Introduction
Gram Vaani (www.gramvaani.org) is a social technology enterprise that leverages technology at scale to empower communities to transform their lives. We are global leaders in using cutting edge technologies, but designed and deployed in appropriate ways so that our platforms are inclusive and accessible, bring responsible outcomes, and are geared towards building an equitable and just society. We started in 2009, incubated out of IIT Delhi, and are now a team of 70+ professionals with a diverse skillset that includes full-stack developers, AI/ML wizards, development communications and journalism experts, community organizers and mobilizers, creative content authors and recording artists, and business development and programme management teams. We work across 15 states in India and several African countries. Over a million users engaged with our platforms during the COVID-19 lockdown last year. We have built technologies that power community radio stations, deliver health and nutrition advice to millions of women Self Help Group members, build solidarity among labor union members and social movement activists, and hold local governments accountable to provide quality social protection to vulnerable families. If you are looking for a place where you can put your technological skills to increase humanism in society then Gram Vaani is the place for you – you will not only bring impact to millions of people, you will also learn how to build and use technology meaningfully in ways that can genuinely make the world a better place.
Opening for Software Engineer – Technology Development
We are working on a rich, varied and exciting technology stack which is at the cutting edge of multitudes of technologies.
It incorporates the following:
– AI/ML for audio processing and language understanding (NLP/NLU) so that even less-literate people are able to perform sophisticated functions through their mobile phones
– These functions include automated question-answering using BERT deep-learning based models on sexual health, labor rights, maternal and child nutrition, and agriculture, among other topics.
– Added to it is a voicebot that performs better than Google’s Dialog Flow at entity extraction in local Indian languages, built on top of libraries like Polyglot and iNLTK
– These are delivered on an inbuilt distributed and scalable IVR stack which has served more than a 3 million users and 150 global and national partners
– And an entirely voice-driven Android stack which brings urban/semi-urban users to the community as well, to ask question, register grievances, and mentor peers
– A rich Analytics system which is at the heart of understanding the engagement and impact of different social sector interventions
– Computer Vision for Optical Scanning of hand-filled health data forms so that paper-based forms can be digitized in real time, to run predicted analytics with a whole range of applications
We are looking for a technology competent individual to be a part of the engineering team, who can be a socially conscious team member and also perform in a fast-paced environment across a dynamic technology spectrum, at ease with learning new skills and technologies. We welcome people with varied skill sets.
Below are the criteria for applying to the position –
Must have skills and experience
• 2-3 years of Android experience
• Excellent problem-solving, debugging and troubleshooting skills
• Should have made at least 1 App from scratch
• 1-2 years of experience working with python-based web development framework like Django/Flask or fluency in version management using GIT
• Execute full lifecycle software development
• Should be good in DSA
• Write well designed, testable, efficient code
• Produce specifications and determine operational feasibility
• Tailor and deploy software tools, processes and metrics
• Serve as a subject matter expert
Highly valued skills
• Mobile App design and development for Android platform
• Experience developing around Free switch or Asterisk.
• Experience with Google’s Dialog flow, Amazon Alexa skills
• Experience designing and building Micro-Services on cloud-based platforms
• Use of AWS lambda, API Gateways, Azure, GCP etc.
• Experience working with modern BI systems and Data-Analytics.
• Experience in AI/ML technologies for NLP/NLU or Computer vision
The Gram Vaani Culture
We are a lean company and growing quickly. This means the chosen candidate will need to be very comfortable managing rapidly changing requirements and accordingly envision, build and deploy new strategies and tactics to quickly respond. The person will need to make the most out of limited resources and be able to work and act independently to lead the assignment. The upside to our methods is that we are building a business that has never been seen before by providing highly desired services to millions of people who have consistently been under-looked by existing service providers. The position will be at the vanguard of this transformative opportunity and working with us will be an amazing, highly rewarding experience.
Benefits
• Opportunity to work with a world-class team driving innovative tech-led solutions positively impacting underserved communities around the world.
• Opportunity to lead a team and build new products from scratch
• Opportunity to influence the Company strategy. We are a small team and your say matters.
• Salaries at par with industry standards.
• Attractive employee stock options.
• Flexible working hours, work-from-home, and remote working options with prior approvals.
Write to us
While the position is based out of New Delhi, our flexible work from home policy does provide team members with the option of working from the location of their choice, while they stay connected to their teams using virtual tools. We do strongly encourage team members across functions to travel to various parts of the country, to interact and engage with the communities we work with, helping build empathy and a strong understanding of the user needs.
Please email your CV to kanika.wadehra@oniondev.com
About us
Gram Vaani provides voice-based (multi-channel accessible) interactive media services to underserved populations in developing regions. Even poorly literate people are able to use the service through low-end mobile phones to access and share useful information which empowers them both economically and socially. Gram Vaani (Registered as OnionDev Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) is an Indian social technology enterprise with a mission to reverse the flow of information. We believe in developing and using appropriate technologies and people-driven processes to build participatory media networks that can empower communities. Our Theory of Change has organically evolved from the ground up and is based on our experience of working in the rural Information, Communication and Technology space over the last seven years.
Our Mobile Vaani platforms connect (through measurable ways) Corporate, Government Agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations, and Social Enterprises to their target groups not touched by other media channels. Over 150 social development organizations across 6 countries have used our platforms.
Mobile Vaani is Gram Vaani’s answer to building a free social media platform equivalent to Twitter for rural areas, accessible using a basic feature phone. For this, we built an intelligent IVR (interactive voice response) system that allows people to call a number and leave a message about their community or listen to messages left by others. Our flagship deployments operating in over 25+ districts across multiple states service over 100,000 monthly unique users engaging and discussing regularly on culture, local updates and announcements, government schemes and information sharing. Our users include people from marginal socio-economic group from remote locations, including illiterate and semi literate populace.
Media coverage: (It is an indicative list & non-exhaustive)
• A press release from Dvara Research & Gram Vaani, speaking about our collaborative work, highlighting the issues ailing the delivery of Social entitlements in India: Click here
• Mobile Vaani solution for reducing exclusion wins the Global Prize for Mission Billion Challenge: Click here
• Articles by Dasra – Improving Governance in India, Leveraging Mobiles for Governance
• GSMA case study on Mobile Vaani: Click here
• UNESCO-Pearson Initiative for Literacy: Case study on Mobile Vaani: Click here
• A video about Gram Vaani and our development approach: Click here
• A video about Mobile Vaani, filmed by TimesNow for the Amazing Indians program: Click here
Gram Vaani has won several awards & received global recognition over the years:
• Knight News Challenge in 2008 for low-cost technology for community radio stations
• Manthan Awards in 2009 for innovations in technology for development
• Economic Times Power of Ideas awards in 2010 for our unique business model
• mBillionth South Asia Award in 2012 and 2014 for innovations in journalism for rural areas
• Grand Challenges Rising Stars award in 2012 for improving health services in rural areas using technology.
• Flame Rural Marketing Award in 2014 for our unique advertising and marketing model
• Grand Challenges Canada award in 2016 for promoting WaSH practices in rural communities.
• NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum Challenge 2016 for our multi-layered development model through technology
• Grand Challenges India award in 2018 for immunization behaviour change through
