Indies app aims to bring volunteers closer to stray dogs

PUNE:Raja Narasimhan noticed that there are several WhatsApp groups where stray dog problems and solutions were being discussed. He observed that in each of these groups, there were very few volunteers who worked on the ground and too many people who were ‘advised’. The same kind of information would be asked repeatedly. As I was made a member of one of the groups in our area, I kept wondering why people never discussed the solutions,” he said. He and his wife created a small group from within their locality. They started meeting more number of people to get information on wider spectrum. “We did lot of brainstorming about this in order to come up with a solution where we could bring genuine good doers together. Then, we created a proper team to put up a technical and functional requirement document. We initially thought we could do it for our area but slowly graduated to our city and now we see a whole system standing for the country. As my wife and I already run Sare Jahan Se Acha, a registered not-for-profit company, it was easy for us to approach corporates and present the case,” he added.

This gave birth to Indies, a technology platform which aims to enable volunteers in India who are directly working on the field to perform their voluntary tasks more effectively. the whole system is designed in such a way that a lifecycle of stray dog or Indie is managed through this app-right from birth to death – birth and locality details, regular vaccination schedule, sterilisation, de- worming, medication history if required, GPS based rescue, missing and found, adoption and foster is present. The app is built with notifications so that alerts are sent when it is required. “The whole system works on a linkage between Indies (stray dogs),buddies (volunteers) and buddy heads(ward beads),Buddy heads are experienced volunteers who have been performing welfare tasks for a few years. To make sure the buddied and buddy heads are well connected, we have introduced Forum (replacement for Whatsapp groups) within the system so that serious and business like discussion take place. In order to motivate buddies and buddy heads, we have introduced gamification in app ie.,scoring based on tasks performed.”

Abzooba Infotech, says Yes to sponsor the back-end development for the Indies mobile app.

As of now, they have created a core team which will be responsible for its strategic execution. They are in the process of creating a sub-committee for day-to-day functioning. He said it was difficult to convince sponsors. “Many corporates have their own objectives and it was challenging.” The app was launched on Saturday by Rajendra Jagtap, CEO,Pune Smart City.