Another piece of good news, we won the Juror’s Distinction Award in the 2009 Manthan Awards for technological innovation for development! Here’s a coverage from Mint. We kind of knew from insider sources that we are winning something, but what did come as a surprise was that we won the special distinction award. And what came as an even better surprise was that we got an actual trophy for it! Yay! The trophy has a pair of horns on it?! Zahir explained something about a bullock-card economy as the deeper meaning behind it, but my super-selective memory can’t recollect the details even 15 minutes later.

It’s been almost a year for Gram Vaani, and here’s a brief pictorial history in reverse chronological order.

Dec 2009: Zahir smiling at the camera instead of looking at the trophy
 

July 2009: Deployment visit to Orchha after our first release
 

Feb 2009: We have an office!
 

Jan 2009: It all started with Bala coding in his pyjamas at our official office at home
 

Jun 2008: And all the ideas actually started germinating way before the Knight award

And a special thanks to everybody who has been involved with us, in particular folks at the cr-india forum, Prof Keshav from Waterloo, Shoma and everybody from Development Alternatives who trusted us to do a pilot with them, FITT at IIT Delhi, and everybody from the Knight Foundation who made this possible. Thanks!