The first centre, which is a BPO, was launched in Bhavani, a village in Tamil Nadu. Soon, there were ten centres with three to five people in each centre and 12 in Chennai. Today, after ten months, they have ten centres and 60 people working.
In partnership with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd's Common Service Centre (CSC) program to scale rural BPOs at the national level, it is currently running a pilot location in Tamil Nadu.
How does she spot qualified people in the rural areas? "We work with a rural entrepreneur who has good links in the local area. There is a three stage interview process. After the entrepreneur spots the talent locally, the resumes are sent to Chennai and then they take an online test. This is followed by an HR interview and then, they are recruited."
It was the director of New Horizon Media, Badri Seshadri, who gave DesiCrew the first project of retyping his books.
"The job costs much less; it generates employment in rural areas; and since it is sent back through the Internet, there is no delay in getting back the digitalized books," said he.
Image: DesiCrew's office at IIT Madras, Chennai.
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