Beyond Borders Experiences

My name is Dr Prafullata Rajput. I am a Registered Medical Practitioner in India, practicing Ayurveda (Indian Traditional Medicine) for last 14 years. My work in social sector started in 2012, with my involvement in an NGO working for Female Sex Workers, as a medical officer. I was reporting into the State AIDS control society. Post that I joined Beyond Borders Learning Programs Private Limited, a Mumbai (India) based Social Enterprise which networks with organisations for social impact. My organisation provides pro-bono Business advisory services, Project support, Ground level volunteers and staff support or any other support that these organisations might need. We work with multiple organisations in multiple sectors. I am the Executive Director of this organisation.

Women from marginalized communities in developing countries have problems finding livelihood opportunities due to family responsibilities which keep them from accessing traditional jobs which require them to step out. People who like to travel, seek diverse cultural experiences, but are unable to do so either due to travel restrictions, access to diverse and affordable interventions or time restrictions.

We propose aggregating unique and real experiences offered by women from marginalized communities from within their homes and communities, through youth agents from the same communities who will use cameras and technology to bring these experiences to people who want real life cultural experiences, either online or physically to people who can travel to the community. A Beyond Borders Experience woman host and youth agent would both earn a share of the revenue, get empowered to use technology to reach an online audience and gain livelihood opportunities by hosting community experiences. 

Marginalized women around the world live in traditional frameworks where taking care of the household and their families is their primary responsibility. They are constantly seeking ways of supplementing their income without compromising their responsibilities but suffer from Gender Inequality and cannot step out to work and generate a livelihood. India ranked 127 among 152 countries (United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index-GII). Women spend around 3 times as many hours in domestic work and child care as men (UN stats, 2019). 

Over a decade, Beyond Borders has provided experiential learning pathways to students from International Universities and has been active in working on projects for women's empowerment. We have observed first-hand the social limitations that women face in being gainfully engaged and this project would help women generate extra income within their community.

Travelers from all over the world are actively seeking cultural immersion. 83% of people agreed that the most important thing for them is to experience the authentic culture of the place when on a holiday (Expedia survey, 2017). While touristy activities are readily available, it is difficult to find and participate in safe, real, culturally immersive activities of the local people’s day-to-day existence.

An aggregator model which allows women from marginalized communities to host a variety of real life experiences. Women complement their income by sharing a bit of their lives without changing their current commitments drastically. A local guide from the same community visually, culturally and linguistically translates, manages expectations of the guests and the hosts and helps a woman host to curate safe and enriching experiences either physically or online. 

A mobile app and web search engine will allow travelers to find interesting experiences which match their activity preferences and timelines and link with mobility apps for point-to-point travel or online streaming platforms.

Beyond Borders will manage branding, promotion and marketing, the technology of the web and phone interfaces, the training and development of the community agents and the Health & Safety. Our existing partners would provide access to the youth agents from marginalized communities. 

Host and agents will share the revenue, the traveler will learn about lives in traditional communities, the hosts and youth agents will interact and learn about the cultures of the developed world. Youth agents will learn new languages, gain access to technology, leadership skills and will engage with, help and empower women in their communities.

The Beyond Borders Experiences serves the women and youth agents from marginalized communities. They could be living in slums or in circumstances where generating extra supplementary income can take them out of poverty.  

Every woman host for Beyond Borders Experiences and the youth agent will be able to share the revenue and make at least INR 5000 additional income every month. With extra income, youth agents will invest in continued higher education and personal development and women hosts will buy insurance, take business loans and pay for their children's education.

We have done surveys in slums, showing a direct relationship between supplementary household income on poverty alleviation, reduction of financial shocks and better education outcomes. Many women do not have the access or understanding of technology to allow them to generate additional income. They are also busy doing household chores. Connecting younger people in the community who have enough education and access to technology, with women who can create real experiences will allow them to access supplementary income from home and safely from within their communities by spending little extra time. We have also seen youth's respect for stay-at-home women and their community traditions increase with experiences that they host.

Women traditionally face economic exclusion due to social and cultural reasons. This impacts their ability to be financially independent.

Beyond Borders Experiences (BBE) provides them with a platform to earn, learn and grow while continuing with their regular routine and social commitments thus making the opportunity sustainable.

The agents from these communities face the same inequitable resource distribution due to their gender. BBE gives them opportunity to earn, learn, improve their skills and interact with culturally different people thus improving their understanding of the world. It impacts their beliefs and behaviors about how they perceive their traditions and community women.

Beyond Borders has been working with women in the slums for a really long time. I used to conduct free medical camps for a nomadic tribal community living in the slums of Goa, India, which is also a tourism hotspot frequented by global travelers. The women invited me for a cultural celebration of Ganesh festival in Septemer 2018. It was an amazing experience of colors, flavors and emotions. While enjoying the unique experience, I felt that this could be shared with tourists and that could supplement the income of the people I cared for. The challenge was to make it safe without diluting it and accessible to others who did not speak their language. I got in touch with one of the young, educated daughters of a woman from the same community. With her help we were able to pilot the first experience during Diwali festival, in November 2018 for some Australian students who were visiting Goa. It was a very exciting and they found it very valuable. We then curated 3 more experiences from Goa and 2 in Mumbai with marginalized women who are either sole bread winners for their families or are stay-at-home mothers, to supplement their income.

This project provides extra means of income and learning opportunities to women without them having to make any major changes in their daily routine.
I am a woman. I have been a practicing doctor for over 14 years now. I have always known how lucky I have been to be able to continue and complete my education. Although my parents were very supportive, I would still have to assist my mother in the household work and then manage studies while the male members in my family never took that extra responsibility. This would leave them with extra time in their hands for recreation.
After the birth of my child, the first 2 years were very difficult. Managing the child's needs, my household and my clinics. Thanks to a supportive husband who shared the household workload, I was able to continue working.

I know by 1st hand experience how much more a woman has to do for economic independence! While working with the women from the villages and slums of India, I realized that the scale of the problem is unfathomable. This project is my way of ensuring an added source of income and an opportunity to learn for women & young girls.

Beyond Borders Learning Programs Private Ltd has been offering Experiential Learning Academic Programs to University students from all around the world since 2008. We offer these programs with fixed learning outcomes and in diverse sectors like Microfinance, Social Business, Social Development and Social Work, Education, Film and Media, Clinical Rotation, Rural Nursing, Indian Traditional Medicine, etc. My organisation participates in Research with Academia, Industries and Government Partnerships in various sectors. In the past we have been engaged in a Canadian Government funded project called CleanCube for researching affordable methods of water filtration. We have recently received a Research Grant from the Australian Government to develop contextualised online blended education platform for Healthcare Management in all tiers of hospitals in developing countries.

We have been working for over a decade with developed nations and have the technical know how, network partners, logistics management and Health & Safety practices required for making this project a success. Since we are located in a developing country we have the cultural sensitivities needed to engage in these intimate experiences. We have already run our pilot in November 2018 which was a big success not only for the people signing up for the experience but also for the community who hosted them. The young women who interacted with the travelers were impressed and inspired by them.

In September 2018 I conceptualized this project. Since I required funding I pitched it on multiple occasions in front of multiple people. Unfortunately, I did not receive funding. I believed in the idea so putting the existing network and resources together we launched the pilot anyways. The pilot was well received by both the community and the customer. Using the similar approach we were able to provide more such experiences over the next 1 year. We have received good feedback for these experiences.

With the onset of covid, Indian government started a series of unplanned lockdowns leaving huge populations of migrant workers and daily wagers without shelter, food, work and income. I was in Goa during the lockdown and through my organisation started relief work for the stranded migrant workers. Through our network we distributed essential food supplies, medicines and helped them reach government shelters. This sector is unorganised and scattered; the administration was facing hurdles in collecting data. We collected the data for the migrant community stranded in the entire state of Goa through our network and provided it to the administration. When the Government started free trains, each train would carry around 1600 people. The initial days saw people suffer due to lack of food and water. We supplemented and helped distribute the essentials and provided assistance to the administration in the movement of migrant workers back home. When the administration fell short we took legal assistance to raise questions with the State Administration and Disaster Management Authorities to influence policy changes in dealing with the situation humanely. Our work with this community is ongoing and we are providing the necessary support to people who chose to stay back.

This project is being managed by my social enterprise, Beyond Borders Learning Programs (I) Pvt Ltd which is setup as a private limited company. Beyond Borders has provided access to communities, startup capital, incubation, sales support and human resources to support the initial days of this project. 

Bringing women living in marginalised circumstances out of poverty and gender inequitable circumstances require the participation of other members of their own community. The Innovation of my project lies in 3 things. Approach, Impact and Future Readiness. The Approach is collaborative and participative towards solving an existing problem. Women access new ways of supplementing their income without compromising their current responsibilities by collaborating with young leaders from the same community. This allows their communities to become more inclusive and supportive in their development. The Impact is in creating equity and reducing the gender gap for women where communities start respecting and  supporting otherwise perceived mundane tasks, performed by women traditionally in their communities. Women are able to gain equitable status by generating supplementary income and help their families come out of poverty. There are health and education outcomes where the woman keeps themselves and their families healthy, invest in children's education and be able to save, invest in insurance and even debt instruments for enterprise. The potential to empower young people in these communities to work with others gives them leadership, helps them get inspired to continue their education and help them connect with their own traditions, customs and values. The project is Future Ready as in a post Covid world, technology like augmented reality, virtual reality and projection TVs will try to provide people with more realistic experiences remotely without the need to physically travel. The project will invest in this as an early mover.   

Beyond Borders Experiences (BBE) will aggregate unique experiences offered by women from marginalised communities in collaboration with youth agents from the same community. Our hosts could be illiterate or with no access to technology, single parents or sole breadwinners. The youth agents work with the host in designing/developing a program and communicating/translating with the customers who are business and leisure travelers from developed economies, people around the world interested in unique online experiences as well as research and education institutions. BBE will manage the curation, health & safety and moderation of experiences, the branding, promotion, marketing, technology and logistics & the training & development of the community agents to ensure sustainability and get ⅓ the fee.

Women and youth agents will get the rest of the fee, at least INR 5000 additional income every month for themselves, without compromising their current responsibilities. This allows their communities to become more inclusive and supportive of women, creating equity and reducing the gender gap for women. Communities start respecting and supporting otherwise perceived mundane tasks, performed by women traditionally. Women are able to help their families come out of poverty as well as provide positive health and education outcomes for their family. The potential to empower young people in these communities to work with others gives them leadership, helps them get inspired to continue their education and help them connect with their own traditions, customs and values. As per the UN SDGs, empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work will achieve gender equality and promote full and productive employment and decent work for all (SDGs 5, 8). Generating livelihood also helps in ending poverty, providing food security, ensuring health and reducing inequalities (SDGs 1, 2, 3, 10). Women’s economic empowerment boosts productivity, increases economic diversification and income equality in addition to other positive development outcomes (IMF, Pursuing Women's Economic Empowerment, Policy paper, May 2018). Thus the BBE project will empower women around the world to meet many development outcomes and goals.

Currently it serves 50 women as hosts and agents in slums of 3 cities of India, Mumbai, Pune and Goa. The project will become sustainable and scalable with access to technology and online marketing. With funding and access to better technology to take these programs to an online audience, this year, it will reach 200 women and in the next five years reach 25000 women in 5 countries. The growth potential has been severely impacted by Covid-19, difficulty of mobility and lockdowns. Although we have reduced the target number of beneficiaries we would like to reach, we have not changed the number of countries we would like to be in. 3 countries in Asia, 1 each in Africa and South America will make the brand recognised enough in the global south for more women to find us and create experiences for us to host. The online module will have lots of takers for people who are unable to travel. We would like to learn and adapt our interventions and experiences to suit the needs of women in marginalised circumstances and provide them with a more diverse platform. The project is also future ready. As augmented reality equipment and 3 dimensional projection TVs become a household feature in developed countries online real experiences will be more and more coveted by people and will be used not only for travel but for education and research too. 

Our Impact Goal is to reach out to 25000 women in marginalised communities in 5 countries in the global south. We expect that once the aggregator working model is adopted by communities, more people would like to join directly on our aggregator platform. Beyond Borders Experiences will create an online app and web based platform for marginalised women and youth from around the world to create curated community experiences and for others to access these experiences both physically and online. This will allow exponential growth in other developing countries with more youth agents and women signing up to become hosts for experiences. While Covid-19 has kept the world under lockdowns, we will be working on using appropriate technology to make people from around the world experience the unique interventions seamlessly. Once that is accomplished we will run some of these locally sourced experiences online for free to understand user experience and make them better. We will test with online audiences with other outcomes not just entertainment and travel, but also for education, research or enterprise. With funding, we will then market them both to the women in communities as well as to online and physical customers around the world.

Financial: My Social Enterprise, Beyond Borders, whose sustainability was dependent on university students from developed countries traveling to developing countries for academic and internship programs got severely impacted by Covid-19 and lost all it's revenue for the whole year, pushing it to insolvency. Without funding it would be impossible for Beyond Borders Experiences to grow. Although a website for Beyond Borders Experiences is being developed (it was funded before Covid-19) and will be ready by end of August, we will not be able to invest in the additional technology, equipment and cameras required by the communities to host high quality online experiences. Without that we will not be able to gain market share from other platforms offering online experiences like Air B&B and Masterclass.

Market: Covid-19 has imposed travel restrictions that will not ease and return to normal in 2020. This is both an opportunity and a threat. Beyond Borders Experiences can create high quality online experiences. If these match the needs of the audiences world wide then our communities will be able to create more experiences which will have more customers. There will be no revenue generated through physical travel though. Very few people will access community experiences locally.   

Technical: High quality internet to stream videos are needed, however, our slum communities do not have that. Social capital is required to be invested to allow good quality internet with high bandwidth to be made available to communities where more women would like to join and curate experiences. 

Financial: My Social Enterprise, Beyond Borders will bounce back to being a profitable company the moment global travel restrictions are lifted, as there are confirmed university programs that are waiting for us to run. Revenue will allow us to invest in getting high-speed internet into some of our slum communities in Mumbai, Pune and Goa. Traveling students will also become customers for some of these experiences in India and Nepal, giving women and agents revenue and valuable feedback to make these experiences more exciting. We will be applying for social capital through grants, crowdfunding and challenges like the Elevator's Prize to invest in technology. 

Market: In a post Covid world, people will still avoid traveling and there will be a rise in technology that will support live events like meetings, classes and experiences. This will allow us to run curated, even customised interventions online for a much wider audience than just travelers. The size of the market for online experiences will rise manifold and thus our unique and diverse experiences will have a higher demand and a larger marketshare. We will be approaching schools and universities to curate custom experiences for them.

Technical: We will be approaching companies that are testing products for augmenting reality and online video streaming to invest in equipment, technology and internet for our communities to create and host these experiences.

We partner with over 50 social organisations in India, Nepal and Bangladesh who are working with marginalised women in different kinds of communities. Kiran Niketan School and Social Center, a trust in the heart of Goa's largest slum called Zuarinagar, have been our partner for 5 years. We have worked on many projects with them for health and livelihood outcomes for the women there. During Covid-19 lockdowns, we provided relief material to thousands of families in Zuarinagar who are daily wage earners and were left with no income. In Mumbai, India, our partners, Hindustan Microfinance and Sneha with whose beneficiaries we have done many projects both give us access to slum communities and women beneficiaries. In Pune, India we partner with NGOs like Sadhana and BYST who work with marginalised communities. Both organisations are happy to support our endeavours.

In Nepal, we partner with organisations like Jagruk Mahila Vikas Sansthan, an NGO which works with marginalised women in recycling solid waste into products and wet waste into organic manure. We also partner with Sabah, another NGO which works with rural community marginalised women in providing them with a variety of livelihood opportunities. We offer pro-bono advisory services to both organisations and have known them for 2 years now.

In Bangladesh, we have a new relationship with Fulki, an NGO that provides creche services to marginalised women working in the garment industry. We also have relationships with Microfinance companies there who provide us access to marginalised women beneficiaries.

Beyond Borders Experiences (BBE) curates and aggregates unique, as-real-as-it-gets experiences hosted by women from marginalised communities by collaborating with youth agents from the same communities. These experiences can even be offered online, using hi-tech equipment and hi-speed internet. The revenue is shared in a 1/3,1/3, 1/3 model where the host, the agent and BBE everyone gets an equal share. BBE trains the youth agents in managing technology, equipments, health & safety and curation of high quality experiences from their communities. BBE also provides the physical infrastructure necessary to run these experiences like high speed internet connections and apps and web interfaces to market, sell & service them globally. Without BBE's intervention and investment neither the host woman nor the youth agent would have been able to host experiences for a global audience.

Women from marginalised communities find it very hard to gain supplementary income as they are traditionally expected to look after the household and their families, leaving them with no access to jobs and livelihood opportunities. Curating experiences within their homes or communities allows them to earn extra money without compromising their current duties and responsibilities. Every woman and youth agent can earn a minimum of INR 5000 additional income every month by giving only 2-3 hours of their time each week. This gives them financial freedom, reduces the gender gap and promotes better health and education outcomes for their family. Generating livelihood also helps in ending poverty and providing food security. 

Capital needed for both the development of the technology required to create high quality real time online content and apps and web-based platforms to market Beyond Borders Experiences, will be raised through grants and crowdfunding. All operations expenses will be covered by the share of the revenue generated through the sales of curated experiences. We will also apply for Corporate Social Responsibility funding for equipment and technology required by women hosts and youth agents from the marginalised communities as it will provide companies an opportunity to do Impact investments. Financial sustainability will be achieved in 2.5 years as the number of women from communities around the world offering experiences increase to 5000. 

Beyond Borders Learning Programs (I) Pvt Ltd, my social enterprise, has provided resources, incubation and support to the tune of USD 10000 in the form of a grant over a period of 14 months, until February 2020. Initial revenue of only 600 USD has been collected from the experiences that have been run in the communities as pilots for the program. 

We need 70000 USD over a period of 2 years to bring the project to sustainability. We need 10000 USD to develop the app and website in India, 20000 USD for technology and equipment for real-time experience streaming, 15000 USD for key resource costs (equipment handlers and tech managers) and 25000 USD for marketing campaigns. 10000 USD is required immediately while 35000 USD is required by the beginning of 2021 and 25000 USD for marketing required by March 2021. This can be accepted as a mix of grant, debt and equity participation in Beyond Borders Experiences. Since the project has not been registered as a separate company yet, we are flexible about funding and equity participation.

Estimated expense for 2020 is 30000 USD in resource costs, technology costs, training costs and material hire costs.

Incubation is required to help this project and model reach out to more marginalised women across the globe. Post covid conditions of no revenue for my company does not allow me to financially cover the costs of expanding Beyond Borders Experiences online. 

Funding support is required for the first 2 years to reach the critical mass of 5000 women and agents providing experiences from their communities, both physically and online.

Key Talent acquisition is required for people who will create and manage the online real time high quality content required to make online experiences more desirable.

Mentorship and coaching is required of Senior Managers of Beyond Borders Experiences in Social Business Management, Global expansion and Revenue generation. As Beyond Borders Experience establishes itself as a global brand accessible by women from developing economies marketing support will be required from people who understand the nuances of global marketing, branding and PR. 

People who represent Social Enterprises, Innovators, Technology and Women's Empowerment from different continents will need to be on the board of BBE to provide the desired leadership and guidance to BBE to successfully operate and grow sustainably in different countries.

4experience, a virtual and augmented reality development company based out of Poland.

Visartech INC provides digital experiences in custom 3-D solutions, based out Dover, Dalaware

Quytech based out of India, Augmented reality and Virtual Reality Game Development Company 

All the above companies can help create the technology required for high quality real time online experience creation with virtual reality and augmented reality. 

Prime Focus based out of Mumbai, India a leader in digital post production to help us with online content creation and with production equipment required in the communities to create high quality video content.  

Air B&B to help us launch our experiences on a global platform and reach out to a global audience for the first year until we establish our own brand.