Tag Archives: award

Pune-based SMSONE runs SMS news service for rural communities

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Ravi Ghate talking about SMSONE. Click here if you cannot see this video.

From Mid-Day:

A Pune-based company has been running a SMS newsletter service for mobile phone owners in rural Maharashtra dedicated to local news for the last two years. This service reaches out to nearly 300 communities spread across 25 districts in the state.

And most importantly it has become a source of income for the rural youth, who call themselves ‘mobile’ journalists. They are paid Rs Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000 per month.

“I had no job before I started this SMS newsletter in Parbhani. This venture has given me name, fame and a steady income,” said Ahmed Siddique, editorial coordinator for Parbhani district, who joined SMSONE Media Services Pvt Ltd last year.

“The concept was awarded the social innovation award by the The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) on February 11,” said said Ravi Ghate of SMSONE, who began the newsletter by training 300 unemployed youth in mobile journalism.

See the full article. The video embedded above has the founder Ravi Ghate giving a good overview of how the whole thing works.

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News in Brief: Harbinger makes insect games, Zensar gets new business, Aryabhatta award for Dr. Kale

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Harbinger to design and develop games to teach children about insects

Pune-based Harbinger Knowledge Products has partnered with a US non-profit organization, the Entomological Foundation, to design an develop games based online learning software products targeted towards 3rd and 4th grade children in the US. The games will teach the children about “the exciting world of insects and their role in our environment.”

Harbinger are also the creators of Flockpod, a web-service that allows web publishers to create a space on their webpage where users can interact with each other right on-the-spot, without leaving the page, and of Raptivity an library of pre-built flash interactive videos that can be used for e-Learning.

Source: press release

Zensar wins $5 million in new contracts

Zensar Technologies, software services and BPO provider, has won over $5 million new deals in West Asia and South Africa in the first three months of 2008 and is now targeting over ten per cent of its total revenues from this market segment.

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Aryabhatta Award for Pune’s Dr. Kale

The Astronautical Society of India (ASI), Bangalore, has on Wednesday announced its annual awards for the year 2006 in which Dr. Pramod Kale, Director, Integrated Circuit and Information Technology Pvt. Ltd., Pune, has been chosen for the prestigious Aryabhata Award.

The Aryabhatta award was instituted to recognise talented Indian individuals who have made significant contributions to astronautics. The press release doesn’t actually list Dr. Kale’s contributions which won him this award.

Source: Newstrack India