From the Founders Desk: Voice of India

Can technology pave the world to better state of civic affairs? We'll be talking about launching a mobile app that will educate the youth into being civic-literate, bring them together to co-ordinate and drive change, and also hold the leaders accountable.

Hello world! This is the first article of the many as I find myself taking the plunge into using tech to solve real-world problems. Down the line, I wish to build an NGO to solve for fundamental problems such as the lack of education and literacy in our masses, to indeed take pride in it.

Democracy is a government is of the people, by the people, for the people

In 1863, exactly 150 years back, this was said by Shri.Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address, one of the best known speeches in world history.

When I read this a few years back when studying, the stress upon people became clearer for my tender mind. I realised that the people make our country, right from choosing our leaders to choosing how we lead our lives in the society. India is world’s largest democracy, and is touted to soon overtake China to be the world’s largest country, and a superpower by 2020, by Shri. APJ Abdul Kalaam in his book India 2020. (We’re not on track!)

What’s wrong, really?

Us, the people. Surprised? Let me elaborate. We elect the government, how much thought goes into choosing our leaders? How much involved are we in working for our neighborhood, let alone country? Here’s three important issues that I observed in the past few years:

1. Illiteracy on civic affairs such as policies being contested and governance events in Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha.
2. Inaccessibility of the governing and municipal bodies to discuss civic issues, and suggestions.
3. Inability to co-ordinate with fellow citizens into furthering a good-samaritan cause.

What can we do about it?

All of us can contribute either passionately through driving the change, actively through volunteering, passively through monetary donations. All of these require a medium, and here comes the platform - Voice of India. It will be a light-weight platform which can be used from the comfort of our phones without a lot of data or space requirements on our devices. Initial set of features:

1. A knowledge base of important lexicons, laws that will help us understand our country. This content is readily available online, but is scattered and is not easy to consume. The app will have important bits highlighted, and summarised without any loss in essence.
2. Reporting system which will help us report issues, by attaching relevant pictures. Supported with images, and audio files this helps reach the concerned municipal authorities for civic issues such as garbage accumulation, pothole-ridden roads, public area maintenance such as hazardous electric wiring, cut trees, etc.
3. Ability to connect with fellow citizens and volunteer together to organise clean-up drives, help out each other when in need, organise think-tanks, discuss civic issues in forums, and come up with innovative solutions collectively with municipal leaders. (I am excited about smart city projects!)

After talking to a couple of municipal leaders, RSS Youth wing IT cell, and my uncle who looks after political affairs in Andhra Pradesh (or should I say, Telangana!), I have finished the design prototypes. I am currently working on an MVP for the mobile app written using Android, that should be out in the next few weeks. The APIs will be written in a light-weight Flask application, with a SQL Database. Reach out to me on surya.pradyumna@gmail.com if you want to join hands with me on this project.

Resources: Example Lexicon, Invision Design

• Surya, First Volunteer