Surveying System

Market Research Firm Idea

  1. Firm signs up with most major mobile providers to send an SMS question whenever they want to get answers to a survey.
  2. The reply SMS sent by the people will be free. In return the subscriber will receive Re. 1 of talktime for each answer.
  3. The firm will pay the mobile provider for this talktime at a certain percentage or a fixed amount based on how many respondents are there on the survey
  4. The subscribers will have to sign up for this service. They can pay a fixed fee as subscription fee and provide their demographic information so that the survey responses can be split by demography.
Questions:
How much does it cost to do a 6-lakh respondents survey?

Food Stamps

Food stamps are a good idea for social food schemes:

  1. Offer food stamps to the BPL families as benefits by employers or from govt.
  2. Food stamps give you ability to buy a certain amount of food grains/vegetables.
    1. You could technically offer several food 'plans' that you can choose from to fit to your taste.
    2. South Indians could opt for more rice and lesser wheat
    3. North Indians could opt for more wheat and lesser rice
    4. The proportions can be decided based on the cost to the govt. to provide for such food.
  3. Food stamps are offered as quantity of food rather than rupee value
  4. Not exchangeable for any other good. It will be an offense to avail it for anything else.
  5. Any trader can sign up for this distribution system. They can be paid a small incentive for selling more food under food stamp scheme. Incentives on consistency of sales as well to ensure no hoarding of food for when rates are better.
  6. Trader has to buy food stocks from the open market.
  7. Reimbursement is given by govt. at fixed national rates.

Advantages:
  1. Prevents diversion of money for food to poor to alcohol, other non-essential purchasing.
  2. Will strengthen trader distribution system since they have incentive to setup empanelled shops.
  3. Multiple Traders will try to purchase at lower price than govt. fixed rate and cause better competition.
  4. Govt. does not have to worry of setting up ration shops everywhere.
  5. Govt. PDS system's leakage issues are no longer a worry.

Genetic Evolution in Microbiology

Consider genetic programming to develop/isolate a specific type of microorganism.

Let's say we want to convert Substance A to Substance B

Take 10 samples containing various mixtures of a wide variety of microorganisms and apply higher concentrations of Substance A in them.

Wait 10 days and test the solutions for substance B. The highest 1 or 2 samples are mixed together and retained for the next generation. A few microorganisms from the other samples can be mixed for mutation. Split into 10 samples and repeat.

Hopefully you can create a mixture of microorganisms over time that have evolved to convert Substance A to Substance B over time.

Farmville

I want to propose a new business model to corporatize farming in India. Here are the basic aspects of the model:
  1. The company would select farmers who own existing tracts of land and enter into a contract with these farmers.
  2. As part of this contract:
  1. The company would provide the farmer with farming materials - seeds, fertilizer, pesticide.
  2. The farmer would sow his farm with given materials.
  3. The company would have full rights on the yield produced.
  4. As compensation for use of the land and these farming services the company would provide the farmer with a steady income every month.
  5. This steady income will not be dependent on the yield.
  6. The company will provide an annual bonus to the farmer based on the performance of the yield.