Praja update - Internship program, Infopedia section!

Time for an update about Praja.in. We have a lot of content now, and have been building a nice group of caring citizens here. To take things forward, there are two broad categories of work for us. 1) Enhance the website with more networking and information sharing tools. 2) Put in place a scalable model for converting member enthusiasm into action on the ground. We have two updates, important next steps for Praja.

1. We are announcing a technical internship program. Praja.in is "open source", and we will place all website related technical work in the open source domain. Engineering students, open source enthusiasts or anyone who has the skills and the drive, contact us! We have a few projects ready for takers, plus, you can suggest new project ideas as well. Some points to note:
   
   1. We will provide all interns with a live replica of the main website. You need to bring your computer and Internet connection.
   2. Work will involve writing Drupal modules, or making enhancements to Drupal itself
   3. All work done as part of this program will be handed back to Drupal open source community.
   4. Don't want to make it too long here, just contact us for more details, we are waiting at tech [at] praja [dot] in.
2. To segregate discussions with facts and geeky and serious stuff, we are pre-announcing the launch of a wikipedia like section on Praja.in. We intend to build a solid repository of information related to matters of urban civic amenities, issues or governance. This repository will be of local relevance, meaning, when we talk public transport, we wont be general about it, the talk will include facts about BMTC, historical entities like BTS, or education around BRTS, Mono etc in Bangalore's context. How do we intend to do this?
   1. Our member community seems to have the gyan. And with time, we hope and intend to attract more gyani people to this site. All this knowledge is getting scattered across various posts and comments. We will move stuff from the discussion section (which is 100% of the site right now), to this new wikipedia like section.
   2. The infopedia section will have tighter editorial watch and control to begin with. Everyone can suggest, but only some can make the changes or move 'good' comments to relevant articles. Following folks would be ideal candidates to take up this work:
      
      1. Those with history and reputation on the matter on Praja website
      2. Or, folks with established expertise on the subject
   3. We could call this new section either "infopedia", or "gyan".

As always, we are evolving and being driven primarily by your inputs. So do let us know your thoughts on above, and we look forward to working with a good numbers of enthusiasts for these two new areas of work. Remember, both these (technical help in open source domain, and building the infopedia/gyan section) are fit to be taken up by folks who are either remote, or are only in a position to help in 'online' or mostly-keyboard ways.

Now, we have been busy thinking about and consulting with some members and activists regarding next steps on the other broad category (connecting members with on-ground action - the working group thing). There will be an update about it too, very very soon.

Cheers, and thanks everyone for the help and support thus far!

- Praja admin and backoffice team