[cr-india] GRINS updates
Dear All, Gram Vaani is delighted to update you on the recent enhancements of GRINS. While many of you know about GRINS, for those who don't, GRINS is a unique radio automation system designed specifically for Community Radio stations by Gram Vaani. Among other things GRINS includes complete telephony integration, content management, playlist scheduling, and live speech recording. Thanks to the support of everyone in the CR movement GRINS is now being used at 26 CR stations in India and 5 CR stations in Africa. We have been busy adding new features to GRINS based on requests from many of the CR stations. As a result of the latest updates, CR stations can now send and receive SMS and export them to an Excel file. With the new Polls feature, stations can now conduct polls and get listeners to vote on anything: from a local folk song competition to the best farming idea. Thanks to Maraa, GRINS now has a whole new interface for listening to and categorizing calls received on the GRINS answering machine. Finally, we have been able to bring down GRINS installation costs by Rs. 15,000 by being able to work with standard USB dongles for making/receiving calls and SMS. Other features that are in the pipeline include: - Upgrade of GRINS to much more stable Ubuntu 12.04 - Ability to view call and broadcast statistics in the form of graphs - In-built logger software - A new suite of mobile based applications to better engage with the listeners More details about the latest features of GRINS are available at: http://gramvaani.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/GRINS-introduction-June-2012.pdf regards Aaditeshwar Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] Request to submit/participate in ACM DEV 2013
Dear all, With all the wonderful work happening in the CR community, I wanted to encourage you to consider submitting a paper to DEV 2013 about any technically innovative work you may have done -- problems faced in running the station, pilots using mobile phones, etc. DEV is being held in India next year and it will be a wonderful opportunity to connect the Indian researcher/practitioner community with others around the world. Please also forward this to your colleagues. regards Aadi -- ACM DEV 2013 3rd Symposium on Computing for Development Co-located with COMSNETS January 11-12, 2013 Bangalore, India http://dev2013.org/ Important Dates: Submissions due: September 7, 2012 (11:59pm UTC) - firm deadline Author notification: October 26, 2012 Camera-ready: December 7, 2012 Conference: January 11-12, 2013 DEV 2013 provides an international forum for research in the design and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social and economic development. In particular, we focus on emerging contexts where conventional computing solutions are often inappropriate due to various contextual factors - including, but not limited to, cost, language, literacy, and the availability of power and bandwidth. Papers should describe original and previously unpublished research. Three metrics will be applied to judge papers: (a) Relevance of the problem for development; (b) Novelty of the technical solution; (c) Evaluation of the solution, making a case for development-focused impact. All DEV paper submissions should either provide or directly motivate a novel technical solution that has direct implications for development. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Networks/Systems/Security/Architecture Low-cost wireless connectivity Intermittent networks and systems Power-efficient systems Low-cost computing devices Mobile systems and applications Mixed networks, e.g., telephony and IP Special-purpose sensor systems Security challenges in developing regions HCI/Applications User interfaces for low-literacy populations Multi-lingual computing User-interfaces for low-cost devices Participatory methods and user-centered design Accessibility to disabled populations in developing regions Design and evaluation of applications for health, microfinance, education, agriculture, entertainment AI/NLP/Data Mining/Speech/Vision Machine learning techniques for large-scale data analysis in development contexts Adapting content and applications to local languages and education levels Understanding social relationships and information flows in disadvantaged societies Speech interfaces and speech recognition for low-resource languages Development of new AI-centric tools/solutions for development Computer vision challenges in development We also welcome papers outside of these topics that address the DEV focus on computing innovations supporting social and economic development. Conference co-chairs: Bill Thies, Microsoft Research India th...@microsoft.com Amit Nanavati, IBM India Research Labs na...@in.ibm.com PC co-chairs: Richard Anderson, University of Washington ander...@cs.washington.edu Aaditeshwar Seth, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi as...@cse.iitd.ernet.in Program committee (confirmed so far): Aaditeshwar Seth, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Amarjeet Singh, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi Amit Nanavati, IBM India Research Labs Andrew Dearden, Sheffield Hallam University Anirudh Joshi, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Bhaskaran Raman, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Bill Thies, Microsoft Research India Brian DeRenzi, University of Washington Elizabeth Belding, UC Santa Barbara Emma Brunskill, Carnegie Mellon University Etienne Barnard, University of Pretoria Gaetano Borriello, University of Washington James Davis, UC Santa Cruz Jana Iyengar, Franklin and Marshall College Jay Chen, New York University John Bennett, University of Colorado Boulder John Quinn, Makerere University Kentaro Toyama, UC Berkeley Lakshmi Subramanian, New York University Neal Lesh, Dimagi Neil Patel, Awaaz De Niloy Ganguli, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Richard Anderson, University of Washington Roni Rosenfeld, Carnegie Mellon University Saurabh Panjwani, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs India Sharad Jaiswal, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs India Srinivasan Keshav, University of Waterloo Tapan Parikh, UC Berkeley Vanessa Frias Martinez, Telefonica Research Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] www.crindia.in
Dear all, A few of us have put together a website to showcase CR stations in India: http://www.crindia.in We feel this will bring more attention to the CR movement, and also help people understand what community radio is all about. So far we have only profiled a few stations whom we personally know, but this is really open to everybody. Please just write to us and we will call you for more details about your station. We want to profile your impact stories, the kind of content you broadcast, your area of operation, etc. Very soon we will also include a blogging page where you can add any kind of latest news or information about your station. Another initiative we are trying out is to help run coordinated campaigns across several CR stations. We feel that running campaigns on issues such as NREGA, right to food, right to education, etc, will help bring more voices from the ground from across the country. This can become quite powerful to bring attention to policy flaws or other issues that are ignored by the mass media. The current campaign under operation is on NREGA. Please write to us is you want your station to participate. best Aaditeshwar Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] www.crindia.in
Dear all, A few of us have put together a website to showcase CR stations in India: http://www.crindia.in We feel this will bring more attention to the CR movement, and also help people understand what community radio is all about. So far we have only profiled a few stations whom we personally know, but this is really open to everybody. Please just write to us and we will call you for more details about your station. We want to profile your impact stories, the kind of content you broadcast, your area of operation, etc. Very soon we will also include a blogging page where you can add any kind of latest news or information about your station. Another initiative we are trying out is to help run coordinated campaigns across several CR stations. We feel that running campaigns on issues such as NREGA, right to food, right to education, etc, will help bring more voices from the ground from across the country. This can become quite powerful to bring attention to policy flaws or other issues that are ignored by the mass media. The current campaign under operation is on NREGA. Please write to us is you want your station to participate. best Aaditeshwar Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] GRINS demo video
Dear all, We've been continuously adding new features in GRINS and making it more robust and easy to use. Do go through a short demo video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOLuzXljSI GRINS is now running in 8 CR stations in India. One of the best features is the seamless integration between radio and telephony -- do watch the video to see how it works. Other new features include Internet streaming, a better library search, and offline voice applications. With these offline applications, if somebody calls the station during non-live hours, then they will be guided by the recording of a voice prompt to leave a message. Stations can even change the prompt recordings according to their needs, for example, to invite comments on the "topic of the month", or "feedback on some radio program", or "suggestions for new programs", etc. To get a better idea, you can try leaving comments for Kumaon Vani here: 9536476660. And you can even listen to a streaming broadcast from the University of Hyderabad station here: http://snscomm.uohyd.ernet.in/bolhyd/ In the future, we will also have voice applications to run polls. And SMS support as well. Along with the ability to maintain a detailed contacts database about the listener community. But our vision is to have GRINS more than just an advanced radio automation system. We view it as a platform to run applications. Applications such as for NREGA, through which sticky slots will get scheduled to make an announcement about the ongoing projects or to read out the muster roll on air, and a grievance reporting offline voice application will also get created, and the ability to publish the grievances on a website that can be accessed by the BDO. Similarly, there can be an application to publicize vaccination programs in the area and also offer a question-answer system over phone. We feel that such applications will make it easier for the stations to serve as a local media outlet for their community, than just an information broadcast system. All of these will be available very shortly! regards Aaditeshwar http://gramvaani.org Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] Looking for rural journalism researcher
Opening for research associate/Project scientist at IIT Delhi: http://www.cse.iitd.ernet.in/~aseth/act4d/ Project title: Social media tools for low-income communities Project description: Social media tools for blogs, photo and video sharing, and online social networking websites have revolutionized accountability in governance, awareness about current affairs, and even helped in the preservation of cultural artifacts through digital media. How can similar tools be made available in developing regions, where literacy and network connectivity remain significant challenges? We are working on a variety of innovative technologies in this regard, in affiliation with non-profit organizations working on community radio, community video, phone-based messaging systems, etc. We are looking for a person with a journalism background to help us understand the information needs of low-income communities, and study the impact of technological interventions. Job description Field research on rural information needs Feedback on the development and deployment of different technologies Work together with PhD and other research scholars, and assist in research and publications Will require travel to various parts of India, including rural areas Work experience 1+ years job experience, or equivalent talent Skills needed Bachelors/Masters in mass communication Well versed in IT skills Experience in survey design Very quick at execution Excellent communication skills and an understanding personality to effectively engage in discussions with rural communities High levels of persistence and resourcefulness Ability to work independently and take initiative Committed to social development Long term prospects The job is ideal for those who want to get into a research career or are planning for graduate studies in social sciences research in the near future. Working in a university environment with skilled faculty and research scholars will provide the necessary training and credibility if you want to go in for higher studies Please send your CV to Aaditeshwar Seth: as...@cse.iitd.ernet.in JD for rural journalism research.doc Description: MS-Word document Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
[cr-india] One media per teacher
http://www.ompt.org/content/techproductsequipment This is a very interesting selection of equipment for field work (follow the links on the left). Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
Re: [cr-india] Cellphone-based community radio
Cool! Actually, just a clarification from my end. When I mentioned about our work with Asterisk, I was talking about the server side, of how the radio station could receive phone calls, archive the calls, put the caller on air, etc. Andrea and Gora are talking about the client side, of how radio content can be streamed over the Internet and then received on a cellphone. Just wanted to clear that to avoid confusion! On a related note, GRINS currently does not support Internet streaming, but this feature is very much in the pipeline. Andrea Tazzari wrote: Hi Gora, Thanks for your observation. I have circulate your message in our developer's team. Actually the sound quality it's more close to a AM broadcast than a FM this because we are streaming in mono and in very low bandwith (1Kbs/sec circa) in order to keep up the connection. With this speed the connection it's very stable and I have very few interruptions even when I'm travel with a bike or in car. I've tested all around Auroville, Pondicherry and Chennai and I'm very happy with the results. I have a connection @ 199 Rs/monts (unlimited traffic) with BSNL. Soon I'll increase the band-with in order to test with a better sound quality. Regards. Andrea Tazzari -- On 04/03/10 11:27, Gora Mohanty wrote: On Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:34:56 +0530 Andrea Tazzari andr...@auroville.org.in wrote: Hi, The AurovilleRadio is testing since December 2009 broadcasting trough cellphones connect with GPRS connections. This sounds like a great idea. Are people using it? What is the sound quality, and the reliability of the streaming? It's working fine but you need a cellphone supporting Flash technology and for time being are expensive. [...] Why is the interface in Flash? I have just started dabbling with mobile applications, but I thought that most mobile browsers support HTML5/CSS3, and there are open-source projects like PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com) that aim at cross-handset compatibility using just HTML and CSS. Regards, Gora Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
Re: [cr-india] Cellphone-based community radio
Hello, We have been able to get Bluetooth enabled cellphones working with Asterisk to make and receive phone calls, but the audio quality is not too good. A better option is to use GSM PCI cards or GSM gateways: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/GSM . We haven't tested any of these solutions so far, but we don't expect any significant glitches since they are already being used by many people. Sending and receiving SMS messages can be done through Frontline SMS: http://www.frontlinesms.com/ . It works with a variety of phone models and GSM modems. GRINS, our radio broadcast system at Gram Vaani, currently supports telephony over PSTN landlines and SIP VoIP. We will have SMS and cellular based telephony very soon: http://gramvaani.org/technology/community-radio/ cheers Aadi Kara Andrade wrote: Is anyone out there doing community radio using cellphones. What are the different models being used? Thank you! Kara Andrade www.hablaguate.com On 3/2/10 11:56 PM, cr-india-requ...@sarai.net cr-india-requ...@sarai.net wrote: Message: 2 Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:09:55 -0700 (MST) From: George Lessard me...@web.net Subject: [cr-india] An Assessment of the Role of Community Radio in Peacebuilding and Development To: undisclosed-recipients:; Message-ID: 46744.216.108.22.182.1267474195.squir...@flymail.web.net Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 An Assessment of the Role of Community Radio in Peacebuilding and Development: Case Studies in Liberia Sierra Leone http://ow.ly/1cUSJ Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in Join the Community Radio Forum. For membership details, please go to www.crforum.in
Re: [cr-india] Phone in prog
At Gram Vaani, we are building telephony support through FXO and E1 cards. These are PCI cards that go into a computer, and so calls can be received/made through software itself. Therefore stations just need to get a phone line and then plug the line into the card instead of into a telephone or hybrid. This setup gives us the advantage of being able to control the telephony channels to interpret DTMF signals. So we can actually make telephony applications such as press (1) to record an ad, or press (2) to leave an farming related question, or press (3) to request for a song, etc. Recordings for advertisements or questions and answers can later be broadcast through radio. A hybrid on the other hand will only give access to the input and output analog audio. The second advantage is that we are integrating all of this with the GRINS interface. So now the RJ can receive calls through the GRINS interface, and doesn't have to tinker with hybrid volumes and picking up the phone, etc. GRINS will also keep track of all recordings for advertisements, questions, comments, etc, so all the content can be managed centrally. The telephony service will be out in another month or so. Then stations just have to download GRINS and buy an FXO card. Single channel FXO cards are available for hardly Rs. 2000, and higher end cards can also be purchased if a larger number of simultaneous calls are to be handled. We will publish all these details very soon. Aadi http://gramvaani.org Dr Richie Rego SJ wrote: we use oxygen mixer for on-air broadcast. It has built-in telephone hybrid. But for this, we used a TV telephone hybrid on experimental basis. Rev Dr Richard Rego SJ Director, SARANG SAC 107.8FM Community Radio Head Asst Prof., MCMS Dept of Mass Communication St Aloysius College; P.B. 720 Mangalore - 575003. www.richardrego.wordpress.com http://www.richardrego.wordpress.com www.staloysiuscollege.wordpress.com http://www.staloysiuscollege.wordpress.com 0824-2449706. +919448546425. *From:* Phuntsok Dorjee phunt...@tcv.org.in *To:* Dr Richie Rego SJ richie...@yahoo.com *Cc:* CR Forum cr-india@sarai.net *Sent:* Friday, 9 October, 2009 11:18:19 *Subject:* Re: [cr-india] Phone in prog Hi, I am from Tibetan Children's Village School, Dharamsala. Could you please tell us which equipment are you using for your phone-in program. Thanks! Phuntsok Dorjee ICT Coordinator TCV School, Dharamsala Cantt. On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 11:45 PM, Dr Richie Rego SJ richie...@yahoo.com mailto:richie...@yahoo.com wrote: Community Radio SARANG 107.8MHz, (St Aloysius College Mangalore) launched its phone-in program on Wednesday. Kaanoonu Kacheri (Legal Cell) is a weekly phone-in program in collaboration with a local law college and advocates. It is broadcast on every Wednesday at 6pm. The principal of the law college moderates the discussion, every Wednesday; he with his law professors and other city advocates, have been kind to be associated with SARANG 107.8MHz. The half-an-hour live program on Dowry Prohibition Act had three callers asking questions and clarifying their doubts. The next week's program will feature the all important RTI in Kannada. Rev Dr Richard Rego SJ Director, SARANG SAC 107.8FM Community Radio Head Asst Prof., MCMS Dept of Mass Communication St Aloysius College; P.B. 720 Mangalore - 575003. www.richardrego.wordpress.com http://www.richardrego.wordpress.com www.staloysiuscollege.wordpress.com http://www.staloysiuscollege.wordpress.com 0824-2449706. +919448546425. ___ cr-india mailing list cr-india@sarai.net mailto:cr-india@sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india -- __ Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. - Samuel Johnson ___ cr-india mailing list cr-india@sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india ___ cr-india mailing list cr-india@sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
[cr-india] Invitation for using Gram Vaani's GRINS platform
Dear all, Gram Vaani released the first version of GRINS (Gramin Radio Inter Networking System) a few months back. It is being piloted at Radio Bundelkhand in partnership with DA, and has been running well since almost two months now. The current version supports playout and scheduling of radio programs, simulation of a live transmission, archiving of any speech made on the mic, logging, backup, and an extensive content management system for searching and categorizing audio programs. The installation instructions and software are available online, free of cost. Interested CR stations are most welcome to download and use the software. Given our limited bandwidth, we can also offer detailed setup and help to a few stations, but we need you to fill out this short questionnaire included below. Please email your answers to cont...@gramvaani.org so that we can understand more about your setup. We are continuously adding more features to GRINS, the next upcoming one being support for telephony, followed by Internet connectivity for uploading and sharing content with other stations. So this is really the right time to start using GRINS for running your radio station. More details about installation and usage of GRINS: http://www.gramvaani.org/docs/ A demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO9xzPLZb1E For open source enthusiasts, we will release the code shortly. GRINS has been designed in a generic service oriented manner, making it easy for developers to build new and exciting applications on it. The design documentation is available online too: http://www.gramvaani.org/docs/software.html regards Aaditeshwar Please email the answers to cont...@gramvaani.org mailto:cont...@gramvaani.org 1. Contact address of the radio station (location, email, phone number) 2. Contact address of the parent non-profit (location, email, phone number) 3. For how many hours per day does the station broadcast? 4. How many staff members are present at the station? What roles do they play? (manager, technical, journalist, radio jockey) 5. How is the content for broadcast obtained? (produced locally, obtained from some NGO, etc) 6. Is a computer used for broadcast? How many computers are available? 7. What software is used for broadcasting? 8. How are audio files managed? How are they stored? Is there any special software used for searching and storing information about the files? 9. Is there a LAN set up at the station? 10. How many hours of power supply does the location get? Does the station have power backup facility? 11. Is there a phone line at the station? Cellphone connectivity? 12. Is there an Internet connection available at the station? CR details.doc Description: MS-Word document ___ cr-india mailing list cr-india@sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
[cr-india] IB ministry ad on community radio
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=ArchiveSource=PageSkin=TOIBaseHref=CAP/2009/02/26PageLabel=9ForceGif=trueEntityId=Ad00901ViewMode=HTMLGZ=T ___ cr-india mailing list cr-india@sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india
