Revolutionalizing India's Agriculture

A PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Nero, an IoT-based agricultural device is revolutionalizing India's Agriculture. It is a product development project that is helping farmers with much greater and better yields. It is equipped with advanced sensors, predictive analytics, and robust monitoring capabilities to increase the efficiency of farming operations. The device is designed to be user-friendly and cost-effective, helping farmers to make the most out of their land and resources. With the Nero, farmers can easily monitor their fields, increase their profitability and manage their crops with the assurance of greater yields.

Problem Identification:

Our team conducted extensive research and found that disease prediction is a major challenge for farmers, resulting in significant loss of crop yield. However, during our time on the farms, we discovered that the lack of knowledge and data on irrigation and fertigation was the major issue. This hinders farmers' ability to make timely decisions on irrigation and fertigation, leading to water wastage and inconsistency in crop yield. Our goal was to solve these problems, improve crop yield, and save water at a viable cost.

Challenges:

The lack of data and expertise on irrigation and fertigation among Indian farmers results in 30% less produce at 35% extra resource usage.
Our solution needed to be scalable and easy to use for the next billion users.
We needed to design a product that has a constant power source, reduces the visibility of exposed wires, is made of rust-free material, and requires expertise in the installation of sensors placed at different soil levels underground.

Solution:

Our solution involved providing irrigation and fertigation alerts to farmers' phones based on their farm data, such as crop, crop variety, crop stage, and soil, using an IoT device to capture real-time farm data.

We designed a user-centric product that required minimal expertise for installation, with a simple and clean app UI for farmers to understand the data and take actions for their farms without any guidance required.

DESIGN PROCESS

01.

Problem
Identification

Requirement of an executive for the installation process
The complicated process of installing the sensors made it an exhausting process on the fields
Requirement of many tools along with the device to install
Difficulty in understanding the mechanism the user due to the technology gap

02.

User
Research

Created a Wati WhatsApp integrated conversation flow for the users and pushed for qualitative and quantitative results
One-on-one user interactions via phone calls and meetings to know about the actual problems faced by users (farmers)

03.

Market
Research

04.

Concept

Existing agricultural products in the market
Existing innovations related
Existing Partners
Competitor Ananlysis

To create a solution for the farmers using IoT that is self-installable, affordable, and easy to understand without any external support.

05.

Ideation

Sketched rough ideas, brainstormed on multiple forms.

06.

3D Form Generations

Tried the best 3-4 concepts to understand the form better in 3D using Rhino 3D software.

07.

Prototypes

08.

Packaging/
User Guide

Tested the physical functionality, stability in different types of soils and working of concepts by developing protos.

Also checked pressure points and other stress areas.

09.

Branding

As it is a self-installable device a user guide manual for step-by-step instructions for installation was made. It includes information about the replacement of the components by oneself along with the safety measures required.

10.

Manufacturing

A new product has to have a strong visual impact on the users to gaain attention. The motive was inclined toward premium packaging and comfortable unboxing. Hence the colour scheme and the font types were to be simple.

Promotion

11.

Coordinating with all the vendors on the technical amends, timelines, samples, and delivery dates for production, packaging and printing.

12.

Marketing/ Reach

Making creatives for campaigns online as well as offline. Print media graphics focused on the new product launch and its new features for circulation throughout the regions of the country

Other details:

Our product is a premium solution in terms of aesthetics and experience, breaking the stereotype of regular agricultural devices/equipment.

It is a self-installable device that is ergonomically designed for the masses

With a step-by-step manual to guide users through the installation process.

It allows easy replacement of sensors and components

Offers 24x7 customer service

is battery-powered

It is a patented design by the Government of India.

Was Presented to the Hon. Prime Minister of India in Delhi

Making the customers aware of the new products through offer schemes on paper and largely through word of mouth by our representatives in all farms widespread