A talk was organized by KSRM on Agri- Value Chain on 26th August 2022. The speaker for the talk was Ms. Pragati Gokhale,Founder and Chief Mentor, Mission Mera Mobile Mera Marketing. She has more than 4 decades of rich experience in multiple disciplines like statistics, ICT, e-governance, ERP, entrepreneurship development, digital marketing, rural development and data sciences. She retired as Deputy Director from Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Rural Industrialization, Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises. She is now working as advisor Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission (Govt. of Maharashtra) and Department of Science and Technology SEED Program (Govt. of India). She is also empaneled as a national resource person by Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India.
Ms. Pragati Gokhale shared about Mission Mera Mobile Mera marketing which is an initiative to digitally empower rural India by creating an online space for Indian farmers to sell products online free of cost. The idea started grooming when she was working with Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Industrialization from the struggles of the farmers and the inaccessibility of the market in big cities. She started this mission as her way of giving back to the society. Ms. Gokhale enlightened the audiences about the journey of the mission and how it has changed the life of many buyers and sellers of agriculture across the country. She explained about the disruptive bottom-up approach for enabling digital agro or rural marketing from rural stakeholders through their own mobiles. Ms. Gokhale also shared about her experience of working hand in hand with apex organizations and institutions like NABARD, KVKs and IITs. She mentioned about the active ranking system that helps in identifying the potential traders. The ease of posting the ads and connecting customers was shown by a video made by the CTARA, IIT.
