Gram Vaani is an organization focused on building citizen-driven media platforms to empower communities in India and Africa through technology and social media. Their projects include voice-based platforms for community engagement, social audits, and complaint management, which have achieved significant community interaction and impact. By fostering partnerships and utilizing grassroots feedback, Gram Vaani aims to enhance accountability and transparency in public services.

1. Gram Vaani Community Media
- Technologies for Community
Empowerment -
MARCH 2013
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
 Rising Stars in Global Health award 2012
 mBillionth award 2012
 Rockefeller Challenge 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. Goonj: Social media for the BoP
 Voice-based social media platform, currently in
Jharkhand
2. GRINS: Automation system for community
radio stations
 35 deployments across 12 states in India, 6
deployments in Africa
3. vApps: Community engagement tools
 Indian deployments: UP, Bihar, AP
 International: Afghanistan, Pakistan
4. FullCircle: Social audit tools for communities
 A voice and SMS based community audit
framework to review the performance of public
services
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4. About Goonj
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5. What is the Goonj network?
 Network of voice-based community media stations in
rural and suburban India
 Mobile radio
 Interactive radio over phone technology pioneered by Gram
Vaani
 Jharkhand Mobile Radio: Over 2000 calls per day, 20000+
callers
 Community radio
 Gram Vaani‟s GRINS automation system enhances community
engagement over FM community radio
 UP, MP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, AP, Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Rajasthan
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6. How it works in Jharkhand
 Mobile phone based platform for crowd-sourcing local information from remote
villages, and making it available for anyone to access over phone
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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7. The tremendous response
 ~ 2000 calls per day
 ~ 20,000 callers
 ~ 4 min average time per call
 ~ 11,000 returning callers
 Main areas: Dhanbad, Giridih,
Bokaro, Lathehar, Palamu
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8. Content on Goonj
 90% community sourced content
 Local news
 Opinion on topical issues
 Guided discussions and campaigns
 Grievances and feedback on government schemes
 Cultural artifacts including folk songs and poems
 Propagation through word-of-mouth and field partners
 Gram Swaraj Abhiyan
 Public Health Resource Network
 Leads Trust
 JSACS
 Red Cross Society
 PRADAN
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9. What we have learned
 How to build community
 Through workshops and field meetings, we have built a large and dedicated
network of community representatives
 Actively solicit opinion of the community on how Goonj is working for them
 Bring ownership by discussing the role of media and getting ideas from the
community itself
 How to translate community media into impact
 Convey issues and questions raised on the forum to civil society partners, non-
profit organizations, and resource experts
 How to use media for accountability and transparency
 Connect with government departments to use the forum for citizen-government
engagement
 Announcements, grievance redressal, and community audit of government
schemes
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10. Some examples
 Escalating grievances
 A village ignored by health agencies was reported to have had 3 malaria deaths
in the last one week. This was brought to the notice of the DC and a mobile
ambulance was immediately dispatched, with fumigation equipment and first aid
 Community reports
 Campaign on water
conservation broughtt inputs
from 30 panchayats that even
though all panchayats had
water bodies funded under
MNREGA, but due to poor
engineering none of the
works were being used as
productive assets
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11. About Fullcircle
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12. MCD project on garbage site
monitoring
1 2
Municipal Corporation of Delhi
3
approached Gram Vaani for phone Our server makes and receives
based citizen monitoring of waste calls/SMS from contract staff on
disposal in the city their deliverables
Community
members query
the status and
dispute it if they
want
Self-reported status
4
by MCD staff Status and disputes
Citizens can query were made available on
and dispute a web dashboard and
reviewed by the MCD
commissioner; City
Representatives post
responses on facebook
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13. What we helped convey
 Need for internal monitoring
 MCD did not have any internal monitoring processes to keep track of its own staff
and contractors
 Statistics on self-reports given by the staff helped the commissioner understand
the relevance of reporting
 Need for community audit
 Disputes filed by the community on mis-reported status of garbage sites helps
generate internal discussion and reveals process ineffeciencies
 Fortnightly meetings with the commissioner by community representatives also
helped give community a voice to engage with the service providers
 Need for action
 Community participation gradually fell because despite good discussions, many
problems reported by the community were not solved. This highlighted that such
projects will be successful if the authorities are more responsive
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14. New avatar: ICDS monitoring
 Working closely with DC, Dhanbad to launch Fullcircle as a tool for
ICDS monitoring
 School teachers and principals report daily via SMS
 Number of children who came to school today
 Number of children fed
 Menu
 Ration remaining
 Community can query reports filed by the service providers, and also listen to
them on Jharkhand Mobile Radio
 Lodge a dispute if they detect a discrepancy
 Dispute is included in a weekly report that is discussed with the DC
 Also trying to start a similar project for urban municipal schools
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15. Other handy community
engagement tools
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16. vHelp: Running a mobile
callcentre/helpline
1
„The Hoot‟ approached Gram
Vaani to build an „intelligent
helpline‟ for journalists
2
Journalists call into
Calls are archived if
3 4
a toll-free number Calls are patched to the nobody answers, and
to request for closest first response can be reviewed over a
assistance/advise network of volunteers web interface
and staff
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17. vSurvey: Collecting structured inputs
from the community
 Surveys on IVR and SMS can be pushed out to community members
 Mix of multiple-choice questions, numerical inputs, and audio recordings
 Used by UNDP to understand whether their SHGs wanted help with
livelihoods or savings or advisories
 Current survey to assess exposure to micro-insurance in eastern UP
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18. vAct: Community-based complaint
management
1
A governance focused NGO, Action
India, approached Gram Vaani to Youth wing of NGO files
build a „better grievance redressal complaint officially, and sends a
system‟ report to the local councilor
4
Community
2 members call into Redressal statistics also displayed on
3
a toll-free number NGO listens to website (and wall newspapers)
to leave complaints and
complaints categories/transcribes
them on the Internet
5
Internal pressure dynamics thus created were
used to improve grievance rates on ration,
pension, and sanitation. New toilets and public
works were sanctioned
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19. GRINS: Community 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
 Internet streaming of live broadcast
 Community database: Maintain a database of
volunteers, staff, community resource people, etc, and
reach out to them through group SMSes and voice
messages
 Powering a large network of 35+ community radio
stations across India
 Now including community radio stations into the
Goonj network, for greater outreach and diversity
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20. More about us
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21. Our partners
MCD Delhi Knight Fndn. IIT Delhi
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22. Our team
Strategy and business development
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
Mayank Shivam Business head at Jabong.com, Mayank advises on the overall strategy
Co-Founder 5 years with McKinsey & Co, and business partnerships, bringing to
MBA, IIM Lucknow bear his rich consulting experience
B.Tech, IIT Kanpur
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23. 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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24. 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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25. 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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