A young man following the twitter handle @BloodDonorsIN goes on a three-hour bus journey to Tonk in Rajasthan to deliver blood. A school in the remote village of Breswana in Jammu and Kashmir gets help from perfect strangers on Twitter and builds a library of 2,000 books.
Heart-warming stories such as these were the highlight of #RiseWithTwitter, a conference organised by Twitter Inc in Mumbai to promote its new app, Periscope, on Tuesday. Periscope allows Twitter users to broadcast live, and is likely to add more power to the social media platform.
Kicking off the conference, Rishi Jaitly, marketing director, India & Southeast Asia, Twitter Inc, said that apart from celebrities, sports personalities and politicians, ordinary users armed with a mission were increasingly flocking to Twitter and using its power to achieve their goals.
“…a new kind of user, a new kind of individual is flocking to the Twitter platform. We think of that kind of user as a mission-driven user, a user who is trying to make an impact. You may call this impact as social justice, entrepreneurship, entertainment or comedy. This emerging user, we think, is beginning to rival in audience, in engagement, in success, and in reach on Twitter,” Mr. Jaitly said.
The conference showcased users like Balu Nayar and Sabbah Haji. Mr. Nayar is the founder of Blood Donors India using the handle @BloodDonorsIN, which has been connecting complete strangers to donate blood to those in need. “We started about seven years ago. We get many NGOs coming in to help, we get smaller Twitter groups — cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle is a very committed contributor and so is Derek O’Brien. This community is quite different from the normal online community that you see. The atmosphere of strangers helping each other is quite in contrast to the negativity you’ll find across many online platforms,” Mr. Nayar said.
Sabbah Haji came all the way from Jammu to attend the conference. Ms. Haji founded a school in the remote village of Breswana in Jammu & Kashmir which is relatively unknown to tourists and outsiders. “Only 50 tourists must have ever come to Breswana,” she said. Her school lacked infrastructure and trained personnel. This soon changed with Sabbah’s advent into Twitter.
She used Twitter to raise awareness of the existence of her school by sharing pictures and videos, which led to an influx of volunteers and even necessary equipment from across the world. “My first volunteer is now my deputy director. I have built a great library of over 2000 books, thanks to complete strangers whom I have never met. If it wasn’t for Twitter, I wouldn’t be here today, nor would my school. It has been a great platform for me to get the story of my school out.”
The conference also featured M.N. Reddi, the Bengaluru Police Commissioner, who actively uses Twitter to connect with the people of his city. “I am truly answerable to the people in my city and have become a people’s commissioner,” Mr Reddi said.
