Yin Yin Phyu said in an exclusive interview with The Nation that the firm would double its efforts to reach out to hundreds of thousands of farmers across the country.
Thein Soe Min, the firm co-founder, mainly works on adding innovative features to its landmark product “ Green Way mobile application”.
“We are the leading agri-tech organisation in the country with more than 100,000 farmers connected with over 2,000 experts,” she said.
“We aim to double our user base to 200,000 by the end of this year, and also have an ambitious target of serving around 2 million farmers over the next three years.”
According to the executive, their knowledge-sharing platform has covered the farming community in 329 townships across Myanmar. More than 95 per cent of the registered users on the platform are farmers while the rest are experts, agronomists and observers.
The firm was established in May 2011 by two close friends who graduated from Yezin Agricultural University. They started with a blog and a website to share best practices in farming with a particular interest in organic farming. In the early years, the firm’s performance was very slow due to insufficient funding, time constraint and the lack of local talent.
In the second half of 2015, the two quit their jobs at non-government organisations to fully concentrate on Greenovator Co.
“In September 2015, we shifted our focus to develop a mobile application, and have been expanding our team. As a result, we have gained more trust from our partners and the farming community,” said Yin Yin Phyu.
“As a social enterprise, our business model generates income from providing agricultural services such as consultancy, research and translations to INGOs, NGOs and enterprises.”
Using the knowledge, experience and income gained from the services, the firm launched in May 2016 the Green Way app, which has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and is extensively shared through Zapya, an offline data sharing app. In this respect, Yin Yin Phyu expects real users to be double or even triple of the downloaded rate.
“Our app is the digital linkage between farmers and agri-experts across the country. We can offer help to agricultural projects by providing consultancy services,” she said.
To her, the firm’s consultancy offerings include farming advice (online and offline), project management, agri-business related consultations, resource mapping, collecting surveys and conducting comprehensive research on a particular topic and study area upon a client’s request.
“Our clients include organisations and companies wanting to disseminate information and services through our app, which in turn enables us to empower small-scale farmers in Myanmar to improve their livelihood,” she said.
Another source of funding comes from grants by international organisations, such as Unesco, GIZ, PWC, Care International, GSMA, UKAid and fhi360.
10 Mar, 2019 Nationthailand
