About LifeLines

LifeLines, a technology-based helpline service, is helping initiate a small revolution-of-sorts in the lives of rural communities in India by enabling them with access to critical knowledge and livelihood information just on the dial of a phone.

An initiative of the OneWorld International Foundation, in collaboration with British Telecom and Cisco, the Lifelines service, was introduced as a digital – inclusion initiative to help developing-world communities bridge the digital divide and better their livelihood and income opportunities.

The service is based on the premise of leveraging ICTs – a mix of internet and telephone technologies - to enable the provision of essential information, advice and guidance to remote and rural communities in India through the medium of “voice” and “in the local language.”

Partnerships:

The programme was conceptualized in association between British Telecom and OneWorld International Foundation (OWIF) as an initiative for digital inclusion that would harness the benefits of technology to affect a difference to people’s lives in the developing world. The initiative was also presently joined by Cisco Inc. as a technology partner.

BT and CISCO jointly provide resource support for the LifeLines programme; while OneWorld carries out the service implementation through their South Asian centre, OneWorld South Asia.

With this multi-stakeholder partnership in place, the LifeLines service was launched in November 2006.

The Technology Background:

The LifeLines system comprises a CISCO Unified Messaging platform incorporating Interactive Voice Response functionality, integrated with a Customer Relationship Management application and information database provided by BT. The application is furthermore customized by OneWorld to suit the local language and information requirements of the various geographic locations, wherever the service is implemented.

Initially LifeLines was launched in the field of agriculture, where it has been fairly successful in providing critical agri-related advisory to rural Indian farmers. Following this success, and basing on its domain-independent, adaptable technology, the LifeLines service has now been extended into the education sector as well.