SocialCops will continue as a data for social good community and we hope to open-source our learnings to help the larger community. Our team will devote their time and attention to scale Atlan, bringing together diverse data, tools and people to create a frictionless collaboration experience.
We Got Selected in 2019 Top 100 Geospatial Companies and Startups List
Our day started with some awesome news from Geoawesomeness! We are excited to share that SocialCops has made it to the Top 100 Geospatial Companies and Startups list by Geoawesomeness, a popular location-based blog that writes and features some of the best work done in the areas of geospatial technologies —…
Welcoming 2019 and Other Stories from December #InsideSocialCops
2018 was an incredible year #InsideSocialCops and your support made it only better.❤️ From getting recognized as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum to making three open-source contributions in 2018, we have been fortunate to have shared it all with you. We wish you a wonderful 2019 from all of us at…
Celebrations, Community, Learnings, and More — November #InsideSocialCops
November #InsideSocialCops was as wonderful as it could get! With a lot of new team members joining in, Diwali celebrations, Dog Day, and wonderful #InsideData sessions — it was an exciting month for all of us here. And, as always, we are glad to share it all with you. Here…
Why Am I Here at SocialCops After Working on My Own Startup?
In the pre-final year of my college, I was doing everything that I loved — building, creating, and scaling. A couple of my friends and I were working on building CampusBox, an open-source creative network for people to share their creative work, connect to other creators on the platform, and…
SocialCops Featured in Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India 2018
We are excited to share that SocialCops got featured in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 India list. Including SocialCops, there are 10 tech startups from Delhi who have made it to the list. The list recognizes fast-growing companies in the tech space — hardware, software, communications, media, life science, and clean…
Reflect, Refocus, and Recognize: The Quarter that Was…
As a growing company, each day at SocialCops is about going beyond our boundaries and working to build a company that not just sustains, but thrives. In the last three months, we learned, failed often and achieved milestones, but most importantly, we grew. We grew as a team, as individuals,…
Recognition, Internships, Growth and More: September Inside SocialCops
September was about working heads down to close our quarter goals, reflect back, and gear up to enter the last quarter of the year with big lessons, and bigger goals. 💪 And, as always, we are glad to have you part of our journey. Here is a glimpse of September…
Livemint: Enterprise technology start-ups that use emerging tech to solve real-world problems
We are excited to share that we got featured in Livemint. The feature talks about enterprise technology startups like SocialCops along with four other inspiring companies — NeuroTags, mPaani, Niramai, and BabyChakra — that are solving real-world problems using emerging tech. “Delhi-based SocialCops, founded by Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka,…
How to Structure Code Repositories: Multi, Mono or Organic?
The newest debate in town is whether you should keep your services in a single repository or multiple small repositories. The idea of multiple small repositories is that code for each of your app’s micro service is kept in a repository of its own. With a mono-repo, you keep the…
How To Make Dashboards That People Will Actually Use
Today organizations are spending a huge amount of money and time on building dashboards. “If only we get a dazzling dashboard, we’ll finally become data-driven,” they promise — but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. In reality, only 45% of people with access to BI tools actually report using…
Lessons, Celebrations, Hiring and More: August Inside SocialCops
As we enter the last month of this quarter, our team has been working super hard to complete our quarterly goals. 💪 We are solving new problems, writing a lot of blogs, and doing polls to decide the next day to bring dogs to work. We are always glad to…
Business Today: Prukalpa Sankar awarded with Most Powerful Women Impact Award
Every year, India’s leading business magazine, Business Today recognizes powerful women through the Most Powerful Women Impact Awards. We are honored to share that this year, co-founder of SocialCops, Prukalpa Sankar was recognized with this award! The award is given to fierce and powerful women who have been contributing and bringing change…
How We Problem Solve, Prototype and Product-ify Data for our Users
Today data has exploded, and it’s available in more places and forms than ever — pie charts tracking websites’ visitor groups, bar graphs tracking code commits, line charts tracking steps on a fitness tracker app, star ratings for restaurants, scores for taxi drivers… We’re drowning in data, and yet it…
Civil Society Magazine: How SocialCops put BPL women on LPG list
“Their work in helping to implement the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has aroused interest because of the scale involved and the speed with which it was done.” – Kavita Charanji, Civil Society Magazine It always feels great to have your work recognized, right? We are excited to share that we…
Technology, Development and New Delhi: Interning at SocialCops
I have been fascinated by the government for as long as I can remember. Across the two decades of my life, this childish fascination has continued to persist, a facet of my personality that I have come to regard as an irrational obsession. It manifests itself in a number of…
Announcements, Hiring Updates and More: July Inside SocialCops
July was all about small wins, new experiences and lots of learnings. Fun fact: This is the 12th hello we are sharing. This monthly newsletter that bundles up all our stories completes one year — we are so grateful to share our journey of building SocialCops with you. Here are…
Why Are Developed Villages Surrounded by Underdeveloped Hamlets?
Around 90 kilometers from the Chandrapur district headquarters is Bhari, a tribal Gram Panchayat (GP). Sitting on the border between Telangana and Maharashtra, Bhari is in the Jiwati block of Maharashtra. A nice cement concrete road with beautiful cotton fields on both sides, constructed under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna,…
My Journey as a Growth Marketing Intern at SocialCops
After graduating from a rather nondescript college in MP, a brief stint at my own startup and working as a freelance designer, I finally made it to a respectable business school in Delhi. As soon as I finished my second semester’s final exams, getting an internship was my first concern.…
450k Lines of Code & 130 Data Sets: 1 Year as a Data Analyst at SocialCops
It was a sunny March afternoon when I walked into the parking lot of the swanky Waters Edge Hotel in Colombo. SocialCops’ co-founder Varun and I had just given a presentation amongst a group of policy-makers, civil society members and decision-makers at a #DataForSDGs conference held by the United Nations…
What Is Android App Localization, and Why Should You Care?
Your popular app is stable and bug-free. The new design is just stellar, but does your app support languages other than English? If your answer is anything other than “yes,” you need to act on it before it’s too late. As the internet is making the world a smaller place,…
Wins, Celebrations and Growth: June Inside SocialCops
Every story has a beginning, middle, and an end; and so does every year. As we came to the middle of our year, we took some time to reflect on our journey, celebrate some humbling wins and pace forward by setting some big goals for the rest of the year.…
Powering the DISHA Dashboard: A Step Towards Good Governance
“The DISHA Dashboard will be interactive and multi-dimensional, providing multiple views of performance of schemes, with geography drillable down to gram panchayat level, and comparisons across various time dimensions enabled just by the click of a button.” – Shri Ram Kripal Yadav Minister of State for Rural Development, Government of…
A Year in the Life of an Account Manager at SocialCops
Right after completing my graduation in Statistics, I joined the Market Analytics team at one of the Big 4 accounting firms. I wanted to get a head start on analytics tools and techniques, and I thought it would be the right place to do that. However, within a year of…
We Got Selected as Technology Pioneers 2018 by the World Economic Forum
“SocialCops and its fellow pioneers are front and centre in shaping the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution and we believe they will be transforming society and industry in a positive way in the years to come.” – Fulvia Montresor, Head of Technology Pioneers at the World Economic Forum Every year, the…
PM Narendra Modi: Monitoring PMAY-G on the DISHA Dashboard
“We have linked houses under PMAY-G through geo-tagging technology and the data is also linked to the DISHA Dashboard where I can track and monitor the progress of the scheme.” – Prime Minister Narendra Modi In an address to the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna–Gramin (PMAY-G), Prime Minister…
Dainik Bhaskar: 3 Technology Innovators Who Are Improving Lives
“Governments, corporates and policymakers rely on data captured by the SocialCops platform to make critical decisions.” – Dainik Bhaskar We’re excited to be featured on Dainik Bhaskar as one of the three organizations leveraging technology to make data more accessible and improve the lives of citizens, alongside Botcheck.me and Crisis…
Here’s to Dreaming: May Inside SocialCops
May has been a very special month for all of us #InsideSocialCops. Some incredible, humbling news knocked on our doors. One that we welcomed with arms wide open and dreams soaring high; one that seemed like a dream just a couple of years ago. On that note, this blog is…
We Were Named to the New York Times’ List of 30 Global Visionaries
“In ways large and small, [visionaries] fight. They disrupt. They take risks. They push boundaries to change the way we see the world, or live in it.” (Kerry Hannon, New York Times) The New York Times went on a search for the world’s up-and-coming visionaries, people who are “forward-looking, working…
A Step Closer to Our Mission: April Inside SocialCops
At SocialCops, what we do is driven by our mission of creating meaningful impact. Whether it is helping an organization to make its everyday decisions smarter or powering a national scheme that makes life better for 50 million women, it is always the impact that matters. April was one humbling…
Around the World and Behind the Scenes: March Inside SocialCops
We are now a full quarter into 2018, with an amazing last month in our rearview mirror. We couldn’t have wished for a better segue to the coming miles of our journey! We won some humbling and exciting awards, kickstarted some thrilling projects, met our fellow data and tech enthusiasts…
Our Sales Team Is Scaling Up. Here’s What You Need to Know.
On a normal day, our co-founder Prukalpa’s calendar looks like a complex mosaic of calls and meetings. The other day, she started off her morning with a couple of calls from home, one with a pharmaceutical company followed by one with an FMCG company. She then set off on an…
We Were Named One of the Best Startups to Work For
We’ve always thought that we’re a pretty cool company, but how do you verify that? Is there, like, some company that goes around finding and calling out the other cool kids on the block? It looks like there is, because we’re excited to announce that Aasaanjobs named us one of the Best Startups…
Little Wins, Wide Smiles, and Big Dreams: February Inside SocialCops
It’s time to talk about the unique, little page of our calendars — February! A lot like its special existence, it was a special month #InsideSocialCops. We welcomed some amazing people, some powerful features, and some humbling awards to the SocialCops family. All this and more made it a month…
Founders’ Staff: Big Responsibilities for Big Impact
I landed at SocialCops in a fairly nontraditional way. I found the company by Googling “data-driven tech startup Delhi” — true story! — and immediately knew I wanted to be a part of the organization. I considered other roles within the company, but with the patience and counsel of the…
We’re a Finalist for the UN SDG Action Awards
Only few of the most innovative, impactful and replicable initiatives in the world to address the #SDGs have made it to the final round of the #SDGawards.@UNinIndia & @Social_Cops‘s ‘SDG Dashboard’ is proud to be one of them! Winners will be announced at the @SDGglobalFest! pic.twitter.com/IjQqZ3Lw2o — United Nations India…
SocialCops Wins YourStory Digital India Award for High Impact Startup
How can data be used to build fast, scalable, and intuitive solutions to complex problems like those in India, and the developing world? YourStory thinks we’re showing how this can be done 🙂 We’re proud and excited to have won the Yourstory Digital India Award for the Most Impactful Startup…
Hiring Updates, Learnings, and Stories from San Francisco — January Inside SocialCops
2018 has gained its own sweet momentum and we couldn’t have wished for a better start. In addition to the hustle and bustle, planning, and dreaming that January brings with it, it also brought in some (oh so amazing!) opportunities and experiences for all of us #InsideSocialCops. What we have…
Data for Impact Fellowship: Invest Yourself in Impact
I felt the weight on my shoulders lift off, as the wheels of the plane did the same. The stress and sleepless nights from the previous month suddenly seemed to exist only in an abstract life. I was ready to move to India. Fast forward a week and I’m walking…
What People Operations Means to Me
“You were born to be a camp counselor” is what my mom told me in a recent phone call. That comment took me back to working as an actual camp counselor during high school summers; my time as a Freshman Orientation leader, welcoming new students to the university and helping…
Business Today: Connecting the Dots
“Ujjwala is a unique experiment where decision-makers, sitting in Delhi, used science to come up with a pan-India solution to address the conflicting objectives of both market and access for remote corners of the country. ‘For the first time, a planning exercise that would typically take two years and suffered…
Our Co-Founder’s Reflections and Learnings from 2017
Last year, we went through incredible growth and hit some amazing milestones. As we wrapped up the year, I took to Twitter to note down some of my most important learnings from 2017 about how to build and scale a company. Without further ado, here they are! In 2017, our…
Better Villages Through Big Data: TED Talks India
“Just imagine, we can create a world where data is not just used to increase the number of likes on your profile but to improve the life of every [person] living in every corner of the world.” On New Year’s Eve 2017, our co-founder Prukalpa Sankar took the stage on TED…
2017: When Our Dreams Came True
We started SocialCops just over four years ago with a dream — that data can make our world better. Since then, we’ve been searching for how to make this a reality and 2017 was the year that gave us the answer! This year, we watched in awe as the Prime…
Are you doing the “right thing”? Lessons and dilemmas of an early employee
As I was closing the chapter on 2017, I realized that I am about to turn 26 next year. Oh, I panicked. I panicked at the thought of turning 30 in the next four and a half years, and the worry about what legacy I will leave by then. I…
Case Study: Improving Dietary Diversity of 2,153 Villages with Impact Management
Adivasis (indigenous people in Southeast Asia) are stuck in an intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. What makes it far more serious is the fact that most of these people aren’t even aware of it and its impact on the quality of their lives. This malnourishment — passed over generations and transformed…
Loop Papua New Guinea: Delegation meets with data intelligence firm
“The PNG delegation has met with Indian data intelligence company ‘SocialCops’ to understand how the firm addresses a country’s critical problems through data intelligence from across the globe.” – Loop PNG Earlier this week, a delegation from Papua New Guinea came to New Delhi on a fact-finding mission. While they…
Business Standard: Powering decision making for firms’ data woes
We’re excited to have been profiled in Business Standard, along with two other Indian startups heading with us to Google Launchpad Accelerator in 2018. Check out the article on news stands! “SocialCops has built a data intelligence platform that functions in three layers — a data layer, technology layer and…
Inside SocialCops: Here Is What Our November Has Been Like
November has been a wonderful month for us. We kick-started new projects, our product hit some exciting benchmarks, and we received some news that we’re oh so happy to share with you. Let’s dive in! What we have been up to lately Google just announced their 5th class of Launchpad Accelerator,…
SocialCops Selected for Google Launchpad Accelerator 🎉
We’ve got some good news, and we’re oh so happy to share it with you. Google just announced their 5th class of Launchpad Accelerator, and we’re so excited to be a part of the group. We’ll be joining 23 other startups from around the world in San Francisco in January…
UNDP Papua New Guinea: Sustainable Development Goals and PNG Businesses
“[D]ata and technology can be used to chart a more scientific (and measurable) approach to development. The dashboard we are working on here in PNG will help highlight where development activities businesses are engaging in and where. This will support partnerships with other businesses, government departments and all development partners.”…
Inside SocialCops: What Our October Was Like
What a month it has been #InsideSocialCops! With the Prime Minister of India launching one of our projects, an action-packed townhall meeting, some really fun Diwali celebrations, and lots of traveling — it was no less than an absolute joy. Here is a roundup of what all went into making…
My First Month as a Data For Impact Fellow
I vividly remember my journey back to Jodhpur after my two-day interview with SocialCops. There was an intense sense of excitement, uncertainty and self-doubt. I had a decision to make, and a pretty big one: What to do after graduating? I had already been offered a full-time role with Accenture…
Firstpost: Narendra Modi says India has no dearth of resources, only needs good governance for development
“He [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] also launched the DISHA portal, a smart-governance tool developed for MPs and MLAs for monitoring implementation of various programmes and schemes of different ministries in their respective constituencies through a single portal.” – Firstpost We are excited to have the DISHA Dashboard — one of…
PM Narendra Modi Launches DISHA, Our Data Platform to Unlock Development in Districts
This blog was originally published in October 2017, then a few stats were updated in July 2018 as the platform expanded. “DISHA is a crucial step towards good governance through which we will be able to monitor everything centrally. It will enable us to effectively monitor every village of the country.”…
EnSpace: SocialCops – A Eureka! success story
“As students, when we started SocialCops, business plan competitions played an important role in bringing us in front of mentors who could help with networks and connections. Winning such competitions as Eureka! also gave us the much-needed credibility to be taken seriously right out of college.” – Prukalpa Sankar in…
Inside SocialCops: Stories from September
It has been a wonderful month #InsideSocialCops — projects gained momentum, new impactful discussions took flight, and with all this came a lot of traveling. Here are some of the stories from what was a great September. 🎉 What we have been up to lately Our work with Pradhan Mantri…
Tapping the Untapped Sector of Offline Data Collection
My Journey to SocialCops “At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession.” -Queen Elizabeth II Being a self-proclaimed maths geek and computer lover from my school days, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t become an engineer. I…
9 Signs You’re an Intern at SocialCops (or Perhaps Should Be)
1. You own a single pair of formal pants, which you wear only on special occasions such as interviews or your cousin’s wedding. 2. You like to hack — make things, break things, and learn along the way. Hackweek, Hackathons, and coding sprints are just a few examples of the…
Geospatial World: Centralized data intelligence-based planning necessary for sustainable development
Is centralized data intelligence-based planning crucial for #sustainable development? https://t.co/unIPbXG5y0 @Social_Cops @prukalpa — GEOSPATIAL WORLD (@geoworldmedia) August 31, 2017 “Decision making at both national and international level is becoming data-driven. Data – spatial data to be specific is critical to solving a lot of national problems and data intelligence can,…
Inside SocialCops: What All Happened This August?
It has been a really interesting month #InsideSocialCops and we are super excited to share it with you — new stories, new experiences, and so much more. Let’s begin! 🚀 What have we been up to lately? The product team at SocialCops holds innovation close to their heart — so…
The quiet digital revolution in Chandrapur
A pioneering initiative of the Maharashtra government has data-mapped three blocks of the district at an unprecedented level. Jiwati taluka (or sub-district) in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district is often called the “punishment block” in government echelons. Almost on the Andhra border, it takes two hours to reach the thickly forested area…
Data Is More Than Just Numbers
With data-driven governance it is possible to have all information needed to make important decisions. I have your dashboard open. Can you explain the reasons of the rejection chart to me?” Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan was curious. He was referring to a real-time dashboard that pulled…
I Rejected a Cushy Big 4 Consulting Gig to Make Big Impact at SocialCops
“Why?” I was sitting in a well maintained office on the 4th floor of a commercial building in downtown Boston. It was July. I was slightly sweaty as my suit was a bit too warm. My eyes glazed over as I tried going through a lengthy Excel test document. As…
Time to Break Down Silos, Rethink Development
As a college student in Singapore, I interned with an investment bank where I learned how real-time data was used every second to shape big and small decisions in the finance world. But, as internships and volunteer stints with non-profits in India made me realize, why isn’t the data being used…
Impakter: Achieving the SDGs, It Is Everyone’s Business
“Our challenge was to encourage local and national businesses in PNG [Papua New Guinea] to amplify and coordinate their individual efforts to join the global movement supporting the SDGs just like the other 9,400 companies in 160 countries that had already done.” A recent Impakter essay uses Papua New Guinea’s efforts as…
Economic Times: How state govts across India are using data mining & dashboards for better governance
“We have seen that a large part of service delivery… it does not reach people at the end of the day, because the decision maker does not have full information.” (Poornima Dore, Tata Trusts) We partnered with the Tata Trusts to drive micro-targeted development in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra.…
Launching Inside SocialCops Newsletter
We are excited to launch the first edition of Inside SocialCops — our newsletter that brings you stories of what is brewing at SocialCops. New projects, new faces, and new experiences, everything in one place. What have we been up to lately? We integrated some powerful, new features into our…
Launching Our First Course: Planning for Data Collection!
We’re super excited to announce the launch of the first online course from the SocialCops Academy — Planning for Data Collection. Sign up here. Master the basic concepts, tools and tips you need to create a stellar data collection plan for your organization in this online course. Learn how mobile-based…
When Should You Use a Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS)?
In today’s era of ‘divide and conquer’, software development has been redefined multiple times to suit the need of the hour. Typically with small, young product teams — like the SocialCops team was in the summer of 2014 — quick prototyping is the dominant and most pressing need. The focus…
Using Data Intelligence to Track Progress Towards the UN SDGs
SocialCops was invited to speak at the #BusinessCoalition4SDGs Conference held in Papua New Guinea where we presented our work around tracking India’s progress towards achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) with the help of data intelligence. “The forum heard about an innovative web platform developed by a leading Indian…
Economic Times: Why a clutch of young tech ventures are keen on projects for the government
Why a clutch of young tech ventures are keen on projects for the government https://t.co/lV664FAXQw @aphota @lucideustech @Social_Cops — ETtech (@ETtech) June 15, 2017 We’re excited that our work with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas was featured in an Economic Times article about startups working with the government to…
Analytics India: This Delhi-based Data Intelligence Company is using data to build fast, scalable and intuitive solutions to complex problems
“Data intelligence, which is the essence of this startup, lets SocialCops’ partners use their platform to gain insights from the world’s most difficult data and make complex decisions feel effortless.” – Analytics India Magazine We’re excited to be featured in Analytics India Magazine, which spoke to our co-founder Prukalpa about how SocialCops is making…
Hackathon 2017: Building a Better SocialCops
It was 9 pm on a Friday, a time when most offices would be dead — no overhead lights, no persistent hum from the AC, no ringing phones. The perfect picture of calm and quiet, save occasional car horns trickling in from the nearby road. On June 2nd, this was…
Not On the Kotlin-Android Bandwagon Yet?
So Google just bestowed their blessing unto our new null-safe, statically-typed friend. Is it too early to get on board? No, it is not. Is it worth the trouble? There is no trouble. What is it? Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, Kotlin is a programming language…
How Big Data Can Influence Decisions That Actually Matter | TEDx Gateway
Some of the biggest decisions in the world use little data, while some don’t use data at all. In December 2016, our co-founder Prukalpa Sankar took the stage at TedX Gateway, Asia’s largest TedX conference, to talk about the importance of data and technology in improving healthcare, crime, governance, urban…
The Telegraph India: SocialCops Launches Fellowship for Entrepreneurs to Create Data-Driven Solutions for India
“SocialCops announces the launch of the Data for Impact Fellowship – a program that aims to bring together enterprising future leaders and experienced government decision-makers in solving some of India’s most critical problems through the power of data.” – The Telegraph India We’re excited to have our new Data For Impact Fellowship…
Introducing the Data For Impact Fellowship
The Guardian Minister is scheduled to arrive just shy of midnight — at 11:30 pm. The Collector told us about the Minister’s visit earlier that day, and we’ve now been waiting four hours to show him our village development dashboard. At 11:30 pm, the door of the newly renovated conference…
Cash Transfers: The Deceptively Simple Idea Whose Time Has Come
For a long time, governments have used in-kind welfare schemes to tackle poverty. In-kind schemes provide goods or services — food for schoolchildren, checkups for pregnant mothers, food stamps for families below the poverty line, etc. These in-kind welfare schemes are often complicated and multi-layered, so often only a small…
NDTV: Big Data Can Help Solve India’s Big Problems
“Join us on this episode of Startup Wednesday as we discuss India’s glaring data gaps, unstructured data reports and the difference big data can make.” – NDTV Our co-founder, Prukalpa, was recently featured on NDTV’s Startup Wednesday! Check out the full video here to learn more about how big data…
Why I Moved to the Startup World to Drive Better Governance in India
I’m not quite sure when, where, or how I developed a keen interest in the issue of governance in India. Maybe it was from my love for social science classes in school or my father’s interest in politics and development. Perhaps it was the inspiring texts I read as part…
The Story Behind Our Brand Refresh
Before I joined SocialCops, I was working for myself as a freelance designer. Letting go of my independence to join a startup was an intimidating leap. Since I had no experience with number crunching, I thought my biggest challenge would be entering this data-driven world. But I actually had a…
How We Built a Fast, Maintainable Website in 1 Month
To kick off 2017, we’re excited to launch our new website! We loved our previous website, but we found that it was a pain to maintain and update. This became a big problem when we went through our rebrand, which required us to completely overhaul our website. Instead of trying…
Introducing a New SocialCops
If you’ve checked out our website recently, you might have noticed that some things have changed. We have a completely new logo, new look, new ideas behind our work…and even the website is all new! All of these changes are the result of our our brand refresh, which we’re excited…
Don’t Make for India. Make for Bharat.
India has always been a land of paradoxes. This is a cliche, and yet cliches exist because they are true. It is true for the reasons that everyone talks about — India’s 25% illiteracy paired with the world’s second-largest pool of trained engineers, the widespread use of bullock carts in…
Driving Rapid Development for 290 Villages in Chandrapur
“When you have numbers, figures, and data in front of you, you stop shooting in the dark.” -Ashutosh Salil, IAS, District Collector of Chandrapur In the fall of 2016, Sudhir Mungantiwar, the Honorable Minister of Forest, Finance, and Planning for the Government of Maharashtra reached out to the Tata Trusts.…
An Insider’s Peek into Life in the SocialCops Data Team
At SocialCops, data is at the core of all our decisions, from small decisions like changing the header image of our website to big decisions like empowering policy makers with the correct information. We never take a step without consulting our friend, data. This means that the Data Team at…
Field Visits: The Key to Growing Your Product and Driving Change
Change is a buzz word these days. Every other app and tech product want to change the world for better. This desire to change the world is great, but the million dollar question is whether the most sophisticated and advanced technology can actually succeed in making the change we want…
Economic Times: SocialCops Tackles Real World Problems with Data Intelligence
We’re excited to be included in the Economic Times’ Do Big Stories, a series of videos about the best digital innovations being powered by Indian companies. Check out the video and article to learn about the biggest bottleneck in data-driven decision making in the developing world, how our platform is being…
A Week in the Life of a Policy & Governance Manager at SocialCops
My name is Akshay Gujar, and I joined SocialCops as a Policy & Governance Manager in August 2016. Before SocialCops, I was part of the 2015 Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Fellowship. Fascinated by the role data can play in improving governance and policy and inspired by blog posts such as these,…
Community Mapping and Micro-Planning Project for 264 Villages Across Vijayawada
Mr. Srinivas Kesineni, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, in partnership with the Tata Trusts undertook a community mapping and micro-planning program for 264 villages. The program covered Vijayawada’s four Assembly constituencies — Jaggaiahpet, Mylavaram, Nandigama, and Tiruvur. The goal — transform every one of the…
Why the Government Relies on SECC Data Instead of a Poverty Line in India
How do we make India’s poor richer? Before policymakers tackle India’s most important question, they need to answer two more basic questions: How many poor are there? And who are they? Identifying the poor is the first crucial step in designing India’s anti-poverty programs. Since Independence, India has used a…
SocialCops: What We Actually Do
People often post random questions in our chat box. Some people ask “So what do you really do?” Some do their research and get more specific. “Are you a data collection app?”, “Are you a database?”, “Are you an analytics company?”, and “Are you a data visualization company?” are common questions.…
The Guardian: Data Pioneers Aim to Close the Development Gap in Rural India
“The problem [Prime Minister] Modi has is scale and limited resources. Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of New Delhi startup SocialCops, believes the solution lies in open data. By using public data to create a realistic picture of social problems, Sankar says resources can be allocated more quickly and effectively.” – The…
Brand Equity: Here’s how SocialCops’ Prukalpa Sankar is making a difference with data
Here’s how @SocialCop’s Prukalpa Sankar is making a difference with data. Read: https://t.co/lUJi7qCImg #KyooriusDesignyatra2016 @Kyoorius — Brand Equity (@ETBrandEquity) September 30, 2016 In September 2016, Prukalpa took some time away from the office to speak at Kyoorius’ Designyatra in Jaipur. While she was there, Brand Equity, an initiative of the…
Livemint: The social impact of the “aha” moment
“Design for social impact is not a new idea. But in India, where design is still being absorbed by mainstream industry, let alone by non-profits, SocialCops is a pioneer.” – Livemint We’re excited to be featured in Live Mint’s article about the “aha” moment, the innovator’s moment of epiphany that…
Building Smart Cities: The Data-Driven Way
In September 2016, we were invited to speak at the 4th year of The Big 5 Construct India 2016 in Mumbai. The conferences gathered the best of the construction industry and the latest solutions specifically tailored for the Indian built environment under one roof. In total, the conference featured 150 exhibitors (including us!) from…
24 or 42 — It Really Doesn’t Matter
The ground slips out from under me and suddenly I am airborne when I really should not be. I land hard on a dusty bare field with a few sprouts of grass. That hurt and definitely did not look elegant. I have just been body checked by a 24-year-old girl.…
Data-Driven Decision Making for Agriculture in India
Though it produces surplus food, India is home to the largest undernourished population in the world. While the production of rice and wheat has grown consistently since Independence, the growth in pulse production has stagnated. (Pulse refers to dried peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas, and other legumes.) As a result, India…
MELT 2016: How Big Data Can Drive Big Decisions
This Saturday, August 27, we were excited to speak at ZEE MELT 2016, India’s biggest festival for creativity and innovation in marketing and communications. .@Social_Cops Christine and you guys should keep that brilliant work up! Thanks so much for doing this for #zeemelthttps://t.co/WZzgfs9jux — Kyoorius (@Kyoorius) August 27, 2016 In case you missed…
Spark for Scale: Machine Learning for Big Data
Recently we shared an introduction to machine learning. While making machines learn from data is fun, the data from real-world scenarios often gets out of hand if you try to implement traditional machine-learning techniques on your computer. To actually use machine learning with big data, it’s crucial to learn how…