PowerCuts.IN: Creating awareness & Citizen engagement around the Power Cut Issue of India
This project also has a Changeshop where you can read more about its latest progress.
Go to Changeshop: PowerCuts.IN: Power Cuts in India.
The focus on giving accessible ways for people to have their voices and concerns heard globally.
About You
About You
First Name
Ajay
Last Name
Kumar
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
PowerCuts.IN
Organization Website
Organization Country
India, XX
Country where this project is creating social impact
India, XX
Is your organization a
Not registered
How long has your organization been operating?
Less than a year
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Innovation
Entry Form title
PowerCuts.IN: Creating awareness & Citizen engagement around the Power Cut Issue of India
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for less than a year
THE NEED: Describe the need for your solution and the size/dynamic of the community (ies) you will engage
Power cut problem in India has been taken for granted, mostly because the urban population can afford alternative means of power(inverters/generators) and the middle class or rural population has become used to it and has started to "live with it".
There is a need to trigger a conversation around the issue of power cuts in India which aims at engaging relevant stakeholders: local/regional policy makers, civil society organizations, academicians, researchers & the energy companies with citizens to enable effective governance. The project also aspires to highlight the power issues in the Rural areas by acting as a platform to publish first hand stories from Rural India in multiple forms such as voice, pictures and videos.
The focus of media reports around power issue has mainly revolved around the urban and semi-urban cities of India whereas Rural India rarely gets any attention.
Crowd-sourcing power cut information across India would enable us to identify energy gaps, frequency & duration of power cuts and help bust some myths around the issue across India, since the data would primarily be citizen generated and considerably accurate.
THE SOLUTION: Please explain what your solution offers and how it is innovative. How will you put your solution into the hands of users or beneficiaries? Be specific!
A platform connecting the Electricity Utility companies of India with the citizens where the common binding force will be "information" with the power of ICTs. Citizens using various mediums like Web, Mobile web, Smartphone Apps, SMS and Phone Call can report frequency and duration of the power cuts from their location and voice their problems around it to be made available to everyone on the web ensuring larger visibility. The utility companies and the government can make use of this data to have a reality check on the power cut problem reported by citizens.
Other issues around power cut like Power Theft, can be tackled by the power of citizen journalism where people can report incidents of theft they witness and thus the senior management in utility companies can take note of such incidents and follow up. This problem is hard to monitor by companies, hence connecting them with citizen reports is a useful step.
Utility companies can use this platform to send out "Scheduled power cut" information in advance to the citizens using SMS/Email/Notifications feature on the site, hence providing timely information to the citizens.
Citizens can keep a track of the number, frequency and duration of power cuts happening in their locality and ask informed questions to the concerned authorities around the issue showing them factual data.
With the power of Internet, Mobile, Voice, Video and power of People put together, all the stakeholders can be empowered to address the issues around power cuts in India at various levels.
THE MODEL: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference through use of information technology and media
Citizen A: Reports regularly about power cuts duration daily from his location. At the end of the month, visits the website and pulls out a monthly report with all the cuts/duration and writes a letter to the electricity department asking questions.
Electricity Company B: Informs everyone about the planned power cuts to happen in the next week due to technical maintenance work being done throughout the city.
Citizen B: Notices a factory in his neighbourhood pulling electricity directly from the electric poles(illegally). S/he takes a picture using their Smartphone and sends a report on the site with the location information under the category "Theft". An alert is sent to the concerned utility company of that area through email subscription. The company's senior management then investigates the exact cause and people behind the theft and takes necessary action.
Villager A: Calls in to the telephone line of the site to record his concern about power issues in his village due to which his kids cannot study after sunset or how farming activities are hampered.
Voice report is published with location information on the map on the site. People from media take note of the audio report and try to highlight the issue with the government asking direct questions.
Since the data is accessible in various open formats and through an open API, several other websites and programmers can make use of this data to build around statistical analysis with correlations and draw comparisons and inferences with other data sets.
THE MARKETPLACE: Who are your peers and competitors? What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
There are several other civic engagement initiatives that club the Power Cut issue along with other issues. For e.g. http://www.jaagore.com/category/issues/civic-issues
TazzaGo App http://www.taazza.com/ - Bangalore - Screen: http://www.appnama.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SC20110613-165410.jpeg
And hopefully many more. However there is not a single focused platform just around the Power Issue for India.
The general challenges are:
1) To actively engage participation from all such platforms and stakeholders to work on the common goal and the problem at hand.
2) Reach out to utility companies and convince them to collaborate and share information.
3) Reaching out to the Rural mass and provide them with easy to use mediums of reporting or voicing their concerns.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
FOUNDING STORY: We want to hear about your “Aha!” moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution’s potential to change the world.
From my experience working on ICT solutions for Rural areas, I have realised the existence of the power problem and the way its ignored everywhere. One fine day when a bunch of twitter users were conversing around the issue the idea of mapping the locations of power cuts was suggested. Immediately seeing this in relation with the thought I once had about this issue & the ability to deploy crowdsourced maps using the Ushahidi software, I initiated the quick version of the concept in 28 minutes with two categories "Planned and Unplanned" power cuts. Now it has grown to a lot more than that over a period of time, evolving, based on user experiences shared and feedback.
With the support of volunteers it has been possible to take it to this levels and now we plan to convert this into something large and useful for the community, trying to connect information with people and giving ears to the unheard voices. The idea of having the collected information as a basis of this conversation and not only providing a platform through which people will be "heard" but the data, the videos, sms's, blogs etc
will serve as the departure point for deliberation on the subject.
Specify both the depth and scale of your solution’s social impact to date
The reach of the project has been the Internet savvy population mainly people who access: Twitter/Web/Mobile apps. Total 700+ reports covering more than half of states in India creating an initial trigger in the media community as well through the extent of attention and coverage[25+ reports] it has got so far, including BBC Radio[UK] & TV[India].
With the launch of SMS+Phone Call reporting we expect it to scale higher and including the non-internet population of India especially the Rural population. Technology wise, making the data open and accessible has been the first priority of the project and we aim to work on interactive features and visualisations with information and analysis from various sources and publish them in various forms like: audio, video, blog posts etc.
Project Impact etc:
In the next few years we aim to reach out to every state in India and focus on at least 10 urban locations each year tracking frequency, duration & power cut trends combined with citizen testimonials around the issue. Reach out to 10 NGO partners working with Rural communities, recording & publishing voices citing how the power cut issue affects their lives and their current situation.
What is your projected impact within the next 1-5 years? Is your idea replicable? If so, how?
The idea is easily replicable to other citizen media initiatives and power cut issue around the other developing countries around the world as well. The focus of the project is around good and easy user experiences combined with mediums of reporting which have lower barrier to entry and are inclusive in nature. Based on learning of the project the idea can be executed and replicated.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and mark growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Launch Audio Call Reporting to Map Publishing for Rural Population
Six-Month Tasks
Task 1
Identify Local Service Provider/Partner for IVR Support - for call to report feature
Task 2
Identify Regional Print Media contacts for publicity of Call to Report Feature in Rural Areas
Task 3
Build a team of Transcribers who could convert Audio reports into text.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Partner with NGOs working with Rural Community
12-Month Tasks
Task 1
Identify Partners from distributed locations in India working with Rural Community
Task 2
Establish Tool kit for them to follow and enable publishing of voice reports from villages using phone
Task 3
Build Feedback mechanism with villagers using the NGO partners
How many people have been impacted by your project?
Fewer than 100
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
101‐1000
Sustainability
Explain how your company, program, service or product is structured
Undefined
What barriers have hindered the success of your project to date? How do you plan to overcome these and other challenges as you grow your solution?
* Volunteers/Volunteer Time
* Bubble Burst phenomena and lack of people reporting constantly.
* No linkage with Utility companies so far.
Strategy:
1) Volunteers get encouraged if they see their time spent turning into something useful.
So far we have had many reports but no analysis or visualisations done.
The idea of coming up with useful analysis and reports form the data collected will encourage the volunteers to understand the value of the time they are putting in.
2) Incentives to reporters: Planning to come up with a model where for every x number of dedicated reports, we sponsor a solar lamp to a village that needs it.
3) With Utility companies, we aim to provide them with power theft information in return of information from them.
How do you see the information-technology and media sectors shifting over the next decade? How will your solution adapt to and/or drive that changing environment?
There would be censorship, civil resistance around it and promotion of decentralized systems of communications. Citizen media has emerged as a form of New media which is being acknowledged and accepted by the masses as it empowers the common man to tell stories and share it with the world. The fact that citizen media results in citizen empowerment makes it something to look forward to in terms of overall development.
Failure is not always an option. If your solution fails to gain traction in the next two years, what other applications of the idea could you explore?
Converting the site into a portal aggregating information related to the Power Industry and activities in India, including policies, interventions by governments etc. The core idea of connecting "information" to people shall remain always.
Expand on your selections, explaining how you will sustain funding
Friends and Volunteers are helping with moderation of reports and ideas on the projects.
Cost of Server space and developer time is being contributed by me on an individual basis so far and will continue to be so for as long as possible.
Volunteers and their time is an asset and tools like Mobile Apps have been done on a pro bono basis by individuals.
Tell us about your partnerships
* Dedicated SMS Number with 500000 SMS per month being sponsored by One97.com Communications India. For free, no charges.
* IVR Number in talks with VoiceTree.co.in
* Hazel Media.in developed a Nokia/Symbian/Blackberry app as a gesture to support the cause.
All are informal partnerships, no contracts/paper agreements. Just through word of mouth.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section?
Dedicated team of:
1) Moderators of Reports and Transcribers
2) PR/Marketing Staff
3) Strategic Partners like NGOs, Mobile VAS providers, Analysts
4) Researcher
Changemakers is a collaborative and supportive space. Please specify any community resources you would need to grow and sustain your initiative. Select all that apply
Investment, Human resources or talent, Marketing or media, Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.), Innovation or ideas, Mentorship.
Specify any resources you might offer to support other initiatives. Select all that apply
Collaboration or networking, Innovation or ideas, Mentorship.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren’t specified within the list
An initiative likes this can not be success from individual or volunteer contributions alone. Support of any kind that helps us achieve objectives and fine tune activities on a regular basis is always required.
We could use help and support in formalising the project into a body, form a full time team and enable us to hire a dedicated team on this.
Summary
Define your company, program, service or product in 1-2 short sentences
Frustrated with the Power Cut problem? Tell us your story and we will try to make your voices heard.
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences
The focus on giving accessible ways for people to have their voices and concerns heard globally.
 | 87 weeks ago Ajay Kumar updated this Competition Entry. |
| 93 weeks ago Ajay Kumar updated this Competition Entry. |
| 93 weeks ago Ajay Kumar submitted this idea. |
