One-day Design Thinking Workshop

Date: 15/7/2018

Description: Location: IIIT Bangalore

Date/Time: 15th July 2018, 10 am to 8 pm

A technology design workshop is being conducted by CGnet Swara in association with Microsoft Research Labs, The Pickle Jar and the Centre for IT and Public Policy, IIIT Bangalore.

5 months ago, an event was held in Mumbai where working professionals in cities called government officers in rural areas to solve problems reported on CGnet Swara’s helpline number. The problems reported by villagers on this helpline range from widows who have not received their pension to labourers who have not received their NREGA wages. Due to the efforts of urban activists at the workshop, many of these problems have now been solved.

Through this workshop, we want to extend this experience and further work collaboratively in conceptualizing and designing a scalable technology that enables urban activists in India and, across the world, to help solve rural governance problems through, possibly, a simple phone call.

Schedule:

10 am – 1 pm: Calling up officers to solve rural governance problems reported on CGnet Swara’s helpline number and understanding how the process works.

1 pm: Lunch

2-6 pm: Team activity to conceptualize and design a technology that makes it easy for an urban audience to call officers and solve rural problems.

6-8 pm: Film screenings curated by Vasanthi Srinivasan of The Pickle Jar.

CITAPP at IIIT Bangalore is an interdisciplinary think-tank set-up to focus on the policy challenges and the organizational demands made by technological innovation. Of particular interest to the Centre is how technological advances, along with institutional changes that harness the legitimacy and the powers of bureaucracies and market, address the needs of underserved communities.