Changing eCommerce At the Grassroots: Know Change in IT Sector

The country’s IT sector has the highest representation of women at over 30%, according to various survey reports. In fact, India has been leading the way in women’s empowerment in the field of technology. Among them is Medarisha Lyngdoh from Meghalaya who is among the handful of women from the North East making an indelible mark in IT. But beyond her achievements, Lyngdoh, along with a group of young professionals with a vision, is doing yeoman work to change eCommerce at the grassroots level.

Lyngdoh is part of the team that has spearheaded eSamudaay, a platform that is decentralising marketplaces. The eSamudaay website describes it as a network of software nodes connected to the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) protocol. Each node hosts multiple decentralised marketplaces and multiple decentralised applications. Lyngdoh is the co-founder and COO of the venture that is based in Bengaluru, the IT hub of the country.

An alumnus of Holy Child School and Pine Mount, Lyngdoh graduated from St Anthony’s College in Shillong. “My initial schooling played a huge role in making me what I am today. The school was very focused on both academics and extra-curricular activities and all students were asked to participate so that they get to know what they are good at,” the young techie told Sunday Monitor.

She later went to Banaras Hindu University for MCA and the “shift was quite intense” for multiple reasons. The cultural difference, language barrier and the low ratio of female to male students could have been overwhelming for many students. However, Lyngdoh took these in a positive stride and shaped her career in technology.

“When one learns to accept and appreciate differences, it can mean a shift from negativity to being appreciative and accepting of the differences,” she asserted.

Lyngdoh has always been resilient and creative. In fact, her nous to create things in order to make work faster and easier drove her into technology that “fits the bill perfectly”.

“There is no joy like the joy of seeing the piece of code you write perform ‘magic’ and give the ‘aha’ moment to so many who struggle with doing things manually prior to technology helping them,” said the 43-year-old IT professional.

Lyngdoh started work as a substitute teacher at the age of 18. She said the early job taught her one thing — that one has to be a role model for children who look up to adults for inspiration and strength. Over the years, Lyngdoh has indeed become a role model for several children, especially girls, in her home state as well as in the entire northeastern region.

Tech journey & eSamudaay

Talking about the inception of eSamudaay, Lyngdoh said the CEO, Anup P., always had the passion to ‘Democratise Digital’. “Over the past 50 years, our communities have ceded our self-reliance to large corporations. The largest of them all are the global internet companies that harvest our data to assist in globalisation. The ‘Democratise Digital’ vision, which eSamudaay has taken upon to achieve is to reverse this trend and reap the benefits of the internet within our communities,” explained Lyngdoh.

eSamudaay started during the Covid-19 pandemic when a group of young techies, including Lyngdoh, came together after realising that this is the time to democratise digital, starting with eCommerce.

The venture started with baby steps and declared Udupi district in Karnataka as a ‘Digital Republic’ by creating Udupi eSamudaay, the world’s first Local Commerce company. Through this effort, the team is creating a Digital Platform for Udupi that is democratically governed and focused on community development.

“We started this with the hope that our efforts will spur similar efforts in the other districts of India especially those which are rich in culture and biodiversity,” Lyngdoh said.In simple terms, eSamudaay is a set of software tools that can enable local digital entrepreneurs to set up their digital businesses. The tools have helped entrepreneurs set up local marketplaces in Tiers 2 and 3 cities. These have also helped entrepreneurs set up an ONDC seller network in Meerut.

“The set of tools has evolved into helping them build solutions on ONDC. The same tools have also been used at NITK (National Institute of Technology, Karnataka) to set up a campus eCommerce solution for students run by the students. So, to summarise, it’s all about what you want to build in the eCommerce space and we could help you crystallise your vision,” Lyngdoh explained the eSamudaay model.

Working with the grassroots

eSamudaay works with grassroots entrepreneurs, who are mostly from rural and semi-urban areas and have little or no awareness of the new-age technologies and how these could change the way business is done. So, for the team of techies, challenges were imminent.

Initially, the team members worked from metropolitan cities and faced difficulty in connecting with the grassroots. This prompted them to set up a living laboratory in the quaint town of Udupi, the hometown of four of the five founding members of eSamudaay.

(With Input Feeds)