Students of the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode, (IIM-K), have launched an android mobile app, Makeourkerala, which, among other things, aims to help tackle stray dog attacks.
The app lets users tag their location and post social issues or activities nearby. Users can also share their sentiments, follow an event and track any social issue from the application. Individuals, government bodies and NGOs can create an invite for a social event with activity details, location and date to seek public participation. Makeourkerala is the creation of five executive PGP students of IIM-K Kochi campus. (The Executive Post Graduate Programme caters to working professionals). Under the guidance of Sidhartha S. Padhi, Assistant Professor, IIM-K, the team, consisting of Jomon Chacko (Delivery Manager at Tata Consultancy Services), Jebin George (Chief Manager, Federal Bank), Kurien Joseph (Manager, Federal Bank), Nithin Paul Cherian (Founder, Inmeik Technologies) and Paul James (Marketing Head, Fingent Corp.) identified various challenges.
“Through this app, we hope to achieve a strong platform where people come together for common goals that they have pledged to support. Our vision is to empower the people with right data and tools to ensure accountability, ” Prof. Padhi said.
An IIM-K statement issued here on Wednesday said the initiative would focus on major issues including the issue of stray dog attacks in the State.
Makeourkerala sees an opportunity to reduce the number of stray dogs by clearing garbage and adopting dogs. This app will have dedicated flow of data, reports and support for issues through its application. It will use the power of people collaboration and strive to address such issues with its various features such as pledge support and awareness.
The app will closely follow a Wikipedia-based admin model that ensures crowd sourced accountability model which is answerable to the public. It means that all posts will be approved by admins selected by users themselves. There will be periodic renewal of admins to ensure that the process is as democratic as possible. The founding team met with leading NGO’s, administrative officers and political leaders to better structure and streamline the app process.
