Infosheet about MAHITI (Bangalore/India)
14/01/2003
www.mahiti.org
MAHITI aims to provide affordable and appropriate Information Technology services to the Indian voluntary sector. We specialise in the areas of web / intranet / kiosk / multimedia applications, consultancy and training. We design and execute projects in the areas of resource mobilisation, collaboration, advocacy, e-governance and knowledge sharing. We specialize in the use of Open Source and Free Software.
SOFTWARE SERVICES:
Over the last 3 years we have serviced more than 75 VSOs directly. And around 1000 VSOs indirectly. Our clients include Ashoka.org, Indian Foundation for the Arts, Institute for Bio-Informatics and National Law School of India. We also have commercial clients such as I2 Technologies, Datacons, Datamations and Aztec.
MANAGEMENT SERVICES:
MAHITI is also institutional CTO for Tarahaat.com [Rural ICT Project], ICICIcommunities.org [Donation Portal for the Indian voluntary sector funded by ICICI Bank] and Explocity.com [City Centric Portal funded by NewsCorp]. As institutional CTO we play a wide range of roles from envisioning the technological road map right through to design, development, deployment and withdrawal.
DESIGN SERVICES:
MAHITI provides user interface, information achitecture and multimedia design and production services. For example a reporting system for I2 Technologies, a study of application servers for Datamations, an automobile dealers MIS for Datacons and a grant recipients portal for the World Bank.
PRODUCTS:
MAHITI is working on two products. One, Knowledge Manager an Indianized version of Zope Application Server. This is a joint project with Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. This was a finalist for Erica 2000 - - an award instituted by Ericsson for technical innovation in the non-profit sector. This software will conform to the standards prescribed by the Indic Computing consortia. This is an unfunded project. It is our belief that this tool would increase equity on the Internet. Just like Mozilla is free tool for consuming information on the Internet. Knowledge Manager will be a free tool to produce information on the Internet.
Two, a fundraising software to be developed in collaboration with MCAS and supported by Ford Foundation. This is only meant for small and medium organization as it can handle on 10,000 addesses. It is very similar to a customer management system. With features such as profiling, case handling and mass personalized email. Both these products will be licensed under General Public License.
NETWORKS:
MAHITI is also a founder member of Bangalore Cares - an online and print directory of over 570 voluntary organizations in Karnataka. In addition to being a core group member of the Credibility Alliance a consortium of voluntary sector networks that represent over 15,000 organizations in India. The Credibility Alliance is working towards enhancing the credibility of the sector by evolving and establishing standards and encouraging public disclosure of information. MAHITI is also founder member technical forums such as the Indian Zope and Python User Group and Indic Computing.
PARTNERS:
MAHITI has many partners both non-profit and for-profit for different types of collaborative projects. Murray Culshaw Advisory Services [fundraising-india.org] for communication and fundraising consultancy. Together we constantly update and maintain a database of 7,500 voluntary agencies. Mithi Technologies [Mithi.com] for multilingual technologies. Deep Root Linux [Deeproot.co.in] for advanced server appliances. VXL Instruments [Vxl.co.in] for thin clients and diskless nodes. Vishwa Infotech for rural information and communication technology strategies. Pantoto for community platforms. Alternative Law Forum for legal and intellectual property issues.
TEAM:
MAHITI has a 22 member team located in Bangalore, South India. Consisting of 10 staff members, 8 corporate pro bono staff and 4 volunteers. MAHITI is headed by Sunil Abraham, an Ashoka Fellow.
Sunil Abraham [MAHITI]
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur
Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 5352003. Pager: 9624 279519
