Training
A corporate-funded rural livelihoods programme
Social enterprise, microfinance and livelihoods, rural India
The marketing module of a proposed mini-MBA for self-help group federation leaders, including using ChatGPT and Gemini in Hindi, by voice, as a business assistant.
Nothing was measured after delivery. No one set up the measurement, so the honest answer is that the outcome is unknown.
The problem
Tiny household businesses fail often. The federation leaders who support them are the closest thing those businesses have to a business adviser, and they have had no formal business training.
What I did
I contributed to a proposal for a train-the-trainers pilot: a mini-MBA for self-help group federation leaders, running 6 to 8 weeks for a batch of about 20, with weekly two-hour online sessions plus a monthly offline session, taught in English with Hindi support.
I wrote the marketing module: marketing basics, pricing and profit, packaging, and using ChatGPT and Gemini in Hindi, by voice and by text, as a business assistant. The last part includes an AI buyer and seller role play, so a leader practises the negotiation rather than being told about it.
Hindi voice is the design decision that matters here. For this audience, typing in English is the barrier, not the technology, and a tool that answers a spoken question in Hindi is a different proposition from the same model behind a keyboard.
What came of it
The work is at proposal stage. Nothing has been delivered and there is no outcome to report.
Other training work
Have a problem worth measuring?
I take a small number of advisory and build engagements each year.