[Fsf-friends] Groups like this need support...

[Frederick Noronha]

This is about the work of Sunil Abraham in Bangalore...
PS: At the risk of sounding vain, I could say that in a small way, our own
efforts were successful in getting Sunil to look at Free/Libre and Open
Source solutions for NGOs. Today, he has grown vastly in the field, and is
amazingly competent. Maybe Free Software Foundation could help (I don't
mean financial) groups like this. FN
PPS: To be honest, this mail is extracted from one sent out in another
context. But I think it's important enough for all of us to know what's
going on elsewhere...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Sunil Abraham <sunil@indiacares.org> says: "In our own small way  we are
promoting FLOSS in Bangalore. A short note about us is attached to this
mail."

CONTACTS...
===== 
Sunil Abraham [MAHITI] 
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur 
Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA 
Ph/Fax: +91 80 5352003. Pager: 9624 279519 
sunil@mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org 


________________________________________________________________________
MAHITI Profile     

MAHITI aims to provide affordable and appropriate Information
Technology   services to the Indian voluntary sector. We specialize in
the areas of web / intranet / kiosk / multimedia applications,
consultancy and training. We design and execute projects in the areas of
resource mobilization, 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 architecture 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 fund raising 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 addresses. 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 on-line 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 disk-less 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. Most
members on the team are programmers. We have two user interface
designers who focus on aesthetics, coherence and usability. We follow a
participatory design approach wherein the developers directly interact
with the end users and solicit their feedback throughout the development
cycle. Most team members have cross disciplinary skills and super
specialization is discouraged.

TECHNOLOGY
We use the following servers - Apache, TomCat, JRun, MS-IIS, Zope,
MySQL, PostGres SQL, MS-SQL, Qmail, SendMail and Mithi Application
Server.  Graphical and multimedia tools such as Adobe Suite, Macromedia
Suite and Gimp. Languages such as HTML, XML, WML, ASP, Basic, VB Script,
Java Script, JSP, Java, Python, C++ and C. We are familiar with the
Object Oriented Design and Unified Modelling Language.  The MAHITI team
has held trainings on these topics for various for-profit and non-profit
technical teams. We have conducted over 50 trainings independently or in
collaboration with MCAS, Public Affairs Centre, Indev.org and
OneWorld.net.