PROSOC Innovators Pvt. Ltd.

FOCUS PRODUCT: DESKIT- A SCHOOL BAG CONVERTIBLE INTO A STUDY TABLE 

DESKIT is a unique combination of a lightweight school bag and an ergonomic, fold-able, portable, and detachable table.

PROBLEM STATEMENT & DESKIT AS A SOLUTION

We have specially designed DESKIT for underserved students who do not have basic infrastructure facilities like tables at school and at home. Hence, these children sit on the floor to study with a hunched back while reading or writing.

Sitting for long hours in a hunched-back position develops back and neck pain among students at an early age. It also strains their eyes. This particular sitting posture also affects their concentration in class besides  resulting in poor handwriting because of the lack of a leveled support for writing.

It is easy for the students to carry DESKITs to school and also use them at home. The table is detachable and also can be used separately from the bag. It can also be adjusted at two heights.

It is presently being used by more than 4,00,000+ students across 19 states of India. 

This DESKIT Video + introduction PPT will give you an overall idea about DESKIT and its impact.

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TARGET BENEFICIARY

In India, there are 20 Crore students in the age group of 6-14

1. Total Rural Households in India is 13.8 Crore and Average children= 1.8 per household

2. 13.25% of India’s rural households have only kachcha rooms

3. Total Number of students with no access to proper infrastructural facilities at school: 13.8Crore*13.25%*1.8 =3.3 Crore students

4. More details can be found in the Journal Article: Sustainable product development through innovation for social impact

   
   

   Target groups:
   

• Students studying in government and low-income private schools that lack basic educational infrastructure facilities like tables.

• Students who come from underserved communities where they might have infrastructure at school but do not have it at home for their homework.  

• Students who attend after-school evening classes run by nonprofits. These are mostly makeshift classrooms in small spaces where infrastructure is missing.

• Students of schools where infrastructure is destroyed or badly damaged during natural calamities like floods and earthquakes. Often in such situations, makeshift classrooms are arranged that lack basic infrastructure including tables.

In 2015-2016, while DESKIT was in the conceptualization and product development stage, our team had built more than 40 different prototypes before arriving at a final market ready version. Each new prototype was shown to students, teachers and parents from the intended user community. 

The feedback obtained from them helped in making relevant iterations to the product. Initial growth phase during the pilot project stage in the year 2016 is documented in this video link.

Activities: 

1. Design and Develop Innovative products of social importance.
2. DESKIT: School Bag Convertible into Study Table is our first successfully commercialized social innovation. Our present focus for the next 3-5 years is primarily to scale up DESKIT and take PROSOC from Growth Stage to Scale Up Stage.
3. Identify Student Beneficiaries across India and other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
4. Look out for funding organizations, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives, Philanthropists, Foundations, Disruptive Business Models in B2C, B2B and B2G segments to fund DESKIT so that more number of children can benefit from this innovation.
5. Create employment opportunities to people from marginalized communities and up-skill them by providing necessary training to manufacture DESKITs. 
6. PROSOC intends to work on a for-profit business model to enable team building and to facilitate capacity building so that the revenue generated can in-turn fuel design and development of many more innovations of social importance.

Outputs:

1. DESKIT enables better learning environment for underserved children.
2. DESKIT helps avoid health issues among children. 
3. DESKIT also offers regular employment opportunities for people from low-income groups by creating supply chain and manufacturing set-ups for DESKIT production.

Short Term Outcomes: 

1. DESKIT enables children to create their own comfortable learning environment both at school and home.
2. Children' handwriting, concentration and overall learning experience improves with the support of DESKIT.
3. DESKIT helps children avoid health issues like back pain and poor eyesight at an early age.

Long Term Outcomes:

1. DESKIT will contribute towards reducing school drop out rates and better educated youth in the long run.  
2. DESKIT helps develop sense of belongingness and ownership among children which helps them respect learning/ education.
3. PROSOC Innovators team shall utilize the revenue generated over the long run to innovate more products of social importance, thereby creating many more jobs and serving many more people in the bottom of the pyramid.

PROSOC is now putting conscious efforts to track the change being created through DESKIT. Impact analysis activities are being undertaken with the help of external independent credible agencies to help us effectively measure and document the positive social change being created through DESKIT.

At present we are at the Level 3 as per the NESTA's Standards of Evidence. We aim to reach Level 4 within the next 9~12 months with conscious collaborations with external independent consultants and agencies and also simultaneously have capacity building exercises within the internal team to enable better monitoring and evaluation practices.

1. Feedback from Children, teachers, parents.
2. Feedback from other stakeholders like CSR companies and NGO implementation partners.
3. Survey questionnaires are used for collecting quantitative data.
4. Improvement in hand writing, improvement in attendance levels in schools, improvement in levels of concentration and learning ability among students are being assessed with the individual and diligent observations of teachers.
5. Help from parents is sought to collect similar data for measuring positive change being created at homes.

DESKIT is a school bag convertible into a study table specially designed for improving learning outcomes of children of age 5-14 years by providing access to basic study infrastructural facilities in both school as well as home! 

We seek support from LEAP Fellows on 3 major aspects:

1. Product Improvisation: DESKIT needs to be made eco-friendly. Weight of DESKIT can still be reduced further to enable ease of carrying by young children. We seek support from the LEAP fellows to help us in making necessary iterations! It shall be really great if we can have a fellow(s) with material science and product innovation background being assigned to our project! If the fellow needs prototyping and testing facilities, it can be provided by leveraging our network to the best of our abilities!

2. International Expansion: We are looking for inputs from experienced fellows to help us chalk out an international go-to-market strategy. Better ways and approaches of fundraising to enable penetration of DESKIT to the remotest and poorest pockets of the world shall help us attain our goal of taking DESKIT to more than 100 million students! We look forward to suggestions and clear action-points with milestones and deliverables being outlined in a strategy to go International and make DESKIT a household name across the globe!

3. Better Manufacturing and Scale Up Strategy: International expansion plan comes up with an inherent challenge of scaling up the manufacturing capabilities to meet the increasing demand! Also logistics shall be a very crucial aspect to be considered given the fact that delivery to the remotest pockets needs special efforts! We seek support in developing robust manufacturing, supply chain and logistics collaboration strategies to achieve the scaling up dream in a hassle free manner!