Award-Winning Research: Digital Leapfrogging to Advance Sustainability on Indian Farms

In this Q&A, Soniya Gupta-Rawal describes her award-winning research, including her research questions, methods, and key findings. She also shares what motivates her to do this important work.

1. What is your research question?

I study a process called “digital leapfrogging,” where people move directly from very limited digital support to more advanced technologies, skipping the usual gradual path of adoption. My research asks how this process can be designed and marketed to resource-constrained users, and allow them to actually see measurable benefits.

In many parts of the world, farmers have access to new technologies that can provide advice on irrigation, crop health, and weather conditions. Yet simply making these tools available does not guarantee that farmers will use them. Within the Indian agricultural setting, this leapfrogging appears as a two-step pathway. Farmers first register for agricultural advisories through WhatsApp, and then have the option to upgrade to a sophisticated, satellite-driven AI platform that provides more precise, field-specific guidance.

My research explores why some farmers make this transition while others do not. I also explore whether the order in which technologies are introduced matters, whether impacts differ across farms of different sizes, and whether these tools become especially valuable during difficult conditions such as extreme heat or water stress.

2. How did you study that question?

I studied farmers in India who used a two-step digital support system. First, farmers could sign up for agricultural advice delivered through WhatsApp. Some later chose to enroll in a more advanced AI platform that used satellite data to provide personalized recommendations for their fields.

To understand whether these technologies made a difference, I analyzed data from 904 anonymized farms between March and November 2023. Rather than relying only on surveys, I used satellite measurements to track crop health and water stress over time. This allowed me to examine how farm conditions changed before and after farmers adopted each technology.

I also accounted for factors such as rainfall and temperature that could otherwise be mistaken for platform impact, so that I could better understand the role the digital tools themselves were playing. This approach helps separate fast, low-effort improvements from WhatsApp nudges from slower gains that emerge after farmers learn to use the richer AI interface. I then validate the results with robustness checks, including pre-trend tests and alternative satellite measures. In parallel, the project is being extended to an additional 4,000 farms to test whether the same patterns replicate at a larger scale and across more districts and crop contexts.

3. What are your most interesting findings?

Three findings stand out from this research.

First, simple technologies can play an important role in building trust and encouraging adoption. WhatsApp worked well as a low-friction entry point because it was already familiar to farmers and easy to use. Farmers often acted on the advice quickly, leading to modest but immediate improvements. These benefits were especially noticeable among medium-sized farms that could respond without making major changes to their routines.

Second, the larger gains appeared when farmers upgraded to the AI platform. Many experienced a short adjustment period as they learned how to use the new system and incorporate its recommendations into their decision-making. However, once farmers adapted how they plan irrigation and respond to crop stress signals, their outcomes improved more substantially and remained higher over time.

Third, the AI platform was especially valuable during periods of environmental stress, such as hot or dry conditions. During these periods, farmers who used the platform experienced stronger and more consistent improvements. This suggests that access to timely, field-specific information can help farmers manage uncertainty and reduce the risks associated with climate change.

Taken together, these findings point to the importance of a “product ladder” approach: starting with a simple, trusted technology and then gradually helping users adopt more advanced tools that can deliver greater long-term benefits.

4. Who outside academia needs to know this? What should they do differently?

This research is relevant to people who build, sell, fund, or govern climate-smart agriculture, including agritech founders and marketing teams, agribusiness input and irrigation firms, farmer cooperatives and NGOs, government extension departments, and insurers or lenders managing climate risk.

The main takeaway is that technology adoption should be viewed as a journey rather than a single decision. Instead of expecting users to immediately adopt complex systems, organizations should start with simple, familiar tools, like WhatsApp, that help build trust and establish routines. The satellite-driven AI portal is the upgrade layer where the larger and more durable gains appear, but it needs onboarding and behaviour change, so conversion and retention must be managed deliberately.

5. What motivated you to pursue a PhD in this area?

My core motivation is to build credible, measurable evidence on whether market-facing innovations in emerging economies genuinely improve lives and resource use, rather than only sounding promising. I wanted to work on marketing questions where strategy choices can strengthen livelihoods and sustainability, not just awareness or engagement metrics. In many emerging market settings, the challenge is not that technology is missing. It is that adoption fails because the go-to-market path is wrong.

What motivates me is building evidence that helps organisations design adoption journeys that start where users already are, then move them toward higher-value tools in a way that is respectful of trust, learning costs, and daily constraints. I am especially drawn to outcomes that are difficult to “spin.” Unconventional sources of measures like satellite data and pictures provide an objective way to test whether marketing-led adoption is translating into real improvements in crop health and resilience, rather than relying only on self-reported satisfaction.

More broadly, my work sits at the intersection of innovation, marketing strategy, and social impact. The goal is to help companies, cooperatives, and public systems scale digital tools that are inclusive, credible, and genuinely useful under climate stress and real-world resource constraints.