survey

The Road to Hyderabad: Lesson #6 Lay the Groundwork

One of the most successful things we've done in our recent Ashoka Tech collaboration gatherings is actually something that happens well before anyone arrives for the meeting.  Before anyone ever gets on a plane, we send out a short, pointed questionnaire to all of the participants related to the topic they are coming together to discuss.  After receiving responses back from as many participants as possible, we compile them into a packet of pre-meeting reading material that gets sent to all of the Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows participating at least one week before the event.

Seems pretty simple right?  Perhaps you've even done something similar.  I'll give an example.  For the meeting we are holding soon on reaching remote populations, I sent out this questionnaire to all particpiants:

Well, Wired's article's title is really "AND Data for All: Why Obama's Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov't Info Online" but I couldn't resist to give it an Ashoka slant by calling this entry "Data for all".

The article is an interesting interview on how the Obama government plans to make government data more accessible to the public--they even envision people whipping out their iPhones and making quick charts out of census or health care data, or any other government data that you can think of. I can't wait to be one of those people (I love playing with data).

Because knowledge = power, the best public policies are based on a comprehensive grasp of all the related data and user studies. Similarly, the best social enterprises are based on a deep understanding of the social problems that they aim to solve, and this means having access to excellent data sources. In this field of work, Ashoka Fellow Pratima Joshi comes to mind -- she is using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to survey and map city slums, generating critical information to advocate for the provision of essential public services to slum inhabitants in Pune, India and surrounding urban areas.