http://gramvaani.org Empowering communities through participatory media Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:09:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Gram Vaani, together with Video Volunteers and CGNet won the first prize in an impromptu collaboration idea at the Knight conference in Boston. Mayank attended the conference on our behalf, and they managed to put together some kind of weird theatrics while speaking in different tongues and showing the photograph ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/08/first-prize-in-collaboration-project/ Thanks to Bala the genius, GRINS can now also do a live streaming on the Internet of whatever if being transmitted on air. Thus, people can now also listen to radio over the Internet. The normal mode of operation is for the station to stream to a public server, and ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/08/grins-now-has-streaming/ I made a week long trip in July to Limbdi and Bhuj in Gujarat, to spend time with a Community Video Unit in Limbdi, and the Ujjas Radio team with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan in Bhuj. Below are some extensive notes and a few pictures from the trip. Limbdi CVU Operated by ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/08/trip-to-limbdi-and-bhuj/ Several pieces of our work and thoughts were covered in this very informative report by MobileActive. Given the growing proliferation of mobile phones all across the world, the combined medium of radio and cellphones can end up being a very powerful way to engage communities. SMS is very well on ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/08/sms-and-radio/ Two young guys from France, Christian and Romain, visited us a few days back. They are starting an organization, MakeSense, to link people for social businesses. And so they are currently touring and visiting all sorts of social entrepreneurial organization in Africa and Asia. Here's what they said about us: "Three ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/03/new-friends-from-makesense/ I attended an Ashoka conference in New Delhi yesterday on rural innovation and farming. There were so many new things I realized about agriculture's deep rooted connections with our culture and society and economy that I decided to immediately write about it before the memories weaken. Plus I watched Avatar ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/03/agriculture-and-us/ There was yet another hard-hitting column by Tavleen Singh in today's Indian Express, it's not about the budget. She says that if clamouring (over TV, newspapers, or placards held up in Jantar Mantar) is the way to get ourselves heard, then why don't we clamour about the biggest problems ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/02/media-and-governance/ With infrastructure severely damaged after the earthquake in Haiti, a radio show actually saves lives. This underscores the need for rapidly installable radio stations that can be set up in the middle of nowhere after a natural disaster. http://gramvaani.org/2010/02/radio-news-saves-lives-in-haiti/ Yesterday was a very interesting day. The President of Germany, Horst Kohler, and the Indian Minister of Science and Technology, Prithviraj Chavan, inaugurated the Indo-German Max Plank Center on Computer Science at IIT Delhi. The Center has been set up with the goal of deepening a research collaboration between Indian ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/02/it-for-broadening-education-in-india/ It has been quite a while since we wrote updates, but a lot has been going on. For one, we were winners in the Indian national Manthan Awards for 2009 for technological innovation for development! Then we did a second release of our broadcast system for community radio integrated ... http://gramvaani.org/2010/01/steady-driving-for-community-radio/ hello