Connext

Connecting You To Your Future

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Problem Being Solved

People in local areas have lots of resources create products, but can’t really sell them because they don’t have many customers, and don’t have access to technology, or don’t know how to use them. They must rely on a middleman to come to help them distribute the products, but when those middlemen don't come, they can't sell their products, and the products go to waste.

What Is Connext

An app which helps local farmers and fisherman in rural areas to connect with the outside world (eg. Businesses in the city, other developed countries). Locals can sign up with any basic smartphone or smart device. They are greeted by their local languages. This is because some local languages have deviations from the centrally spoken language, and some words are slightly different from each other. They can put in the name of the fresh product that they want to sell. They have complete control over what they are selling, so they can sell any fresh products, or dried products, and can limit the quantity of the selling. After putting in the product information, others can see the product being listed for sale. They can click on the product, and call or chat with the sellers through the app. This eliminates the cost of making a call, as we will make this call completely free. After the buyer and seller make an agreement on the price, the buyer makes a payment through the system to the seller. The seller’s job is now to pack the items using suitable packing materials. We will have logistics partners pick up the shipments at each village, according to the needs. These logistics companies will take into consideration specific aspects of the product. For example, if the product is fresh, the pickup and shipment will be delivered in such a way that the products will be in good condition when they arrive. Once the product is delivered, the seller will get the money. We will minus a commission fee of 1-2% from the sellers for our profit. However, this is not just a normal platform for locals to sell to other people, but it can also be used for businesses to find local sellers who have products that meet their needs. They are able to form a business deal together, where each week or month, the local supplier must ship out a specified amount of their products to their customer, who is constantly paying an amount of money to them. This makes the locals not have to rely on small orders and shipments. When the local sellers receive their money, it will be in their NextWallet. They are able to transfer that money into other e-wallets of theirs, other bank accounts, or they can withdraw the money into cash. Withdrawing the money will involve a bank, so we are planning to team up with the national bank of the country the local seller is in. For example, farmers in Thailand will receive the money through the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. If they choose to keep their money in their wallet, they can then do various things with it: they can use it to purchase products from other local farmers, they can use it to shop online elsewhere, and they can use it as an e-wallet to purchase products from offline shops in their area. These shops that offer payment with our e-wallet will be shops that sign up with us. This increases the knowledge of local people with financial technology, and cyber-awareness. If you’re wondering where the locals would know about our app, and how they’d access it, there is a simple solution. We will advertise offline to local people at first to see if they are interested. Then, with the help of local authorities and the Agricultural bank of that country, we will offer eligible sellers “free” smart devices that they can use. However, they must pay a 3% commission fee to us for every order that they make for the next 2 years' time. Farmers who already have access to technology can just sign up with this app for free.

Challenges Faced

One of the challenges we ran into was creating the UI so that it was easy for beginners of technology to use. We had to think about every detail, and think about how people who never used technology before might think about the simpleness of the app. Also, we had to think of a business model which would make our app be able to gain profit, without affecting both the farmers and the consumers.

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