Projects of two NCR companies shortlisted for IT body's rural innovation award
Projectsu00a0 of two NCR companies shortlisted for IT body's rural innovation awardu00a0
They are making life simpler with the help of mobile phones. The two innovative projects from Noida -- 'Gaon Ki Awaaz' and 'Panini Keypad' -- have made it to the finals of Genpact NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours.
Walky talky: Mobiles are being used to gather local news and then send
it to subscribers as MMS. Pic/Mid DayGaon Ki Awaaz was a service started by Noida resident Sunil Saxena and Satyendra Pratap. It was inspired by the spread of mobile phones in Indian villages. It presented the opportunity to create a news service through MMS that was about villagers and in their language, and which informed them of what was happening in their village and in neighbouring villages.u00a0
"Everybody is now connected through mobile so we take news and information to communities that cannot read newspapers because they are illiterate or watch news on TV because of lack of electricity. We gather the local news, record it in their local language and send to the subscriber as MMS," explained Saxena who is also the Dean of International Media Institute of India, Noida.
"We spoke to villagers randomly. They wanted information about the availability of kerosene and rice at the local PDS shops, availability of work under NREGA, events in the village, news about health camps etc so we keep informing them about it all with the help of two reporters," Saxena elaborated.u00a0
Gaon Ki Awaaz was launched in December 2009 in Rampur-Mathura village, which is located in the Mahmudabad block of Sitapur district - about 570 km from New Delhi with a subscriber base of 20 initially which has now gone up to 250.
u00a0Similarly on the mobile platform, another Noida based company has rolled out cutting edge technology that makes typing SMses in vernacular languages as easy as typing in English. Remember the Devnagari script at IIT's Techfest? Here's a similar technology meant for people who are not very well versed with English.
The everyday average Indian is not always comfortable using English-based interfaces like the ones seen on most devices available in the market. Although there are keypads with Devnagari script inscribed on them, they are not very helpful for people who only understand regional languages.
This is where Luna Ergonomics come into play which has come with Panini Keypad which allows you to send text messages, store contacts and utilise other applications in your own language. The technologies are already deployed into the phone for languages like Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and work continues to include many others. Plus, the software is also compatible for Java, iOS and Android OS based phones.u00a0u00a0
This is what Abhijit Bhattacharjee, CEO of Luna Ergonomics, says: "The new approach being dictionary-less, lightweight and not being rule-based, offers a wide range of technical advantages to the device manufacturers. All languages - all devices - one usability. An Indian innovation." Also, you'll get a glimpse of the Panini Keypad at the Mobile World Congress from February 14 onwards.
