Udupi eSamudaay Digital, said to be the world’s first local commerce (LCommerce) company, completed a year of its founding on Wednesday enrolling over 2,500 customers and more than a 100 local merchants.
eSamudaay founder and CEO Anup Pai told reporters in Udupi on Wednesday that LCommerce requires wide community engagement efforts towards the core objective of “For local, by local”.
The initiative, he said, has developed a vibrant network of participants across all sections of Udupi’s population. It is launching Udupi Tokens on the first anniversary as per Lcommerce guidelines of local ownership, Mr. Pai said.
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A native of Udupi who formerly founded banking analytics firm, Fintellix, that was later acquired by Verisk Analytics, Mr. Pai said that data localisation is a necessary requirement to ensure data sovereignty. COVID-19 has made one realise the need for local action, which is possible only when information is used by local communities to organise themselves and coordinate with like-minded groups across the world.
Mr. Pai further said that eSamudaay has made a business catalogue of local traders because global online giants are interested only in dominating market space thereby bringing a big divide between producers and users. Udupi eSamudaay has engaged with digital services and App development companies operating in the region. Student community has been networked through the participation of the entrepreneurship cells in many engineering colleges in the region, he added.
It is an effort aimed at democratising the digital world where local communities can become self-sufficient in managing their digital assets and infrastructure. Udupi eSamudaay is a model for a distributed digital economy or a network of collaborating and cooperating local digital platforms. It aims at having sizable number of business, self-employed entrepreneurs, cultural events and community content on the platform enabling a self-sustaining local economy, Mr. Pai added.
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