Abstract

The case narrates how the lives of the traditional weavers of Chanderi, a small town in Madhya Pradesh (India), were transformed with digital intervention. In 2009, a Delhi-based NGO, Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), with the support of the Government of India and other organizations, launched a program called Chanderiyaan to help these weavers become digitally literate and self-sufficient. The case discusses how the project helped minimize various market separations for the Chanderi weavers. The project extended many facilities to the weavers by imparting computer literacy to them and offering them a basic English course, embroidery skills development classes, access to an e-commerce portal, and many other activities which modified the traditional weaving practices. Chanderiyaan helped Chanderi become a digitally literate community with an improved standard of life. Though the initiative brought about significant improvements in the lives of the Chanderi weavers, analysts and industry experts opined that the biggest challenge for DEF would be to manage the expectations of these weavers and ensure that they learnt and acquired new skills while earning a livelihood. Moreover, the centuries-old tradition of Chanderi had to confront fierce competition from the growing powerloom textile industry.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• To recognize the challenges faced by artisans in sustaining their traditional craft and to analyze whether digital intervention can help in overcoming the challenges.
• To evaluate the work of DEF and project Chanderiyaan in bringing about an improvement in the lives of weavers.
• To analyze the role of information asymmetry in the economy and suggest ways through which this can be reduced.

Keywords

Digital Empowerment Foundation,Chanderi Saree,Chanderiyaan,Chanderi,Information Asymmetry,Digital literacy,Handloom Industry,Bottom of Pyramid,Jacquard looms,Monogram,E-Commerce Portal,Commonwealth Games 2010,Wireless Women for Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Program (W2E2)