 Hello everyone, I am Habya's case. We are an agritech startup representing entrepreneurship development in the street of India, Angabar. We have developed a portable battery operated and Android architecture device for harvesting coffee. This device helps in selective harvesting of ripened fruits from the unevenly ripened plants. This coffee harvester has been indigenously designed making it suitable for operations in both Arabica and Robusta variety. In India, coffee is harvested 100% manually and this is when farmers started expressing their problem of shortage of labour and the pain they used to get in their brist after harvesting coffee. Because of this product, coffee estate owners can save around 40% of their time also fetch higher price for their produce because of selectively harvesting their ripened fruits. The product that you are seeing in the video is the prototype of the first indigenously developed coffee harvester. It also helps women labourers from the wrist pain problems that they are facing currently. We would like to thank the DII Amdabad, AICT, all the ministries and a special government of India for recognising us and supporting us in solving one of the most pressing problems of Indian coffee growers. India is among top 10 leading coffee production countries and is known for its best quality in the international market. Coffee is grown in slopey and hilly regions of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and some parts of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa where heavy machineries for harvesting cannot be used. To address this issue, a coffee harvesting hand operated tool, Koffer was developed by the Haves case and Nitin Singh. This is an indigenously designed tool to function in both Indian variety and Indian condition. So to talk more about it, in today's edition of Chainmaker, we have with us Haves and Nitin Singh. Welcome Haves and Nitin. Thank you sir. Karnataka is the largest producer accounting for about 70% of the total coffee production in India. What inspired you to work for the coffee harvester Haves? What was the driving force to create such an innovation? So basically sir, all this happened during lockdown. I come from a place called Kool or Podogo in Karnataka. So during lockdown, I and Nitin we were posting our MBA in EDI Amdabad and suddenly we had to come back to our native. So when I came back here, we had to stay in a constant place. So that's where we started going to our relatives home and participating in their farming activities. So all my family relatives are from farming background. Basically every 90% of them grow coffee only. So during that was the period of coffee harvesting also. So we started involving their activities in all the day-to-day activities and when the coffee harvesting was taking place, we started participating in that. What happened in that time was there was severe labour shortage. So most of the labour in Karnataka, they come from Northeast region actually. And during lockdown, everyone migrated back to their native. They were huge labour shortage. And otherwise also there was a huge labour shortage and labour shortage was expensive. So farmers were not able to pay the cost of labour. So these are the major problems they used to face. Apart from that, most of the labourers who work in the farm are women labourers. So they have to participate in coffee harvesting activity regularly. So when they do that, this is a short harvest in span actually. So in a year, coffee will be harvested from November to January. In that three months time span, you have to harvest company in all the coffee. So it continues. Every day they have to work and this labour has to work in the non-stop for three months. So when they used to harvest regularly, they used to get this wrist pencil because non-stop they are working in field. So all this problem we got to know when we were involved in their farming activities. Then we realized everything is now mechanized in our country. You go for any other industry. But why not farming? Why is the farming still lying backward in terms of technology adoption or technology dissemination? So we thought, okay, here Nitin is basically a mechanical background and I come from agriculture background. So I had no technical skills. So I approached Nitin. Nitin, I have come across such problem which is in my native. Can you please help me with your knowledge of skills from mechanical so that we can build some solution to help Indian farmers? He readily accepted. He was very happy when I initially told him this is the case. We both started working on this. We take you to all the research and saw the journey to that itself. Great. It's very important to work for the Indian farmers. So Nitin, what is the problem that you are trying to solve or address through your innovation? And how is your innovation different or unique from the others? So on the extension what Havya said just now, the problem of coffee harvesting is very unique in India. So if you compare it with other major producers in the world, so one is Brazil, one there is Columbia. So they have huge, huge coffee estate but their land permission is very plain up. So they can use big machines to harvest coffee at once, even for 100 acres to 200 acres. But the problem in India comes in when these coffee estates are in elite terrains. So in that terrain we can't use those big machines to harvest coffee at once. Apart from this, even if there are small tools were available which were manufactured in China and Taiwan other countries. So these actually have a tendency to damage plants as well. So the leaves de-fullage was very high. So we had to understand the challenge exactly in that the challenge was very unique. In terms of that we had to have, we had to take consideration of women labourers as well. The labour shortage was directly linked to those labourers being women labourers and women facing shoulder pains. So that meant that this activity is very tedious. So how to solve this activity? Can we bring on the time? Can we bring on the labour involvement in this activity? So that is how we decided we should go for a hand-in device. A hand-operated device which can increase the efficiency of these labourers and bring down the time and cost of the coffee-arresting activity. So that is how we tried to innovate in this particular technology. Havas, can you please demonstrate the product for the viewers to make it understand better? Absolutely sir. So this is the software device that we have developed. So what you can see in the bottom is the battery and it is actually movable. So this is the main device where somehow we will be recording it this way here and you keep it in the plans. So when covered, this will start vibrating. So that vibration when it transforms from the device to the plan so all the ripened fruits at certain stages will fall down and the unripened fruit will be laid to the plan simply so that we can do selective harvesting. So how does this work? What we have done is basically we have used modern technology like re-printing and all those things to make the device much very much user friendly and all the farm rated agronomics has been considered. So this is the body and we have a head part here. So in head we have a mechanism where this will convert the movement the motor movement into a vibration. So that is what we have done in this and the battery is actually connected to the base. Right now this is working. So if this principle works you go and put it in a field the main principle has been working properly. But the problem what we have realized after doing this is this machine is heavy. Farmers are harvesting the crop from morning 8am till 4.30 to 5.30pm in the evening. So they are allowed to work using this device at least 8 to 9 hours a day. Holding such heavy device is a difficult task again. So right now the feedback what we have received is to make the device much more lighter. We are working on it. So this is a very big challenge where we have to convert the traditional phones into a smartphone kind. So a lot of innovation has to go in and set this. We are trying to figure out all the latest technologies or modern innovations that can help us build our innovation. So this south the things are built right now. So how this works is a powering system. So once you power and connect the main device to this you also have a frequency controller. It is frequency controller. So you can adjust the RPM. So according to the RPM requirement of the plant you can harvest the ripened fruits, semi ripened fruits. If you want to harvest all the fruits you just pick up ripened and ripened you can also do that. So basically you are working with farmers and you know that especially with the coffee harvesters so what was their first reaction when you started working with them and how they are acknowledging importance of your innovation right now. So before starting this work what we initially did is we went and interviewed around 60 farmers to ask like how their activity takes place. What are the major problems? How do you like to solve it? So basically we solved this problem that they pay for that solution so that this business also becomes sustainable. So all this kind of research we did and when we actually told them this is the kind of innovation that we want to do they themselves gave us how the product should be. So basically as we told it coffee is grown in hilly and slopey terrains. So they told taking cactus a big machine is not possible over there. So there are machines in other countries where big cactus will move within the coffee plants. So we got to know that is not an option for Indian coffee region. Second they told they wanted some electric machine because there is no like coffee is grown in between shade trees. Shade trees means there are forest trees and in between coffee plants are planted in Indian condition in the Indian traditional region. But if you compare the foreign countries there is grown in open field there won't be any trees in between. So it is easy to go and operate any kind of machine but here they wanted electric hand operated machine so that they easily take the machine and if so that the machine is lighter and they can operate it easily in the coffee estate. So these are the kind of feedback they gave us. And taking their feature requirement we worked on the principles. So in what principles are foreign country machines the big tractors the big devices are working on. We just took the principle but we brought it in a small device. So I will just show you the device. So this is the kind of device that we have built right now. So this works on a vibrator principle. So if we switch it on it will start vibrating. When this wipe is this will transfer the frequency so that it will split the writer post down so that the writer post can be collected and put in the basket. Great. So ensuring quality is also very important. So how do you ensure that your product meets quality standards and how cost effective it is for the farmers? So in terms of quality our main challenge first was to make a device which even if we are making a handled device it should not again lead to the same problem of shoulder pains. So right now we have a challenge we are facing is we have designed the machine. But after two or three alterations we are still facing a little bit of problem where it is still a little heavier. So we need to have some kind of innovation or design changing battery. So standard comes in second but we also have to ensure first that laborers who are using it first have to get accustomed to it and the problem which we are trying to solve should not exist after that. So based on that we are still in the design improvement of the design. Then once that design is done we will be having standards going on. So electrical standard we will have batteries for BI standard batteries. Now they are all standard operating standards which we have to take for an electrical device for agricultural machine and device which we will be going in for that. So in terms of that we are taking constant feedback from the customers and the users so of the estate owners and the laborers as well to meet their standards as well as the standards of the market. And apart from that if you come to the cost effectiveness of it so right now we as far as the cost of goods sold of the entire production of one machine is concerned we are taking it as a charge of around 6000 to 7000 rupees. So we will be deciding on what kind of orders we will be getting once it is ready to go into the market and then based on that we will be deciding the price of one particular machine. Thank you. Thank you so much Nitin and ensuring standards not only in terms of quality but also we have to ensure that it's a cost effective for the users. So how is you are the proud winner of National Innovation Contest. Please share your experience and how the participation in this contest helped you to work on your dream project. So as I told you sir I told you when we started working on this project so this was doing law firm and this NIC was announced during the same time. So we were sitting in home we identified there is a problem we both discussed and we have decided there is a solution so we ordered to take it forward. So we started applying for all the funding agencies and luckily we got selected in National Innovation Competition. So this was like a hope for us like initially we both are both students so we haven't we have not done any job and we don't come from any business background both of our family are from service background we are first generation entrepreneurs. So financially we couldn't depend on anyone else we have to do something on ourselves. So initially we started with our own little savings whatever we had but in the same time we also got the result result from NIC you have been selected for funding which gave us hope okay let's give more time for this particular project working with complete interest. So that's where how we started so that was a real boost for the innovation that we had thought of. Then the journey started so we started doing our initial design we did multiple prototypes we tested it we started working on different innovations like the trending innovations for example that device what we have developed is actually 3D printed. So we thought of thinking what are the different modern technologies that we can use to fasten the innovation that we are building on. So these are the kind of work we started and all this could be possible because of the funding and other maintenance support that we received from AACTC and IC competitions. Great. Nitin being an entrepreneur you have to trade a very challenging path especially at initial level. So can you tell me the challenges in this journey and how you overcome those? So challenges for us as entrepreneurs were really unique in the sense we were already under lockdown. So we didn't have the luxury to know travel across and go and ask people. So he was here in Kuru. I was in Ahmedabad. So our discussion was entirely virtual and it was very difficult for me to understand okay what exactly is of your harvesting what exactly what are the pinpoints. But in terms of technology I was trying to understand what exactly is the need there. And apart from that very basic problem comes in when you have to understand what kind of funds you will be needing what is the kind of mentoring support you will be needing to know achieve your innovation to take your idea from towards the product stage. So those are the kind of challenges we were facing initially and which were somewhat solved by the support of NIC and AICT once we got the funding. Great. So in your entrepreneurial journey Nithin what was the biggest movement of satisfaction or recognition? So satisfaction and recognition in entrepreneurial journey comes in once you okay once someone says that okay this is the product which Nithin has designed this is the product which Avias has brought to the market. So that is where our recognition that is where our satisfaction comes in. Monetary is something that there is there obviously we want we want to have a monetary recognition as well. But once there is some competition or there is some bigger person taking your name and appreciating you for what kind of innovation and what kind of idea you have brought to a product stage that is where our satisfaction lies. Great. And it's a very important thing that whatever you are doing you need to be very you always should feel a sense of satisfaction. Okay. So my next question is MIC and AICT is not only acknowledging your innovation but also supporting you with the incubation linkage and funding support. Are you receiving support from the mentors or any other sources as well especially in terms of financial or anything? Avias. So basically when we started sir like yeah like we had to take a lot of you know advice and technical guidance to start with. So one of our mentors from India that is Dr. Satyan Rajanacharya. So he gave us initial business kind of mentorship like how the product should be how we can actually convert this innovation into a business. So he has directed initially and for the technical point of view how the mission works how to convert this principle how what are the behavior of the plans. And as I told you we wanted to develop a device which is better than the existing players in the market. So there were some companies like similar to handle a device only there are couple of Chinese device not in India but they are using foreign countries. We could have imported it and give it to farmers but they had a problem. So they used to de-fall it the leaves. The leaves used to fall down and they should take the stems. So what happens this season will harass the coffee but the next year's productivity will go down because of leave team or de-fallation and stem breakage. So we need to keep that in mind. So at us all these things we wanted some technical person from other culture university in India. So since I was I am alumni from GKWC Bangal. So I started up I approaching one of the professor there called Dr. Jayashree. She is a professor in mechanical farm mechanization actually. So she is the professor in farm mechanization department. So we started taking her mentorship. So she helped us initially on all the technical aspect. So taking all the support from as well as from M.I.C. We used to have interaction with the entire team. So they used to mentor us and also give us guidance on how to take this project ahead. Whenever we had the financial requirement we used to ask them. Finally EDI has also released money. So because of all these things it has helped us take this innovation to the stage. Great. I am glad to know that you are getting support from the institution and also from the mentors. So being young and you know so many young and aspiring entrepreneurs are watching this episode. Any advice to these budding entrepreneurs who are considering to start their own ventures. Start their own startup. So one kind of advice that I have felt and I also talked to multiple people who have asked me this. It's very important to have a product market fit. There are several ideas which you will get. You know with innovative ideas, several ideas which you will feel that market needs right now. But there are times when market is not ready or even you are not ready with your product. So there needs to be a product market fit. And also we have to be financially backed up. Like it's not like you should be rich but you should have a sound idea of what kind of finance I need and what I can arrange to start off with. Then proceed with your idea. Rather than banking on someone to know I will get money from there, I will get money from there and I will start. You will have to have some initial assurance to start off. Then show off what your idea has to do with the market right now and then proceed with it. It's a very valuable suggestion. Thank you. Thank you so much Nitin for sharing. So what is your next plan? How you are seeing your future for this business. Especially in terms of your startup and especially for your project. So basically sir when we started working on this, we gave some proposal to NIC. We thought okay if we get this funding, this product will be ready. We will put it in the market and everything is fine. But as we started working, this alone will not solve the problem that we are actually working on. We have to click after building what we have got so many feedback. Because once they saw the device, they started giving more feedback than what we got before they saw the device. Taking those innovation and putting them into this device and making this fine-tuning this device is a big challenge. And two of us can't do that. So we need a bigger team and we also need more technical support. So all these things we have realized now. Now since we started this, okay this is a good start. So even though if we compete this, this will be like a prototype for another 2 or 3 projects that we will be building. Because putting it in a field and making it work seamlessly, it means improvisation. That improvisation will happen over a period of time. So right now which is to like whatever is possible to build will be building right now and giving it to farmers for their feedback and usage and to understand what are the things that can be modified. And we have a plan to improvise it. Again one of the challenges we have is that it can be done only once a year. Because coffee harvest season comes once a year. So from November to January whatever testing we have to do, we have to do in that period. In the rest of the period it's only the back and innovation that we can work on. So we have to test it for 2 more years and improvise it. And we want to make it such a product. So it won't be used, not just in India. But it has, we have a vision to export it to other countries where they are growing coffee as well. And there are many other countries who are growing coffee in similar conditions to India. Like which is grown in the Indian slope it arrives. So we have a market apart from India as well. So we are targeting to build a product so that it is universally accepted. So these are the vision right now and the way forward that we are thinking of. Yes and thank you. Thank you so much Haviyas Nitin for joining us and sharing your journey. We wish you all the best and hope your story will inspire many others. Again thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It was a pleasure being with you sir. Thank you. Thank you Nitin. Thank you. Innovators like Haviyas Nitin are changing the trends of our country. And are solving long persisting problems. We often come across a lot of daily issues. But not many of us think of an innovative solution for it unlike them. We need young people like these to take our country to great heights. So keep innovating to make the world a better place. On that note I would like to end today's edition of Changemakers. Keep watching. Namaskar Jai Hind.