MobileVaani is the definitive social media platform for those in predominantly rural communities, who do not have the economic means to own screens that serve internet based social media, BUT have access to mobile networks, and are at the very bottom of the economic pyramid.

1. Gram Vaani Community Media
SEPTEMBER 2012
VOICE OF THE VILLAGE
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2. About us
 Vision: “Build citizen-driven media platforms that give
communities a voice of their own”
 Working at the interface of
 Technology | Media | Development
 Strategy
 Evolve synergies between communities, the government, large
development institutions, and media agencies
 We work all across India with more than 30+ non-profit
organizations, and now in Africa too
 Awards and recognition
 mBillionth award 2012
 Rockefeller Challenge 2012
 Finalists in Vodafone Mobiles for Good 2012
 10 most innovative companies in India (by Fast Company)
 Economic Times Power of Ideas 2010
 Manthan Award 2009
 Knight News Challenge 2008
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3. Our projects
1. GRINS: Automation system for community
radio stations
 28 deployments across 12 states in India, 6
deployments in Africa
 Campaigns on NREGA, PDS, primary
education, maternity health across our network
of stations
2. vApps: Community engagement tools
 Indian deployments: Jharkhand, AP, UP
 International: Afghanistan, Pakistan
3. FullCircle: Social audit tools for communities
 Monitoring of garbage sites, in partnership with
MCD in Delhi
 Evolving into a citizen-government engagement
platform: Mericity
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4. Details of our work in building technologies and
processes for community media
 GRINS: Automation system for community radio stations
 vApps: Community engagement services
 FullCircle: Social audit tools for citizen-government engagement
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5. What is community radio?
 FM station, run by a non-profit
 15-20km range
 Content
 Community talk
 Interviews of politicians
 Programs for school kids
 Youth events
 Educational programs
 Leads to empowerment, awareness, community building
 Capital cost: 6L
 Operating cost: 30K per month
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6. GRINS radio automation system
 GRINS: Gramin Radio Inter Networking System
 Makes it easy to run community radio stations
 Full telephony support: People can call into the station and leave voice
recordings, or go live on air
 Content management and statistics on programs played out
 Internet streaming of live broadcast
 Community database: The station can maintain a database of
volunteers, staff, community resource people, etc, and reach out to
them through group SMSes and voice messages
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7. GRINS is running successfully in 30+ community radio
stations across the world
 Radio Bundelkhand in Orccha, Madhya Pradesh in partnership with NGO
Development Alternatives (DA)
 Gurgaon ki Awaaz in Gurgaon, Haryana in partnership with NGO The
Restoring Force
 Sangham Radio in Pastapur, in partnership with Deccan Development
Society
 Kumaon Vani in Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand, in partnership with TERI
 BOL Hyderabad in Hyderabad, in partnership with University of Hyderabad
 Tashi Delek Radio in Dharamshala, in partnership with Tibetan Children’s
Village
 Jago Mumbai in Mumbai, in partnership with Khar Residents Welfare
Association
 Radio Atlantis, in South Africa, in partnership with the Commonwealth of
Learning
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8. CR India network
 Used GRINS footprint to bring stations in India on the same platform
 Networked with over 30 stations across 12 states. Cumulative
listenership ~ 6L, word-of-mouth ~ 25L
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9. Information campaigns on the CR network
 5 stations, from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, MP
 3 themes: NREGA, PDS, RTE
 Three phase process: At each station…
 Survey 10 villages to get introduced to different stakeholders, and understand
specific problems related to the government schemes
 Consult with us to create interesting radio programs based on the feedback
 Encourage listeners to call back and report problems, give feedback, tell their
own stories
 Creates a two-day conversational mechanism for communities to
understand rights and entitlements under different schemes
 Outcome: Better than standard broadcast information campaigns on
radio and TV
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10. Building technologies for community media
 GRINS: Automation system for community radio stations
 vApps: Community engagement services
 FullCircle: Social audit tools for citizen-government engagement
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11. vNews: local community news in voice
 A mobile phone based platform for crowd-sourcing of local news from
across a state
Village groups call into Validated stories
a toll-free number to are published
tell stories and online
experiences Valuable statistics
The submitted stories and reports can be
are validated and derived from the
moderated by a trained information
editor collected
Validated stories are
also published for
access on same toll-
Other people can call into the toll- free number
free number to listen to the
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12. vNews in Jharkhand
 ~ 1500 calls per day
 ~ 10,000 callers
 ~ 4 min average time per call
 ~ 6,000 returning callers
 Main areas:
Khunti, Lathehar, Dhanbad, Giri
dhi, Sarai Kela
 Topics: Casual folk
songs, opinion, NREGA and
PDS feedback, disease
outbreaks, government
announcements, women stories
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13. Social media over phone
Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat Sun
Governance Health Education Agriculture Women Culture Livelihood
Announce- Advisories Career Seasonal Stories, Tribal songs, Job
ments, by ANMs counseling, needs, careers – harvest openings,
people’s and doctors, exams, information, ANMs, celebrations, income
suggestions, notifications, children KVK Samakhya, poetry, jokes advise
grievances, health news interviews SHGs, case
entitlements programmes studies
 Special segment each day
 Channelization for topic-specific news
 Broader base of channel partners and local entrepreneurs
 Job postings
 Local classifieds
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14. Partners for vNews in Jharkhand
 Sesame Workshop -> Education
 Gram Swaraj Abhiyan -> Panchayati Raj
 Public Health Resource Network -> Community health workers
 Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti -> Education
 NREGA Sahayata Kendras -> Livelihood
 Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra -> Agriculture
 Leads Trust -> Education
 …
 Continuously adding more partners on different themes
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15. Other deployments of vNews
 Afghanistan: Mahaal News Network
 5K+ calls per day, publicized across 40 radio stations
 Pakistan
 Uttar Pradesh, India: With UNDP and Video Volunteers
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16. The vApps suite of applications
 vSurvey
 Customized survey design on IVR
 Being used in eastern UP to collect data on micro-insurance awareness and
feedback of SHGs on their federation
 vHelp
 Patching of calls with a network of volunteers
 If all volunteers are busy, the call gets archived much like voice mail
 Used to manage a journalist helpline, helpline for the homeless
 vNews
 Local news-over-phone service
 Can proxy as a community based question-and-answer system
 Local classifieds
 Customize to combine with other applications
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17. Building technologies for community media
 GRINS: Automation system for community radio stations
 vApps: Community engagement services
 FullCircle: Social audit tools for citizen-government engagement
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18. MCD: Complaint management with public scrutiny
 People call into an IVR system and leave message recordings about
complaint details
 MCD officials listen to the recordings and categorize them
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19. Public scrutiny through FullCircle
 Statistics are automatically plotted on complaint redressal rates, repeat
complaints, etc
 Published on Facebook and newspapers. Puts pressure on
government officials to improve redressal rates
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20. New avatar: Citizen based monitoring of garbage
collection sites
 MCD is keen to scale initiative all across Delhi. Has improved their
internal tracking and reporting processes
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21. Moving into a comprehensive citizen-government
engagement platform
 Solicit citizen feedback in fund utilization, prime issues that need
attention, and improve awareness
 In partnership with NGOs Satark Nagrik Sangathan and Action India
Pilot project in May
2011 with Action
India: Slum colonies
in East Delhi
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22. Our partners
MCD Delhi
IIT Delhi
Knight Fndn.
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23. Our team
Strategy and management
Dr. Aaditeshwar Seth Assistant Professor, IIT Delhi, Aaditeshwar leads the technology
Co-Founder Ph.D, University of Waterloo, development and product design,
bringing new generation solutions to the
B.Tech, IIT Kanpur
rural Indian context
Roshan Nair 2 years with US startups in the Roshan brings a combination of rural,
Director, Programs energy sector, 2 years community research, and financial experience to the
development in tribal areas in India team. He helps structure projects and
MPA and BBA from UT Austin their implementation.
Mayank Shivam Business head with Jabong,com; 5 Mayank advises on the overall strategy
Co-Founder years with McKinsey & Co. as and business partnerships, bringing to
management consultant, bear his rich consulting experience
MBA, IIM Lucknow
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24. Our team
Technology
Dinesh Kapoor 3 years with Microsoft Dinesh leads the development of voice
Product Manager Voice M.Tech, IIT Delhi applications and is driving the current
Applications vAct and vNews applications
B.Tech, IP University
Balachandran C. B.Tech, IIIT Allahabad Bala architected the voice platform and
Technical Consultant ensures that our technology is converted
into relevant and user-friendly
applications
Zahir Koradia Ph.D candidate, IIT Mumbai Zahir leads the development of the
Product Manager GRINS M.Tech, IIT Kanpur GRINS platform for community radio
stations
Kapil Dadheech BTech, Arya College of Engg Kapil single-handedly manages 30+
Technical Support installations of GRINS and 10+
Engineer installations of voice applications
Rohit Jain MCA, Sikkim Manipal University Rohit manages remote installations of
System administrator Microsoft certified sys. admin. GRINS and voice applications
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25. Our team
Project coordination
Sayonee Chatterjee MA Sociology, Pune University. 5 Sayonee manages our Mericity.in and
Project manager years experience with PRADAN and MCD initiatives in partnership with
PRIA NGOs various NGOs in Delhi
Aparna Moitra Gold Medalist & MSc Development Aparna manages our Jharkhand
Researcher Communications and Extension, deployment of mobile news and
Lady Irwin College coordination with field staff
Ranchi office
Shambhu Mahto LLM, Ranchi University Shambhu manages the field operations of
State coordinator for JMR Jharkhand Mobile Radio in Ranchi,
popularizing it and managing our district
coordinators
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26. Thanks
G r a m Va a n i C o m m u n i t y M e d i a
Website: ht t p:/ /w w w.gra m vaa ni.or g
Email: contact@gramvaani.org
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