Workshop on the Role of Technology in Electioneering
A speaker from 'EcoSpatial Research technologies' (Bangalore branch), an Australian based Research Organization has shown interest in providing orientation and opportunities for internship help to our Social Sciences students. The team conducted a workshop which is designed more into an interactive session with the students in terms of orienting on technology intervention in electioneering and identifying willing and enthusiastic students for real-time working with the their projects. On 1st March 2018 classes 2MEP, 4MEP, 2EPH and 4EPH attended a talk by Mr. Raghu Raj, the founder of Smart Neta, who shared his experience of running a political campaign. He started with how he began his carrier in politics, a journey that had modest beginnings but growing popularity. His initial success in engaging with the public gave him the confidence to move on to bigger dreams. His team contested in the local municipal elections in Bangalore by standing for the Loksata party and Mr Raghu Raj was her campaign head. Later he spoke about how they managed to run a campaign for the first time and still ended up coming third in the results, beating Janata Dal, a prominent party in Karnataka.
The speaker showed us a video that gave us a look into his first working environment and his volunteers who helped him throughout the process. While showing the video he also narrated about the kind of training he and his wife got from BPAC (Bangalore Political Action Committee). Later, speaker moved on to talk about the recent development in technologies that could help us perform better in elections, especially the importance of Big Data and Information and Communication Technology. The examples given by the speaker seemed too obvious to not be used by any political party but the truth was that no political party was using these technologies. This fact made us wonder about the limitless possibilities that lie in this sector. Speaker then presented the internship offer to all our students. During the second phase of the workshop he engaged with a group of students where he showcased a few concepts that he will be using in the coming elections, which interested the students. The speaker offered internships with his organization in the area of electioneering.
