We are a social tech company incubated out of IIT-Delhi. We started in 2009 with the intent of reversing the flow of information, that is, to make it bottom-up instead of top-down. Using simple technologies and social context to design tools, we have been able to impact communities – reaching over 5 million individuals through community-led platforms operating across 110+ districts in collaboration with 250+ partners across India. Our platforms have also covered 5 countries beyond India – Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Namibia, and South Africa. Click here to know about our Theory of Change.

We developed Mobile Vaani as a voice-first participatory media platform for underserved communities, accessible even through basic feature phones. We have built an intelligent IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system that allows people to call into a number and leave a message about their community, or listen to messages left by others. Our flagship deployment in Jharkhand and Bihar now has over 100,000 monthly unique users who discuss a wide range of issues including culture, local updates, announcements, government schemes, and information sharing. Read about our Mobile Vaani Manifesto here.

Though we continue to produce significant published research and receive industry awards, we evaluate our success by the social impact of our work on communities. We have worked with several fantastic partners with support from the Knight Foundation, Grand Challanges Canada, Power of Ideas, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

For media inquiries, send a mail to contact@gramvaani.org