We are bringing together a working group of public interest technologists - developers, designers, data practitioners from the Indian digital commons- to work alongside grassroots organisations trying to build with the public.
Too many technologists believe tech will fix everything, so much of technology today is built at people, not with them. We intend to mobilise technologists to help communities realise their imaginations of what a People’s Digital Infrastructure can look like—problems articulated by the people living it, where we only show up to serve that articulation.
Over the last few months, as part of a pilot collaboration with the folks at SAFAR, we connected active technologists and experts in the community with projects and problems on the ground. Note that the community members participated in these projects on a voluntary basis and made the contributions/views in their own personal capacity.
Among other things, they worked on:
- Building a people’s city | Shillong - Participated in the People’s City Convention in Shillong, with street vendors, community health workers, anganwadi workers and more. At the convention, various communities described their experiences and issues with being subjects of the state’s technological interventions. After assessing the needs and demands of the communities for where technology can actually make their lives easier, volunteers assisted them in prototyping some of the ideas. Among others was a simple grievance redressal tool that they can model and showcase to the municipality, as well as implement in their own unions.
- Gig workers | Karnataka: Participated in various public meetings and consultations organised by SAFAR, Karnataka Gig Workers Board, Department of Labour - Govt of Karnataka and more. Among other things discussed at these consultations were the design and development of digital and IT infrastructures that enable platform workers to register, access information, claim their rights, and utilise statutory grievance redress mechanisms to hold institutions accountable, under the Act.
- Social audits of schools | Bihar: Volunteers are assisting organisations and Social Audit units(SAU) in Bihar looking into the Samagra Shiksha school audit. Primarily looking into designing and simplifying the data collection process flows for the block/village level as well as figuring out a way for the SAU to follow NCERT audit guidelines while keeping the audit focused on major pain points: infrastructure, shortage of teachers, capacity, teaching staff, playgrounds, and attendance.
- Social audits of electoral rolls: Volunteers are assisting grassroots organisations in Karnataka and Delhi that are conducting community pilot audits of the Special Intensive Revision exercise run by the poll body.
While this is a closed working group for now, we are actively looking to grow it. If you build technology and believe it should serve people’s rights, indicate your interest here, and we’ll pull you in based on your experience.
cc: @Sree_harsha_Thanneru @rakshita_swamy @rahulporuri @fossdot @nikochiko