The one area of business where data is separating the winners from the losers at the fastest clip is the race to understand customer behavior. Across sectors, data intelligence is increasingly seen as the most potent weapon in the battle for customer acquisition and retention. Little wonder that from likes…
Data Is Fundamentally Changing Mindsets: An Interview with Anu Acharya, MapMyGenome
Anu Acharya is founder and CEO of MapMyGenome India, a Hyderabad-based genomics company. GenomePatri, its flagship product, helps you discover your genetic predisposition – what diseases you are likely to get, for instance – by profiling your gene makeup. The vision: “Better Health through Technology”. Acharya, who is an alumnus…
Siloed Data Is the Biggest Challenge for Data-Driven Governance: An Interview with Poornima Dore, Tata Trusts
From education to health and nutrition to natural resource management, Tata Trusts’ footprint in a wide array of sectors makes it one of the most authentic voices on complex development issues in India. Now the Mumbai-headquartered organization is throwing its might behind a crucial reform process: championing data-driven governance to…
Culture of Data Use Will Make it Easier to Deal with Failure: An Interview With Debjani Ghosh, Intel
Debjani Ghosh, Intel’s Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, and Managing Director, South Asia, is one of the region’s most prominent technology evangelists. Under her leadership, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker has evolved into a key strategic ally of the Indian government’s digital literacy and innovation programs. Ghosh says data-driven…
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…
Why Mobile-Based Data Collection Is Here to Stay: An Interview With Kailash Karthik, IAS
From solving hard business challenges with IBM’s emerging markets strategy division to tackling complex civic problems as the Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil), Rangia, Kamrup District, Assam, Kailash Karthik’s career is a study in contrasts. As a young bureaucrat, Karthik says he was sold on the power of data and technology in aiding efficient…
7 Common Myths About Working With the Indian Government
Ministry. Secretariat. Collectorate. Panchayat Samiti. Sir. Madam. Sir. Madam. Meeting. Field Visit. Presentation. New Delhi. Nagpur. Noamundi. These are the words around which my life revolves currently. At SocialCops, we work on a large number of projects with the government. Typically, our data platform helps some of the most important…
5 Best Practices for NGOs to Ace Funding Grant Proposals
When thinking about data in the development space, images of field workers talking to their stakeholders — farmers, nursing mothers, and community meetings — and collecting authentic data through tablets, smart phones, or pen and paper come to mind. However, for many NGOs, data collection is often quite different. Many…
6 Technological Interventions to Rid India of Corruption
India holds the dubious distinction of ranking 85th among 175 nations surveyed for corruption. The socio-economic price of corruption is very high. So, as India takes its place on the world economic stage, corruption needs to be tackled seriously. On the one hand, the attitude of accepting bribery needs to…
Financial Inclusion: The Last Mile
Gunji, in Uttarkhand – a northern state of India, nestled among the Himalayan Mountains – is a place of spectacular beauty and an equally treacherous terrain. Reaching this idyllic spot located at least 45 km away from a motorable road takes 4 days of challenging trek along the ferocious Kali…
Why Design Matters: Designing a Data Platform to Solve Problems That Matter
At SocialCops, we’re building a data platform to solve the biggest problems facing humanity. In the short three years of our existence, our data platform has been used to drive healthcare policy, optimize disaster relief operations, and solve urban planning issues. We were founded to solve developing world problems. This means our…
Goonj: Using Data to Manage Logistics for Development
Introduction: Logistics in the Social Sector Industrial supply chain and logistics management solutions are a major application area of data-driven systems, and can be seen as a precursor to the big data revolution. However, you would be surprised how managing logistics in the social sector is an entirely different ball…
7 Scenarios of Data Use in the Development Sector
Who does data matter to in the development space, and how do those people use data? Though organizations and funders vary greatly, data can play a role in the decisions of all key actors in development funding and organizations. Data in Development Funding Funders keep the money flowing and programs running,…
7 People In Data Journalism You Should Know About
The last few years have seen a data explosion. IBM estimates that we are generating quintillion bytes of data each day, more than 90% of which has been created in the last two years. To make the best use of these developments, we have had to upgrade our understanding of…
Development Alternatives’ Perspective on Data for Development
Sustainable development for rural India, in terms of both policy and practice, has been one of the toughest problems to solve for our times. Development Alternatives, a renowned research and action organisation has been creatively engaged in this sector for thirty three years. Through its different non-profit and for-profit social…
How PAISA Is Establishing Data Driven Accountability in the Education Sector
“Do Schools Get Their Money?” is one of the key questions which drives the PAISA (Planning, Allocations and Expenditures, Institutions: Studies in Accountability) project at Accountability Initiative (AI). Tracking financial flows in the Indian social sector for research and advocacy can be a challenging. To understand the role of data…
How Does ASER Measure Learning Outcomes?
The Annual Status of the Education Report (ASER) survey is now an indispensable reference point for education policy making in India. The ASER reports have been regularly cited in Parliamentary proceedings, the National Economic Surveys and the erstwhile Planning Commission’s reports. Several states have started remedial education programs based on…
Why Funders Are Increasingly Demanding Data Before Giving a Grant to Your Nonprofit
“In God we trust; all others must bring data” Nonprofits have long enjoyed our goodwill and continue to hold an important position in the community. Public and private investment in projects led by nonprofits has been integral to the welfare of our society. For a long time, funding nonprofits has…
Understanding the World’s Largest Learning Outcomes Survey and Its Impact on Education Policy
The Annual Status of the Education Report (ASER) survey is a unique activity for many reasons. Every year, with the help of more than 25,000 volunteers, ASER assesses the basic reading and arithmetic skills of more than 6,00,000 children in the age group of 5-16 years — more than the twice the…
How This Government Project Is Driving Health Care Policy Using Data from the Field
The Indian Healthcare System The healthcare system in India is structurally a complex hierarchy of different government and private agencies at centre, state, district and village levels. Given India’s poor global standing in public healthcare and the nature of bureaucratic information flows, data-driven decision making is being pitched as a…
Unravelling the Data Ecosystem Series
The Data Revolution and Us “There is a long history of governments, businesses, science and citizens producing and utilising data in order to monitor, regulate, profit from, and make sense of the world. Data has traditionally been time-consuming and costly to generate, analyse and interpret, and generally provided static, often…
Akshaya Patra: How the World’s Largest School Lunch Program is Managing Data
With the advent of contemporary data affordances, i.e. new actionable possibilities, we have seen an unprecedented rise in efforts to harness data-driven decision support systems in organisations across the world. However, in the social sector organisations, especially in the developing world, these possibilities are yet to emerge. Akshaya Patra –…
Why Mobile Data Collection Can Save Money in One Cool Infographic
At SocialCops, we developed a mobile data collection tool that is now used by partners globally to collect data via mobile and run their monitoring processes. It can save money by reducing the cost of data collection by 23% for our over 150+ partners. You ask how? Let us break it down…
Invest in Mobile Now: The Importance of Mobile Phones in India
Mobile phones in India have undergone an evolution from simple devices for sending and receiving text messages to being able to replace the workstation. Way back in 1997, my mother’s Motorola phone weighed 700 grams, with a incoming calling rate on of 16 rupees per minute. Two decades later, an outgoing call is…
Investing Their Lives to Change One Life at a Time: Lessons on Leadership from Bihar
A couple of months ago, some friends and I were debating what distinguishes a “manager” from a “leader”. Were the two could be synonymous? If yes, then under what circumstances? Needless to say, we never arrived at a conclusion. Cut the chase to January 2015 when I was in Bihar…
7 NGOs That Are Using Data for Impact and Why You Should Use It Too
7 NGO’s that are turning towards data to utilize resources effectively, save time & costs, measure impact and why you should start too.
Can Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Be Achieved Through Technology?
Swachh Bharat has found its place as a national priority under Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The task is enormous and will require change in individual behavior as well as transformation in sanitation infrastructure and capabilities. Technology can be an enabler in this process by providing tools, processes, and structures to make cleanliness and sanitation…
A Well-Built Public Toilet With No Access To Water: The Indian Development Dilemma
The beauty of working at a startup lies in the fact that in some way, you get exposed to every aspect of the business. As the data sciences lab intern, my job essentially involves analyzing and visualizing social data. However, on day 5, after my daily religious cup of chai…