We all worked together at IBM during a summer internship in 2014. During his final year at university, Giacomo started a social entrepreneurship project to help a developing honey business in the highlands of Peru. We decided to develop a software that would allow members of this project to better communicate with the community and their representatives - our target users.
The first issue the community faces is the lack of a stable internet connection. Gathering financial data and providing feedback is therefore really slow and depends on periodic phone calls. These phone calls are also hard due to the language barrier. We aimed to make the process more efficient by using software to automatically collect their revenues and costs.
The data is now collected through SMS and stored in a database. The software automatically translates the messages of the team in the UK and the community in Peru, allowing for a better understanding. Furthermore, the team in the UK can ask for specific quantitative data, generating a graph once the community has replied with the numbers. The numbers can be analyzed and interpreted by the team in the UK and give the community feedback on how they can improve their business.
Another feature we are proud of is the comparison with Bloomberg data. Users in the UK are able to see the market trends of the community in Peru and suggest a price to sell honey or suggest a specific month for selling their stored honey. For example, honey is more expensive between the months of June and January in the Northern Hemisphere, so when the team in the UK sees a peak in prices during this months the community can rapidly be advised on exporting their honey.
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