Gram Vaani

Jharkhand mobile news starts with a bang

admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:06:53 +0000

Gram Vaani’s first mobile news service in India started with a bang on July 20th. Together with Jean Dreze’s network of NREGA Sahayata Kendras and the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in Ranchi, we debuted a news-over-phone service in the areas of Khunti and Lathehar. The system has received over 18,000 calls from some 2000 unique users [...]

Anna Hazare local meeting shared using GRINS

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:09:42 +0000

Freedom fighter and social activist Anna Hazare was recently in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra to
speak about the Jan Lokpal Bill, a civil society-led effort to remove corruption in India.

Radio Nagar is a community radio station based in Ahmednagar run by the NGO Snehalaya (http://
www.snehalaya.org). The station staff wanted to air his speech live but the speech was being delivered
around 15 Km away from the station. GRINS’s live telephony feature allowed the station to air his
speech live. All they had to do was make a call from the venue to the station and put the phone near
Anna’s microphone. GRINS took care of the rest.

Those who were not able to listen to the speech in person were able to catch it live on the radio.
Several such listeners called in to the station to thank the staff for the effort. GRINS allowed the station
to record the speech as well. The station now repeats the broadcast of the speech to meet listener
demands.

Gram Vaani ranked amongst India’s top 10 most innovative companies!

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:02:12 +0000

Fast Company, a leading international magazine, has ranked Gram Vaani as the 5th most innovative company in India. The Indian lists include Tata Motors for its Nano car and Godrej for its ChotuKool refrigerator, while the global list includes companies like Twitter, Facebook and Apple. This is another affirmation of the innovation-centric work that Gram Vaani has been doing and its vision of transforming the social sector in India through relevant technologies. You can read the full article of the Fast Company magazine here.

Gram Vaani in Afghanistan

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:19:28 +0000

Gram Vaani has initiated a project in Afghanistan in partnership with iMedia Associates to provide a News Over Phone service to the people of Afghanistan.

Gram Vaani launches vTrack

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:00:49 +0000

Gram Vaani has recently launched ‘vTrack‘, a security tracking application for working professionals. vTrack aims to improve the security of people traveling in office cabs at odd hours, particularly in the BPO/KPO industry. vTrack makes personalized calls to you to ensure you are safe. There is a password check to ensure it is you, and not someone else, who is picking up the call. In case of a problem, vTrack automatically calls a guardian designated by you, informing them to get in touch with you.

GRINS used to air The Dalai Lama’s speech live

admin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:35:37 +0000

His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, on 14 February 2011. The founder of the College, Bunker Roy had a discussion with him there. Tilonia Radio, the community radio station based at the College, used the telephony feature of GRINS to broadcast the discussion live on air. The staff used a mobile phone to call in to the station and placed the mobile phone on the stage where the discussion between His Holiness and Bunker Roy was taking place. Then they used GRINS to put the call live on air, effectively, making the complete discussion available live on the radio.
Image: Courtesy Barefoot College’s Facebook page.

Gram Vaani wins Power of Ideas

admin — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:29:39 +0000

In another recognition of its work, Gram Vaani is one of the winner of the Economic Times Powers of Ideas contest for 2010. This competition awards breakthrough ideas from all over India. This year over 12,000 ideas were nominated, out of which 74 made it to the final winners list. You can find out more about it at http://www.ideas.economictimes.com/the_class.aspx