practical knowledge that would increase their skills level.

Parents feel that the curriculum is strict and teachings need to be more practical in manner.

Parents do not know enough English to practice with their children. Although the parents would like to speak with their children during breakfast and after school in English, they do not want to confuse them. Therefore, the parents speak only in their native language at home.

Parents feel that their children are deficient in pronunciation and conversational English.

Teachers feel there is no motivation for the children to speak in English.

Some children lack confidence and fear what others may think of them if they speak incorrectly. Also, some have a low self image or are simply too shy.

Finance

People avoided getting loans, as bank terms and interest rates were not clear or transparent.

Women make many of the household decisions while the men go to work.



Money plays a big role in obtaining a better education.

Gold was a preferred means of investing, since gold can be sold to pawn shops or mortgaged to banks and money lenders.

Owners of handicraft units discussed the need to use the Internet to market their products.

Healthcare

Children are sick during the seasonal cycle, mainly in the monsoon season.

Home remedies are the first step in treatment. If this does not help, then they will go to a doctor.

Preferences are given to private hospitals rather than government hospitals, even though the government hospitals provide free service.

The closeness of the private clinics was an important criterion in selection.

There is no accurate record system on the health status of the patients. Medical prescription pills are a source of informing new doctors of a specific illness rather than actual patient health records.

Most of the families did not have any health insurance policy. The husbands had individual life insurance and the children had an educational investment fund. The women generally had little or no insurance in their own names.

PRODUCT DESIGN PROCESS

Team Microsoft began the conceptual design process after gathering key insights from the hands-on interviews, which were conducted with women from self-help groups, educators, and entrepreneurs living in urban and rural areas of Chennai, India. In addition, the team researched existing solutions currently in the marketplace and had several brainstorming sessions. Team Microsoft generated 17 ideas focused on the need identified, and ranked the concepts across nine product characteristics (i.e., bilingual, interactive, community-based, joyful, reusable, marketable, easy to use by consumer, difficulty of implementation, and leveraging existing products/infrastructure).

Finally, four ideas ranked as the top concepts that were further explored (i.e., TV show with conference participants using cell phones, computer kiosks displaying pop-up English tips/words, interactive webcams and multiple headsets, and a cell phone/radio concept), along with their different iterations and combinations. For a complete list of product ideas and more details on the product decision process, see Appendix C: Complete List of Product Ideas and Appendix D: Concept Evaluation Matrix.



EDUCATOR AND MARKET FEEDBACK Team Microsoft sought advice regarding educational content from a reading and Spanish bilingual teacher who is certified to teach Kindergarten through Second grade within the United States (Trevino). The educator specializes in Early Childhood Education, and the team gained valuable insights from her expertise regarding family literacy programs that serve as meaningful and enriching components, particularly for students who study English as a Second Language (ESL). Since investments in the education area are typically more long-term, Team Microsoft believes that strong consideration should be made to such family literacy programs for the solution to be successful. For more details on the family literacy programs, see Appendix F: Family Literacy Programs in the United States. Furthermore, through the assistance of Professor Madhu Viswanathan and his research team in Chennai, India, Team Microsoft received some additional market feedback from potential users of the product on the initial conceptual design to gauge the feasibility and interest in the proposed solution. Overall, the market feedback was positive, and further enhancement was made to the final solution to include video capabilities that were suggested by the participants. For more details on the market feedback, see Appendix E: Market Feedback from Potential Users in India.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Product Requirements - Technical

The software required for this service will have the following functions and features:

1. Support multiple phone calls, with the ability of being able to record and conference them.

2. Support basic speech recognition software in English (not in the user’s native language).

3. Output a prerecorded video, with some parts of the video coming in from the responses obtained from the phone calls.

Hence, the majority of the work for running this service would ideally be handled by the software, and very little would be expected from any staff working for the service. However, since there is more than one way of implementing this project, it is not necessary to implement each step with the software, and even if some roles are assigned to some employees, the process should be able to run smoothly. An explanation of each of the features above and an alternate implementation is listed below:

1. Multiple phone calls support – This is basically the same software as a radio or TV station would use to run its shows. Hence, if incorporating this in the software can add significant costs to the implementation, this step can even be performed manually, using a simple internal phone exchange.

2. Speech recognition – This feature was added to make it easier to judge the responses received from the children. The idea is that during the show, when the host will ask a certain question and all the children will respond, then the software will be able to pick the response that it thinks is the closest match to the correct pronunciation of the expected response and output that to the TV show. For example, if the cartoon character on TV shows an apple and asks the children, “What is the name of this fruit?,” then the software will collect the responses obtained from the children, match them against the expected pronunciation of “Apple,” and output the recording of the best match, preferably with the name of the child who said it. This way, the cartoon host will then be able to tell the children the right answer and also tell them who amongst them got it right.



Another benefit of having that feature will be that if the child’s answer does not match the expected response, then the host can keep on working with that part of the lesson until a decent majority of the children get it right.

However, for this step as well, if technology is not available, then some teachers can be hired to listen to the responses obtained and pick the one that most closely matches the correct answer.

3. Video output – As mentioned earlier, the final output of the service will be a television show, which will have a cartoon host (as mentioned earlier, the exact implementation will be decided by the SMEs, but for the purposes of this report, a cartoon host has been considered). The show that will be telecast on TV will actually be a prerecorded video that will run a lesson. However, there will be parts of the lesson where responses from the children will need to be played and hence, the software should have the capability of providing these responses. This is essentially the same as how reality TV shows currently operate, but if the software can include the responses itself, it will make the implementation much simpler. However, once again, if the implementation costs for this part of the software are high, then this can also be implemented by the TV channel in the same way as it currently runs its reality TV shows.

In coming up with the technical requirements of this software, it has been assumed that technical implementation is in fact feasible. However, alternate implementations are listed here so that technical difficulties do not affect the feasibility of the project itself. Also, since labor costs in India are comparatively much lower, in case some parts of the software are assigned to some manual labor, this should not affect the financial analysis of the project too much.

Product Requirements: Non-Technical

As mentioned earlier, Team Microsoft identified nine attributes during the trip in India that are critical to the success of the final solution. Each attribute had a specific reason behind it. During many brainstorming sessions, the team attached different weights to each attribute, which were also based off of individual research. Here are the nine attributes:

1. Bilingual – It is obviously very important for the product to be bilingual, as otherwise, the task of making the children understand the meaning of different situations and sentences becomes a lot harder.

2. Interactive – We found out that many times even the children and adults who were making an effort to learn English could not learn it well, as they did not have enough resources to offer them the right feedback. Some women even mentioned that if they were to have such a solution, they would want it to be something they can communicate with, and suggested the use of a computer.

3. Community-based – Since English is the business language in India, the population that speaks English has very different lifestyles and job profiles than the ones who do not. This has led to the creation of two different strata of the society. Many adults in Indian villages who wish to learn English often hesitate because of the social stigma attached with doing something different and trying to be a part of the upper strata, as opposed to their own. From the qualitative research, the team understood that one way to encourage people to get over the stigma would be to involve their community in the learning process, so that no one feels shy in making the effort.

4. Joyful – The team did not want our product to be yet another English tutorial available in the market. From our research of existing products around the world that serve the same purpose, there were many options available, both in the form of products and services. However, many of the



solutions failed, as they made the learning process unenjoyable. The team wishes to counter that by making the final solution appealing to young children.

5. Reusable – Since cost effectiveness is a big concern for people living in subsistence, the team wanted to pay heed to the research insights and the fact that the interviewees wished to have reusable products.

6. Marketable – From a business perspective, the team wanted to make sure that the final product is a feasible one and would actually cater to the needs in the market.

7. Easy to use – The team wishes to reach out to a huge population with this product and keep the training aspect of it to a bare minimum and make it as easy to use as possible.

8. Difficulty of implementation given the limited project resources – This was yet another measure for the team to ensure that the ideas are feasible and not beyond the scope of what can be accomplished.

9. Leverage existing products/infrastructure to reduce cost/price – The team wanted to use the existing technologies in India to bring down the cost of reaching the project goals as much as possible.

Introduction

As mentioned before, Team Microsoft’s final conceptual design is a combination of the top four ranked concepts that were generated. The concept process involves a current cell phone user dialing a number that connects the child to the TV channel where the child can choose to either listen in to the program or be an active participant into the one-and-a-half hour program. The TV segment is solely dedicated to fostering the communication between all parties in both English and the local language to help further develop their skills of learning spoken English. The program on the TV will engage the participating children in various lessons and competitions, designed for their particular age group, so that they can learn English from each other and improve their grammar and pronunciations. Some key attributes of the product are as follows:

Children who are more fluent in spoken English teach/communicate with those who are not as fluent but want to learn.

Parents are also able to listen to the radio channel with their children and be engaged.

The design can create a small network/group (i.e., 20 friends call in regularly from schools, villages, etc.).

For the interaction to transpire efficiently and effectively, the radio host needs to be skilled and follow detailed guidelines.

The program will be conversation-based, focusing on day-to-day activities of children.

Cartoon/celebrity type guests can chat with their fans in spoken English.

Prizes are awarded to winners and callers who participate in the education of spoken English.



Detailed Process Flow

Outlined below is a detailed process flow of the education-based concept, which involves both the child and their parents using a cell phone to dial a 1-800 number that connects them to a TV channel where they can either simply listen or participate in a one-and-a-half hour program. The segment can also be telecast on TV for the entire family to watch and create a virtual community park dedicated to learning spoken English.

1. The Microsoft team contacts the school teachers and explains the service and process to them.

2. Teachers meet with the parents of the school children and explain to them how this service will help the students.

3. Mothers of the children go home and call a 1-800 number for the service and learn about the service and its features, along with what they need to do to use it.

4. Children then start calling in at the start of a new course. The duration of the course depends upon the course content, which will be decided by the Subject Matter Expert (SME), who can even be local English schoolteachers. For the purposes of this report, we will assume that the duration of the course will be 45 days. Hence, each course will last about a month and a half; the child will be assigned the next available starting date.

5. The first time the child calls in, he’ll be made to undergo an assessment to assess his skill level, with his mother’s assistance. This can be a basic test where the child just responds to some basic questions asked, and the responses will be recorded by the service and later assessed by some employee to judge the child’s skill level. The role of the mother in this step will be to make sure that the child is comfortable with the use of the technology.

6. Once the skill level is determined, the child will be assigned a certain time of the day when he needs to call in; all the students who would call in at this time would be of comparable skill level.

7. The first couple of weeks that the student calls in, there will be some social activities along with some icebreakers, so that the students can get to know each other, get comfortable with each other, and make friends. Hence, these will be performed in the child’s native language and not in English. The idea is to create a virtual community park, where children have fun with each other. Hence, they will play games and get to know each other.

8. All the interactions of these students will be telecast on a national television channel, with some cartoon character hosting the show. Each student can also be assigned an individual cartoon character, which he can customize in his own time. The way the show is telecast can be decided upon by the SME, but just to keep the children interested, using cartoon characters will help for a start.

9. After those first couple of weeks, the actual teaching part will start. Each call will last about 30-40 minutes, and the first half of the call will be a particular lesson, from the course syllabus.

10. In the second half of the call, the students will form groups amongst themselves and play more games, with increasing emphasis on use of English in their responses. If, for example, the game is



to translate some particular words from Tamil to English, then they will not only have to say the word, but the computer host will also try and match their pronunciations with the correct pronunciation and teach it to the student. The computer will make sure the child gets it right before he moves on. Some of the responses will be selected by the computer, and they will be telecast on national television as an incentive to the students and to keep them involved with the show.

11. Once all the lessons are over, the children will be given a final assessment and then they will be assigned to a different television course to enroll in for the next period.

12. The mothers of these children will also have the option to call in ahead of time and make sure they know what the kids are going to talk about and also be able to call in later and review the call, so that they can keep on reiterating the lesson with the child.

THE ENVIRONMENT Internal

Microsoft Corporation develops and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. The company’s software includes operating systems, server applications, productivity applications, business solution applications, high-performance computing applications, etc. Microsoft Research is a division of Microsoft, started in 1991, for purposes of performing research on various computer science applications, topics, and issues, and is one of the biggest research centers in the world.

Microsoft Research started operations in India in 2005. Dr. P. Anandan heads this branch and is known for his work in computer vision and video analysis. Mr. Kentaro Toyama is the Assistant Managing Director there and is a renowned researcher in computer vision and multimedia.1 A lot of the work done by this division focuses on the subsistence context, and the Technology for Emerging Markets group here tries to target people who have traditionally had limited access to technology and those who live in emerging markets. Hence, research in this group is not only technical, but also has some social elements to it.

This project fits in perfectly with the goals of this group, as it tries to serve one of the needs of children growing up in subsistence. With the increasingly globalizing world, the importance of English is growing everywhere, and a successful product to teach children English will set an example for many countries to follow. Moreover, since the product development in this project revolves mainly around the social research, the methods of product development used are also very similar to those at Microsoft and hence, this project ties in well with the firm’s global strategy.

External

Market Profile

India, with a GDP of $1.25 trillion, is the twelfth-largest economy in the world in USD exchange-rate terms.2 In terms of purchasing power parity, it is the third-largest economy and is also the second-fastest

1 "About Microsoft Research India." Microsoft. Microsoft Research India. 22 Apr. 2008 <http://research.microsoft.com/india/about.aspx>. 2 Economic Times, India



growing major economy in the world, with a GDP growth rate of 9.4% for 2006-2007.3 However, the per capita income of people in India is still around $1,089 in nominal terms, and India is classified as a low-income economy by the World Bank.4 ,5

Out of the country’s estimated population of 1.13 billion, around 72.2 percent live in villages, and 31.8 percent is younger than 15 years of age.6 There are around 122 recognized languages in the country, with thousands of dialects. India supports 17.5 percent of the world’s population on 2.4% of the world’s land area.

Interestingly, out of India’s massive population, only around 226,000 people reported their mother tongue as English in the Indian government’s 2001 census. This was a significant increase over the previous decade, however, as the number grew from around 178,000 in 1991, showing a growth rate of approximate 27 percent.7 Although it is hard to estimate the number of people who consider English as their second language, given the debatable definition of the term, one estimate says that around 65 million people in India consider English to be their second language, and another 25 million consider it to be their third language. Altogether, around 7.98 percent of the total population – that is, approximately 90 million people – know English in some capacity or the other. And this small number itself makes India the world's second-largest English speaking country after the USA.8

However, there is a small distinction between people who speak English and those who use it, according to the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), India. According to them, while there are only around 226,000 “English Speakers” in the country, a better estimate for the number of “English Users” is around 350 million. Their website says “Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories - "English Speakers" and "English Users." The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words, while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English, as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider the China numbers. China has over 350 million users that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only a handful of million who are English speakers.”8

Furthermore, they note that “In India, the population's percentage of English speakers varies with age - English speaker percentage is higher among younger Indians than the older Indians. In most middle class families, the parents may not be English speakers but the children are English speakers.”7

Culturally, these numbers have an astounding effect on a normal Indian’s life. Each region and state in India has a culture and language of its own, along with differing traditions and religious practices. In terms of language, even for people who live in India, traveling from one state to the other can mean

3 "India's GDP expanded at fastest pace in 18 years", MarketWatch, May 31, 2007.

4 CIA - The World Factbook - India. CIA (2007-09-20). 5 WorldBankCountryClassificationGroups,(July2006data) 6 CIA - The World Factbook - India 7 "Census of India." Census India. Government of India. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://w w w .censusindia.gov .in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/data_on_language.ht m> 8 TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)], India: World's Second Largest English-Speaking Country



traveling abroad, as he/she probably does not know the local language. TESOL states that “De facto, English is the ‘common’ language among most educated Indians today. When two Indians from different states meet, they invariably communicate with each other in English.”7 Moreover, “English is the language of all businesses, government and education,” and “the entire University education in India is in English - very similar to what you find in the USA.”7

The above-mentioned numbers support the case that knowing English in India is necessary for many career growth opportunities. English is the language that unites the country, and precisely for this reason, employers look for the language in their new hires. Not only is knowing English important for companies to do business internationally, but even to run a nationwide operation, companies need an English-educated workforce. In addition, “English skills are part of the social hierarchy. Practically every person in the higher and upper middle class section of the Indian society is fluent in English. In fact, English fluency is kind of a prerequisite for the upward mobility in the class ladder. An upwardly mobile successful Indian entrepreneur with inadequate English skills is not considered blue-blooded enough and is persona non grata at the turf clubs or country clubs of India. A classic example is the detente between the power-flexing non-English speaking Indian politicians and the English-speaking movers & shakers from Indian bureaucracy and the industrial clans.”7

While the predominant role of the language in the society is making new generations to have near-native English skills in the urban areas of the country, the rural population still does not have enough resources to have competent English skills. This project targets children in age groups of 5-10 in rural areas to try to narrow the gap between the English-speaking urban population and the non-English speaking rural population. The market size is hence huge, and this gives a very strong growth potential, as there are no big competitors in the market.

Delivery Mediums

In identifying distribution channels with the highest market penetration, various mediums were considered. TVs, radios, cell phones, computers, and Internet are the most-used options. For the scale that the project hopes to achieve, a simple scheme that involved training of personnel is not adequate, and use of some kind of technology is important. Moreover, there are already many schemes by various state governments in Indian villages that try to provide free and better education to students in Indian schools, and although they have had some impact over the past few decades, the time value of this impact is limited.

Telephones – India’s wireless market is the fastest growing in the world. The wireless subscriber base recently crossed the 200 million mark in August 2007, when the country added another 8 million subscribers in a month.9 That has become the average now, and the market is expected to triple over the next few years. How fast this market is growing can be estimated by the fact that the number of subscribers had hit the 100 million mark only about a year earlier, in May 2006. “The country's tele(phone)-density -- the number of people owning a telephone out of every 100 people -- rose slightly to 21.20 percent by August-end, compared with 20.52 percent by July-end, the data showed. By the end of 2008, three-quarters of India's population will be covered by a mobile network. Many of the people in these new areas to be covered by mobile networks live in poor, rural districts with scarce health and

9 "Indian Cell Phone Subscribers Pass 200 Million Mark." Times of India 22 Sept. 2007. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Indian_cell_phone_subscribers_pass_200_million_mark/arti cleshow/2393038.cms>



education facilities and high illiteracy rates.”8

Televisions – India had around 105 million homes with televisions in the beginning of 2007, which is a significant increase from the 88 million in 2000. The total number of households in India is 188 million.10 According to an article in the New York Times, “Television ownership is growing fast here, and it has plenty more room to expand. The current number of television households is about the same as in the United States, though for India that amounts to only about half of the country’s households, compared with 98 percent in the United States.”11 Prasar Bharti (Broadcast Corporation of India), an autonomous corporation of The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, operates a network of free television channels, called Doordarshan, in various Indian languages, and is the public television broadcaster of India. More than 90 percent of the Indian population can receive Doordarshan’s 19 channels, including 2 all-India channels, 11 regional languages satellite channels, and 4 state networks.

Radio – Radios in India have very high market penetration, accessibility, and availability. The “Administrative Reforms Commission” of the government of India aims to popularize the importance of local governance. In its sixth report, the commission recommended radio broadcast as the most effective means for reaching out to rural areas. A LiveMint (A Wall Street Journal and Hindustan Times daily) report on the issue said that the commission believed that “Visual media such as television has a limited utility on account of lack of rural electrification. Print medium is handicapped because of poor literacy in rural areas, which is 59.4 percent, according to Census of India. This underlines the importance of medium of propagation through radio broadcasting both in terms of reach, which is 99.13 percent of local population, as well as cost involved,” the commission said. According to the commission, radio is not dependent on availability of electricity in rural areas. Nearly 56.5 percent of rural households in the country have electricity connection, more so in states like Bihar (80.2 percent), Jharkhand (90 percent), Assam (83.5 percent), Orissa (80.6 percent), Uttar Pradesh (80.2 percent), and West Bengal (79.7 percent).”12 The Indian government also has a major presence in the Indian radio market, through Prasar Bharti’s All-India Radio, which is the radio broadcaster of India. All-India Radio (AIR) is also one of the world’s largest radio networks. Their coverage is 91.79 percent of the area, serving 99.13 percent of the people. AIR covers 24 languages and 146 dialects in home services. In external services, it covers 27 languages: 17 national and 10 foreign.13

Computers – Even though access to computers is increasing at a steady rate in India, access is still very limited. Furthermore, access to Internet has even lower statistics. The country’s online user population currently stands at 30.3 million, which is a market penetration of around 3 percent. This subscriber base is, however, growing at a rate of around 28 percent per annum. Even though cyber cafes played a major role in the growth of Internet usage until 2006, the number of users who have started accessing the 10 Bery, Suman. "Why is India Shining?" Rediff.Com 9 Mar. 2004. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://w w w .rediff.com/money/2004/mar/09shining.htm>. 11 Bajaj, Vikas. "In India, the Golden Age of Television is Now." New York Times 11 Feb. 2007. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://www .nytimes.com/2007/02/11/business/yourmoney/11india.html?ex=1328850000&en=d3fad9 15 2016b406&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>

12 "Radio, Most Effective Medium to Educate Rural Masses." LiveMint 9 Dec. 2007. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://www .livemint.com/2007/12/09111732/Radio-most-effective-medium-t.html>. 13 "About Us." All India Radio. Prasar Bharti. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://www.allindiaradio.org/about1.html>.



Internet from home has grown from around 19 percent in 2006 to around 59 percent in 2007. Hence, the role of cyber cafes has decreased in the market today. According to an online research firm, JuxtConsult, two of the biggest barriers hindering wider Internet adoption in India are affordability and language. "Not much content is available on the Internet in local languages," said Sanjay Tiwari, director and cofounder of JuxtConsult, noting that only 12 percent of India's online population use local language. He also explained that the Internet market in India is currently at the stage where the mobile phone market was in 2003, and that the growth will really pick up once prices crash in the future.14

The following table compares these mediums on some critical parameters. The values used are the latest ones available and are approximated to the nearest relevant value:

Pricing

The business model for this service revolves around a partnership between a telephone company and a television channel. Revenues will be generated by selling advertisements, which will be telecast on the television during the breaks in the program and will simultaneously be audible on the telephone that the callers use to call into the program. These revenues will then be split between the television and telephone operator to cover for the cost of the call and make profits. Hence, the cost of the program will be borne by the companies buying advertisement space, and the consumer will be able to access it for free. The number they will use to call in will then essentially be like a 1-800 number in the United States. The business model is discussed in detail in the Financial Plan section of this report.

14 Prasad, Swati. "Broadband Flows Into Indian Homes." ZDNet Asia 17 Aug. 2007. 9 Apr. 2008 <http://www .zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,62031023,00.htm>.



BUSINESS PLAN SALES AND MARKETING PLAN

Market Penetration

This project utilizes more than one of the mediums identified in the market analysis. Based on the preliminary market feedback, as discussed above, the ideal scenario would utilize televisions along with telephones for the implementation of this project. However, since the market penetration of televisions is less than that of radios, it might make more sense to implement this project with radios in some areas. However, for the purposes of this analysis and for the beginning of the project, televisions would be a good place to start, as they provide the option of using video for teaching purposes, which is very important, according to preliminary market feedback. In that case, our potential market penetration is limited by that of telephones, as it is less than that of televisions.

As discussed above, data shows that access to various technologies is much easier in urban areas than in rural areas. Hence, to start the project, suburban areas of major cities in India will be good markets to start in, as the population of these areas will be easier to target through marketing. For example, Mumbai has a population of 13 million, with the population of the rural Mumbai Metropolitan Region at 1.04 million. According to the 2001 census of India, around 54 percent of the Mumbai population lives in slums. Given the general demographics of these regions, children growing in these areas have access to a lot of different resources and yet do not have access to resources good enough for them to learn English well. Since they have close access to cities, and hence job opportunities, they can benefit from such knowledge as well. That is also an incentive for their families to invest in such education.

Customer Service

Customer service is going to be needed for the implementation of this project, as the target consumer is largely uneducated about the product and its features. Since the Indian population has many different native languages and accents in every region, customer service will have to be trained to talk in the local language of the caller. This, however, should not be a problem, as several existing companies in India host customer service operations for not only Indian companies, but also companies abroad. As this is a big industry by itself, competitive prices should be available for providing customer service.

Direct Sales Force

The implementation of the project requires outreach to the various principals of government schools, which will then act as a bridge to reach out to the parents of the students. Even though ties with the central, state, and local government will be critical for such an endeavor, a sales force will be required to make presentations to the principals and explain the benefits of the program to them and other faculty and staff in schools. The training for this sales force need not be extremely intensive, but basic knowledge of the process, features, and benefits will be critical.

Advertising and Promotion

Although the major chunk of the target population can be targeted through schools, advertising on the television channel hosting the program will also help reach out to a specific section of the target market. This will also help in spreading the word around for the availability of such a service in some parts of the country, even if the viewers are not served by the service. This will help the companies get important



market feedback for the program and judge the potential in other areas of the country before expanding into the area.

Direct promotions in schools and villages will also help, and this task can also be assigned to the sales force. Creativity in promotions will be important, though, as the target consumer is the child. Hence, the marketing strategy will have to be similar to those of toys, where the minds of the young consumers are targeted first and then parents are made to invest. Since this service would ideally be free and would add value to the children’s education, convincing the parents in this case should be relatively easy, once the child is persuaded.

Internet

Given the “tech-savvy” nature of the product, it would add value to have a website. This will also aid as a marketing tool, as advertisements can be bought on search engines, so that when some one runs searches like “Learn English India,” the program’s website will be one of the top results, and users can find out about the service. Apart from that, lesson content and recordings can also be made available on the website as a resource for those who want to revisit the last lesson or for those children who are not participating in the program, but are just interested in learning from it in their free time. The website should be tailored to keep children interested and can have a cartoon-like theme. Other content like jokes, riddles, games, and so on can also be hosted to gain and retain traffic.

FINANCIAL PLAN

Start-up Costs

The start-up costs for this project will include the following components:

1. Infrastructure and software development costs – The implementation of this project relies on a server hosting the program show and hence requires software, developed to host such a show. This software will also need speech recognition to be able to host the lessons. The estimate for the cost of software development, according to input obtained from Microsoft Research India, is $250,000. This, however, does not include costs for the speech recognition software, which is a relatively new technology, but widely in use today. Free software is available on the Internet with voice recognition technology, and Microsoft also has such software available with its existing operating systems. Hence, costs for obtaining this technology should not offset our estimate.

Apart from that, the telephone operator will have to set up a specific number as a toll-free number. This should not cost much, as no new infrastructure is required, and differential pricing for different numbers already exists in India.

2. Phone call costs – Average phone call costs in India are one of the lowest in the world, and currently stand at around 1.2 cents/minute.15 The user of the service will be expected to call in at least thrice a week, for about an hour and a half each time. This means that the cost of the calls will run at around $2.61 per week per user. Since the target families earn around $20 per week, as discussed above, that is a significant cost for them to bear and hence, this cost should not be passed on to the consumer. Hence, the

15 Lakshman, Nandini. "Mobile Services Boom in India." BusinessWeek 4 Apr. 2008. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www .businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2008/gb2008044_497327.htm?chan=top+news_top +news+index_global+business>.



costs for these phone calls will need to be absorbed by the company hosting the service and offset them with advertising revenues.

3. Marketing and promotional costs – Given the nature of the market being targeted, word-of-mouth marketing would work best, and hence not a lot of expenditure on marketing should be required. Also, since the business plan involves using a TV channel operator and a telephone service provider, reliance on outside agencies for marketing should not be needed, and people who will watch the show should also get interested in finding out more about it. In addition, the sales force for this product will go out and talk to school principals; that will be the main source of gaining customers. So, again, that will help in keeping marketing costs to a minimum.

4. Sales force hiring and training costs – Salaries in India for sales representatives are not very high. According to a research done by Mercer Consulting, average salary for this job profile in the country was around £2,464.00 per annum, which is approximately $4894.74 per annum in 2005.16 Considering rapid growth in the country over the past few years, and expecting higher wages, maximum expenditure on hiring and training of a sales force of around 20 representatives can be estimated at $200,000 per annum. Since this sales force will also be marketing the product, the cost is not very high.

5. Customer service costs – Indian companies have specialized in providing low-cost customer service support, not only to other Indian companies, but to companies worldwide. According to one estimate, a typical call center employee earned $159-$204 per month in 2005.17 Hence, adjusting for inflation and assuming that around 30 full-time call center employees will be able to handle the project operations, at least in its preliminary launch phase, customer service costs can be expected to be in the range of $105,000 to $120,000 per annum. According to these estimates, the total start-up costs for this venture can be estimated at $570,000. The expected return is discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Sales Projection

The research for this project was done in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and more specifically in the suburban areas of Chennai. According to the Tamil Nadu census, the population of Chennai is 4.34 million, and out of that, around 334,000 are children in the age group of 5-9.18 Since this is the target market for the product, assuming that in the initial role out, only around 1 percent of the population will be in reach, the potential customer base can still be assumed to be approximately 3,300 students. This is a pretty sizeable number for the launch of this product, and even if only about 1,000 students show interest, it will be enough to actually launch the product and test its success before expanding in other areas of the country.

Advertising Market

As mentioned earlier, most of the expected revenues will be generated from advertisements sold for the TV show. These advertisements will also be played to the users who are calling in from their telephones and will hence reach out to a larger audience. Since this is targeted marketing to children of a specific age

16 "China Tops India on Average Pay." BBC News 14 Nov. 2005. 23 Apr. 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4436692.stm>. 17 Bhatnagar, Parija. "Is India's Outsourcing Honeymoon Over?" CNN Money 24 Aug. 2005. 23 Apr. 2008 <http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/23/news/international/india_outsourcing/>. 18 Tamil Nadu, India. Directorate of Census Operations - Tamil Nadu. Ministry of Home Affairs. 23 Apr. 2008 <http://www.census.tn.nic.in/agewise.aspx>.



group and their parents, finding companies interested in buying advertisement space should not be a problem. The total advertising industry revenue in India was around $3.3 billion in 2005, 41 percent of which came from TV advertisements.19 Since this is a sizeable market and the TV channels will already have existing relationships with advertisers, this product will only help them in targeting a specific niche market, and hence appeal to companies involved in making products for these children or their parents.

Cash Requirements

As discussed in the previous sections, the overall investment to launch the product is $570,000, and the target market will be the 3,300 children in the city of Chennai. This will help the TV channel hosting the show gain additional advertising revenue and hence will affect the bottom- line of the company hosting the service. However, as discussed, an initial investment of $570,000 will be required for a successful launch and hence, these funds must be secured before the rollout. Also, since this is a television-based service, the service should expand pretty rapidly. The major investment is in the software, and that is only a one-time cost. The variable cost related with the implementation is the labor cost, and since that is not very high, once the success of the preliminary launch in Chennai is tested, this service can be rolled out in other parts of the country within a year of launch. Also, just by changing the content of the lessons taught, different age groups can also be targeted. Since this essentially creates a huge potential customer base for the product, revenues from advertising should grow rapidly and help in recovering the cost of the software.

Since the service will be supporting a total of 3,300 students for a total cost of $570,000, the company investing in the service should ensure that it can earn around $14.50 per month per child from advertisement revenues to break even and recover fixed costs in the first year. Thereafter, revenue requirements will drop to $220,000 per annum, which means $5.50 per month per child.

19 "Up, Up, Up & Away!" IndianTelevision. 21 Dec. 2005. 21 Apr. 2008 <http://w w w .indiantelevision.com/ye2005/adex_yearender05.htm>.



DESCRIPTION OF PROTOTYPE STEP 1: The Microsoft Research team in India visits the elementary school and discusses the “Spoken English” service and process with the main principals.



STEP 2: The Microsoft Research team meets with the schoolteacher to explain how the service will help children learn spoken English. Also, at this time the Microsoft team can do a demo simulation of the service, and teachers can ask any questions and address any questions or concerns expressed by the teacher in order to gain his or her support.



STEP 3: The teacher lectures in English to the students during class.



STEP 4: Teachers meet with parents and explain the benefits of the service and how it will help them improve their English speaking skills at home.



STEP 5: After talking to the teacher about the “Spoken English” service, the mother and child go home and call a 1-800 number and learn more about the service and its features, along with what they need to do to be able to use the service.



STEP 6: The parents and their child sit together and start calling into the service and begin to take the course.



STEP 7: Meena and her parrot friend, Sammy, welcome the child and parents to the program and introduce the course.



STEP 8: Meena demonstrates or asks the child to demonstrate a series of actions.



STEP 9: The child and parents are expected to pay careful attention. At first, the child is not expected to talk or repeat the commands. But he or she will want to join in because the commands are easy to follow and the language is clear and comprehensible.



STEP 10: Meena and her friend Sammy continue to introduce more words to the child and demonstrate a series of actions. Usually, this step is repeated several times so the child internalizes the series thoroughly before he or she will be asked to produce it.



STEP 11: The parents can also repeat the commands or series of actions to ensure that their child has internalized the information as well.



STEP 12: Meena and her friend Sammy continue to introduce new words to the child and demonstrate a series of actions. Usually, this step is repeated several times so the child internalizes the series thoroughly before he or she will be asked to produce it.



STEP 13: Next, the child acts out the series while Meena gives the commands. Usually, this step is repeated several times so the child internalize the series thoroughly before he or she will be asked to produce it. Finally, the child can work with the parent to tell or read the series. The parent can give the commands while the child responds physically and the parent monitors the child’s progress.



The illustration above is the process flow from the server to the TV/radio station and then to the cell phone, which is used by the parents and child.

SUMMARY, CONLUSIONS, AND FUTURE WORK The educational-based solution leverages several existing infrastructures such as the cell phone, radio, and television. Parents and children in the rural subsistence market in India are passionate about learning how to speak English. However, financial resources limit their abilities to take advantage of opportunities that would further enhance the children’s English-speaking capabilities. Team Microsoft believes the educational-based solution creates an opportunity outside of the classroom and encourages children to converse in English. Parent and teacher involvement is critical to the success of the product’s implementation into the subsistence marketplace. In addition, Team Microsoft strongly believes that the proposed solution differs from traditional exams and provides children a unique approach to learn new words and experiences. Not to mention there is no other product in the market that really serves the same social and educational purpose. Most importantly, the solution benefits not only the child, but also the entire family, and creates a virtual community park that is dedicated to learning spoken English.



There is much potential for future work on this project. Some next steps recommended for the Microsoft Research team in India is to consider exploring the possibilities of creating a special handset for the children, as opposed to using the cell phone, for the process to be more attractive and engaging for them. Also, Microsoft should consider looking at other markets in India, since a great deal of the primary and secondary research was from Chennai, India. It is strongly recommended that partnerships are formed with education professionals to assist in developing strategies for English as a second language that would be most appropriate for the subsistence environment. Additionally, the Microsoft Research team should consider other target markets and different channels of delivery that would be more appropriate for older age groups. Furthermore, the further development of this education-based product has the potential to not only impact the base of the pyramid in rural India, but across the globe.

APPENDICES APPENDICES..........................................................................................

APPENDIX A: PROJECT PLAN: GANTT CHART

APPENDIX B: QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS IN INDIA

APPENDIX C: COMPLETE LIST OF PRODUCT IDEAS

APPENDIX D: CONCEPT EVALUATION MATRIX

APPENDIX E: MARKET FEEDBACK FROM POTENTIAL USERS IN INDIA

APPENDIX F: FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES

APPENDIX G: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR PROTOTYPE – JOURNAL WRITING

APPENDIX H: SCHEDULE OF TRIP TO INDIA

APPENDIX I: REFERENCES



Appendix A: Project Plan: Gantt Chart

40

Appendix B: Qualitative Interviews in India

Interview #1

Interviewees: Married housewives from an urban area - Meera (one son, 3rd grade) and Kesavan (one daughter, 10th grade)

Both send their daughters to private schools. Why?

Private schools teach in other languages than the local language of Tamil.



Subjects are taught in Hindi or English.

Would you like to learn English too?

Yes, they are interested in English but hesitant to apply for jobs because they don’t know the language – problem isn’t with understanding English, it’s that they reach a point where they can’t communicate back.

Differences between private and public schools:

Private: proper uniform, 30 kids in a class, kids have more exposure to computers

Public: some kids don’t wear no shoes, maybe sandals, 50 kids in a class

Would you be interested in investments (e.g. savings, life insurance products, etc.)?

Yes, but finance is an issue and why invest in themselves when they can spend money on the children

Both women have savings accts for college and life insurance for their husbands

What things do you do to help your children speak English?

Watch English TV channels, cartoon network (conversations) in English, read magazines, newspapers, and books in English.

Do you have recommendations on how to improve the schools?

Teach more with hands-on experience, computers, and teach kids how to become entrepreneurs so you don’t have to go to others for a job.

The teaching bar level needs to be raised.

There is no uniformity in education.

Various comments below were made by the women interviewed:

Children get annoyed when they speak English with their parents because the response is slow.

Enforcement is a problem – Teachers need to force children to speak English but the teachers themselves do not converse well in English.

Parents would like their kids to have some fun too, not just do homework. Like extracurricular activities: lessons in karate, dancing, swimming. There is no balance in study and play for our children.

Parents feel that kids do not receive practical knowledge which would increase their skills. It’s all about just getting the grade to pass...VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Curriculum is strict and teachings need to be more practical knowledge, not just who invented what?



Women make many of the household decisions while the men work.

Money plays a big role in obtaining a better education.

Initiatives in change to school system depend on teachers/principal.

What do you do if you don’t have money during difficult times?

Invest in gold, sell gold at pawn shop, go to banks and money lenders

Interview #2:

Interviewees: Two married men with children from a rural area. They have a small art craft operation, one works out of his home and the other has a government-subsidized unit that he manages. The men spoke about their issues surrounding their art craft business: 1) Finance is always a problem 2) and lack of market linkages.

Market Linkages: discussed designing a website to help market their product to the right channel. Maybe use of cell phones through sms; combine cell phone and interface with website.

Interview #3:

Interviewees: Married housewives from an urban area - Shuba (two sons, 4th and 8th grade) and Viji (three daughters, 17 yrs. old, 23 yrs. Old, and 25 yrs. old/married) was working as a schoolteacher before marriage; finished BComm level of education

Healthcare questions:

Do your children get sick?

Yes, during season cycle...like monsoon cycle

Do you take them to the doctor?

Viji: Yes, I take them to a private family doctor we have had for years if I can not treat them with home remedies.

Shuba: If we have to go to the doctor, we go to the clinic that is closest to our home since we are always moving. (She shows prescribed tablets to new doctor to inform them of the history of medical issue.)

What investments do you have?

Husbands have life insurance and kids have educational fund. But no extra money for the women to have life insurance too.

Interview #4:

Interviewees: Married housewives from an urban area – Usha (one son and one daughter, 12th grade and BComm) and Uma (one daughter, 5th grade); both women tutor on the side: Hindi, math, science, English



What financial planning do you do in your family?

Uma: every month they put away additional savings, they have two bank loans and a savings acct, life insurance and education fund

Uma: has one bank loan, life insurance on husband and education fund

Do you own the following items?

Cell phone: Yes

Computer: Have used them but do not own

Credit Cards: Yes, but only use in emergency...AVOID AT ALL COST!

Debit Cards: Yes

How comfortable are you with remote financial services?

They book train tickets online and like having to go the bank/stores or else they will become very lazy and no activity in their day.

If a new technology came out that would save you time, would you be willing to invest the extra time on something else?

Yes, but what will the added value for us be? It must lead to more money or a job.

Additional comments made by interviewees:

They own cell phones and they receive weekly updates/texts from Reliance about special offers at retail stores. More companies should offer this service.

Interview #5:

Interviewees: Married housewives from a rural area – Maria (two daughters and one son, 2nd grade, kindergarten, preschool) lost her father at age 11 and was married at 14 and Bavanay (no children) works as a operator for 4 yrs at a computer firm; finished BComm. We also interviewed an elementary science schoolteacher.

What things do you do to help your children speak English?

Say rhyming phrases

When walking on the streets show them the traffic lights and what the colors mean

Use toys or physical objects to teach (e.g., car toy...this is car moving, catch the car etc.)

Play CD in English

Visit sister’s house who has a computer and let children play on it



Comments made about children’s education:

We do not want to stress children; yes, we want them to be smart, but also be practical and enjoy what they are learning.

We don’t know enough English to practice with our children. We would like to speak with them during breakfast and after school, but we don’t want to confuse them either, so we just speak our native language with them.

We feel that our children are deficient in pronunciation and conversational English.

We want JOYFUL LEARNING for our children...so much focus is only put on getting the grades/marks!

In govt. school there are no measures of control in place to ensure teachers are speaking in English: not an issue in private schools

We asked the women, what ways do they think is effective to learn English?

Activity-based learning: allowed to go to the next exercise after specific exercises are successfully completed

Use audio cassette, watching TV, must translate in local language (TAMIL) and English words

We asked the schoolteacher, why don’t the children speak English as often?

Because there is no motivation for them. The children lack confidence and fear of what others may think of him/her if s/he may say something incorrectly. Also, some children have a low self-image or are simply too shy.

We asked the schoolteacher what concerns he has with children learning English.

Awareness – Parents and children have to understand that “I have to learn English‟

Learning English has to add value to their lives.

Teaching method should be community-based learning if it’s to be successful.

It should involve multi-media (e.g. game element, cartoons), must be interactive and involve the teachers. We asked the mothers, what would motivate them to speak English with their children at home?

Self-confidence that we are speaking English correctly or else we will feel that we will confuse them.

Interview #6:

Interviewees: three young women from a rural area who finished 10th grade but dropped out of high school to start working. Suya (20 yrs old, isn’t working right now and did not like to study in school); Dave (20 yrs old and worked as a telephone operator); Gladwell (21 yrs old and also worked as a



telephone operator)

What contributed to you dropping out of school?

Our parents don’t feel education for a girl is that important. And we didn’t like to study and pressure of getting the grades.

Can you speak English?

Yes, we understand English, but it is difficult for us to respond.

In what way do you think would be a good idea to learn English?

It would be a good idea to involve young girls/boys as leaders with the teachers to help other students.

Various comments below were made by the girls interviewed:

I thought of starting our own business: right now I sell sarees to local shops.

Not knowing English is a problem because now parents are required to speak English in order for the children to be able to attend some private schools.

Appendix C: Complete List of Product Ideas

Team Microsoft prepared a list of ideas individually and then discussed them as a group. The complete list of ideas is as follows:

1. Cell phone – SMS (short message service): the phonetic spelling of the English words to a particular number and then you get the meaning of the actual word and its meaning in Tamil back as a text message.

2. Teletubbies – Videos that teach students different alphabets and sentence formation, in attractive and entertaining manner.

3. Subliminal message – Launch a program to change all road signs and all other signs in the villages to have both English and Tamil written on them, so that people see the words all around them.

4. TV show with conference participants – Launch TV shows on national television, where participants call in and participate in a game to learn English and win awards in the process.

5. Kiosks – Install computer kiosks in villages that host various other daily use applications, like job searches, weather reports, etc. and the kiosks teach you one word or two every time you start using it.

6. Interactive webcam with audio multiple headsets via computers – create a social network of English-speaking children with Indian children who want to practice their spoken English (concept: virtual pen pals).



7. Talking pet toys that speaks common daily phrases to kids both in a local language and English. The toy can be a dog, cat, monkey, bird, etc.

8. An interactive children’s board game used in classrooms that requires the children to get together in different teams and play the game like a game show, with the teacher as the host who asks educational trivia-type questions that have to be answered in English (concept: Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, etc.) Also, this can be a school-wide competition like a Spelling Bee.

9. Interactive, reusable learning books that have pictures and words in the local language that is used by the parents and provides them with teaching lessons/best learning techniques that can be used to help their children speak spoken English.

10. An online interactive virtual game that kids download on a computer or use an entertainment box for their TV to play against each other, using audio to hear their correct answers in English. Whoever earns the most points at the end of the game is the “champion” to beat (concept: play station games, Xbox).

11. Cell phone + radio – This idea involves hosting some competition/game/teaching software on a cell phone network’s server, so that people can call in and compete with each other. The competition will be transmitted on either a dedicated or an existing radio channel. Some modification may include transmission on televisions with cartoons to make it more appealing to kids. The business model is relatively simple and revolves around revenues from calls made by cell phones.

12. “Feed the pet” game – Virtual pet owned by every kid. Children have to feed the pet by inputting the words/sentences they learned, and talking to the pet everyday. For a particular time period, little quizzes will pop out. Pets (puppies, kitties, plants, flowers, etc.) will grow up depending on how much English the kids have learned and how good they are.

13. Kids’ walkie-talkie – They could take it with them and practice spoken English with other kids in the community. Not as expensive as a cell phone, and compared to webcams, kids could have more freedom, since they could use it while walking and playing.

14. Cubic stools with letters (A, B, C, D, etc.) on each side. Kids could move around their stools to spell out words or make sentences after class; it can be used as a teamwork game.

15. Booth or playground furnished with audio/video books, computers, intelligent toys, and cartoon magazines as public resources that may be unaffordable for one family. Kids could play with and talk to each other. The purpose of this playground is to create an environment with advanced products to give kids the chance to know the language and be interested in it.

16. Digital board embedded in desk in classroom – The surface of the desk has two sides; one is normal and the other is a digital board. All the digital boards are connected to the central processor, which is controlled by the teacher. Kids could flip to the digital board side to take exams, write down notes, and play role games with other kids (in English). This could make the whole learning process paperless and fun.



17. Nighttime storytelling pillow – The pillow tells a child a story at bedtime in English and in their local language.

Appendix D: Concept Evaluation Matrix

Team Microsoft listed the most important characteristics for the ideas and ranked each one of them on these parameters. Each parameter/characteristic was also given a relative weight on the following scale:

1. Important

2. Very Important

3. Extremely Important

These parameters are listed with the weights as follows:

1. Bilingual, 3

2. Interactive, 3

3. Community-based, 2



4. Joyful, 2

5. Reusable, 1

6. Marketable, 2

7. Easy to Use, 1

8. Difficulty of Implementation, 1

9. Leveraging Existing Products/Infrastructure, 3

In addition, the following scale was used:

X → Yes / Easy?

→ Neutral / Questionable

→ No / Hard

Finally, the following point scale was used:

• Each X is a positive value. • Each receives a score of 0. • Each receives a negative score.

After this ranking, Team Microsoft identified the top four ideas as follows:

1. Idea 11 – Cell phone + radio: Score = 18 2. Idea 4 – TV show with conference participants: Score = 13 3. Idea 5 – Computer kiosks: pop-up tips/words: Score = 12 4. Idea 6 – Interactive webcam/multiple headsets: Score = 12

Appendix E: Market Feedback from Potential Users in India

No. of respondents – 8 Responses:

1. In general, everyone welcomes this effort and its objective.

2. Is there an option for mothers/parents to learn?

3. Children/users must have an opportunity to see the host/coach through the monitor. It would help the children listen and have effective interaction (video & audio). Children may not be interested to hear the voice only.



4. The skills of teachers, those who cater to the needs of lower strata, need to be improved first. So, involve them, too.

5. If we know the cost, we can have an idea about the usage to us. Otherwise, we would wait till it is to be tested among the middle and below-middle class segment. If we get positive feedback, we might follow them and prefer this. Of course, we spend hundreds of rupees every month for imparting English language skills.

6. The instrument should have an effective speaker and mike, instead of using it near the ear, as everyone is using now. We are afraid of children using cell phones for considerable hours. Because even adults are facing hearing and other nerve problems due to cell phone usage. This fear must be addressed and confidence must be raised.

7. The cell phone instrument should be exclusively for this; it should not have other options that would divert the children. Or lock the other options while it is in the hands of children.

8. It should have the facility to record or store lessons and replay them for further study.

Storage/record option

It should also have

An option for clarification

An option for a second or third language, such as Hindi for Tamilnadu

Appendix F: Family Literacy Programs in the United States

I. Family literacy programs: These programs serve as meaningful and enriching components of education, particularly for students who study ESL. These programs help parents develop skills to help their children succeed in the classroom. Family literacy programs are especially valuable because they rely on parent involvement. In some households, language barriers serve as an obstacle to parent involvement. A family literacy program for parents of ESL students can serve to remove barriers that impede students’ development and operate as a launching pad for success in school and life.

II. Need for Program & Services: Both family members and educators want to see students succeed. Research studies of early readers and investigations of emergent literacy uniformly conclude that parental beliefs, aspirations, and actions critically affect children’s literacy growth. It is the responsibility of educators to empower parents with additional skills that will enhance their understanding of literacy development and provide the confidence and support necessary to contribute to their children’s literacy development.

Educators recognize the importance of understanding home literacy experiences and parent’s roles in their children’s school experiences. They recognize that values placed on literacy, and not on social status, race, or economics, are what make for a home rich in literacy. The development of a Family Literacy Program within schools will create and strengthen a bond between parents and teachers.

According to the National Center for Family Literacy, while in family literacy programs, children make



gains in developmental areas such as language and literacy, creativity, social relations, and initiative that are threes times greater than expected from normal maturation. In addition, children who are read to three or more times a week are nearly twice as likely as other children to show three of more skills associated with emerging literacy.

III. Description of Proposed Program: The design of a Family Literacy Program provides literacy training for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) parents so that they can influence their child’s literacy and academic development. The program includes two integrated components. The first component consists of weekly English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. These sessions are designed to meet the specific educational needs of the parents in the program. ESL teachers will use a thematic approach to develop lessons around topics of interest to parents. The second component consists of bimonthly family literacy nights for both parents and their children. Family literacy nights are from 6:00pm-8:00pm. The first session is from 6:00-6:30. During this time, parents attend discussion sessions that are conducted in English, Tamil, and other local languages that represent the main languages spoken in target markets in India. According to Mulhern et al. (1994), “We feel that parents need to be reassured that their linguistic abilities in a language other than English are strengths and that their children will benefit if they are provided a solid base in that language.” Literacy modeling is the main focus of the parent discussion sessions.

Parent discussion sections begin with a specific topic and activity, but additional sessions will be added based on parents’ needs and requests. Book sharing is an example of one of the discussion topics. During the book-sharing topic, we will be discussing the most effective ways to share books with children and how to talk about books. While the parents are in their discussion sessions, the children will be in a separate class with a teacher and a paraprofessional, doing activities that reinforce the skills presented in the parent discussions. To maintain small cooperative learning groups, grade levels will be split as follows: kindergarten and first grade, second grade, and third grade.

The second session (from 6:35-7:30) is where parents and children will complete a theme-based, hands-on project together. A language-experience activity involving writing about their project is also component of this session. The language-experience writing activity extends the learners’ creativity in storytelling through writing.

The last session of the family literacy night (from 7:40-8:00) includes a book-reading demonstration, where teachers will model effective ways to share and talk about books. Parents are able to gain additional insight from the book sharing/modeling sessions. During this session, parents and children will choose a take-home activity kit. Each kit invites children and their family to read a literature selection and complete related activities, using hands-on manipulatives and journal recording pages. All materials will be placed in Ziploc bags for easy storage and handling. Parents are asked to do activities with their child and report their experiences.

Program evaluation will be twofold. Students in the program should be given a pre and post Snapshot of Early Literacy (SEL). Pre and post scores will be compared to show progress and growth. Students’ scores from those involved in the Family Literacy Program will be compared to other students at their grade level to note direct progress and academic growth from participating in the program.

Evaluation will also include a parent survey, wherein parents evaluate the components and various sessions of the program and overall satisfaction with the program. A space will be provided for parents to write in suggestions for program improvement and topics they would like to discuss. Parents are encouraged to write responses in their native language.

IV. Schedule/Timeline



Appendix H: Schedule of Trip to India

January 1st, 2008 Arrive in Delhi and drive to Agra

January 2nd Visit Taj Mahal

January 3rd Fly from Delhi to Chennai/Madras

Visit urban retail shop, large reseller, and urban household

Urban interviews at school

January 4th SRM College School of Management lunch with Dean and students

Rural interviews at village

January 5th Drive to Pondicherry and company visit EID Parry (sugar factory)

January 6th Company visit to Onward

Urban interviews

January 7th Visit Mamallapuram shore temple

IIT TeNet Lab tour

January 8th Train ride from Chennai/Madras to Bangalore

Company visit to Microsoft Research India

Company visit Conzerv Systems Pvt. Ltd.



January 9th Company visit Motorola

Company visit Google

January 10th Indian Institute of Science

Fly from Bangalore to Delhi

January 11th Sightseeing in Delhi

Fly from Delhi to Chicago

Arrive in Chicago

Appendix I: References

Colorin Colorado! “Oral Language Development for Beginners.” On-line: April 18, 2008. Available: < http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/content/oral>

Das, Gurcharan. “Outlook India.” Yale Global On-line: May 2, 2005. Available: <http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5675>

Dolnick, Sam. “Newspaper business thriving in India,” USA Today (May 23, 2007). Available: <http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-05-28-3084986471_x.htm>

Hohenthal, Annika. “English in India: Loyalty and Attitudes.” On-line: May 2, 2008. Available: <http://www.languageinindia.com/may2003/annika.html>

Narayanan, R. “The English Language in India.” On-line: May 2, 2008. Available: <http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/indianenglish.html>

Trevino, Leonor. Reading and Spanish Bilingual Teacher. Telephone interview. April 7, 2008.

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