CASE STUDY/ODISHA: CITIZEN’S ACTION FOR GOVERNANCE SAMADHAN is an initiative to strengthen governance accountability by bringing citizens and the government on one platform using technology, which is user friendly, open source, accessible to all including poor and marginalized communities. Samadhan in Hindi means resolution or redressal of an issue. It is a joint initiative between The United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC), VSO India Trust, South Orissa Voluntary Action (SOVA) — a local NGO in Odisha, and The Government of Odisha. Towards the development of Samadhan technology platform, UNMC commissioned TANGERE — a technology firm to create the website and interface. However, the challenge was to provide local technical support in Koraput, Odisha. Corey Grone from the United States, a VSO Volunteer was selected for this assignment. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering and MBA and before coming to India, he had worked as an IT professional for a large public university for four years and for a midsized private company for a year. Since October 2010, Corey volunteered with SOVA as Management Information System (MIS) advisor and worked to strengthen the MIS systems in the organization and the Samadhan platform. He made several contributions to the organization such as: providing back end support on technical requirements for the platform and Web interface; researching on alternative web interface as a low cost model for outsourcing; feeding in discussions and contributing to mobile application debates; testing mobile application and web interface; developing training modules for national community volunteers; constantly coaching and building
Corey explaining the technology platform “Samadhan” for enhanced governance at the district level © VSO
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