The CoRE Stack (https://core-stack.org/) – Commoning for Resilience and Equality is a digital public infrastructure housing many geospatial datasets in the domains of water security, agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, agroforestry, and socio-economic development, and building analytics and tools using these datasets to enable communities to manage their local landscapes in socio-ecologically sustainable ways. Being build by a collaborative of researchers, engineers, environmental experts, and implementation organizations, working for climate change adaptation of rural communities, the CoRE Stack aims to scale and add efficiencies and improvements to ongoing work in climate action by communities, civil society organizations, and government departments. This is the place to be for technologists eager to see their work translate into real impact on the ground.
Gram Vaani (https://gramvaani.org/) is the proud engineering partner for the CoRE Stack. A social technology enterprise born out of IIT Delhi, we have been building and scaling the use of digital tools since the last fifteen years to empower rural and marginalized communities to collectivize and voice themselves. We are a global leader in the space of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development, having won many national and international awards, and recognized for our unique community-based approach of putting cutting edge data and technology innovations in the hands of the poorest to enable them to demand their rights, share knowledge, and build empowerment from within. Our team includes full-stack developers, AI/ML wizards, development communications and journalism experts, community organizers and mobilizers, creative content authors and recording artists, and business development and programme management teams. We work across 15 states in India and several African countries. We have built technologies that have powered community radio stations, delivered health and nutrition advice to millions of women Self Help Group members, built solidarity among labour union members and social movement activists, and held local governments accountable to provide quality social protection to vulnerable families. By joining Gram Vaani, you will learn how to build and use technology meaningfully in ways that can make the world a better place.
Openings for Software Engineers – Geospatial Technology
We are working on a rich, varied and exciting technology stack which incorporates the following:
- Machine learning on satellite data, particularly from the Sentinel-1/2 and Landsat systems, and Google Maps APIs. Expanding into analysis of drone imagery.
- ML/DL methods including a mix of traditional classification methods like Random Forests and Support Vector Machines, deep learning methods like Convolutional Neural Networks and object detection pipelines, and foundational transformer models for multi-channel remote sensed data.
- Geospatial algorithms available through the GDAL library and QGIS platform.
- Extensive use of the Google Earth Engine platform.
- Establishment of a local computational infrastructure, including the development of GPU-versions of several geospatial algorithms such as for watershed delineation and flow accumulation.
- React-based frontend to enable communities and other stakeholders to access and interpret the data. Notable frameworks we are developing include the Commons Connect android application for communities to plan and manage natural resource management assets and the Know Your Landscape dashboard to equip government departments for context-sensitive planning of appropriate assets across different locations.
- Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate informative textual descriptions of landscapes based on quantitative datapoints, and to triangulate these with community observations and experiences about their landscapes.
- Development of new interactive modalities like question-answering systems, agricultural advisory based on weather forecasts, and early warning alert systems, to translate data into actionable insights for communities.
This work is happening in close collaboration with researchers including faculty and PhD students at IIT Delhi, hydrology experts at WELL Labs, ecology researchers at ATREE, and knowledge partners and implementation organizations including FES, WASSAN, and PRADAN. There is unlimited learning! Technology professionals keen to join our engineering team should be socially conscious, able to inspire their team and work in a fast-paced environment, and at ease with learning new skills and technologies. We welcome people with varied skill sets but the current priority/role requires experience with hands-on full stack development. The full stack experience should ideally be in Python/Django with experience of relational databases and web front end technologies like Angular / React. Below are the criteria for applying to the position –
Must have skills and experience
- Excellent problem-solving, debugging and troubleshooting skills
- 0-8 years of experience working with python-based web development frameworks like Django/Flask
- Fluency in version management using GIT
- Ability to execute full lifecycle software development
- Habit of writing well designed, testable, efficient code
- Disciple to write good documentatio, foresight to build out specifications, follow code review protocols, and take feedback positively
- Gain domain expertise in geospatial algorithms and begin to serve as a subject matter expert
Highly valued skills
- Experience with Google Earth Engine
- Experience in designing and building Micro-Services on cloud-based platforms
- Use of AWS lambda, API Gateways, Azure, GCP etc
- Experience working with modern BI systems and Data-Analytics
- Experience in AI/ML technologies for Computer vision
- Data analysis skills, evaluation of ML models, maintaining ML pipelines
The organizational culture
We are a lean enterprise and growing quickly. This means the chosen candidate will need to be very comfortable managing rapidly changing requirements and accordingly envision, build and deploy new strategies and tactics to quickly respond. The person will need to make the most out of limited resources and be able to work and act independently to lead the assignment. The upside to our methods is that we are building a model that has never been seen before by providing highly desired services to millions of people who have consistently been under-looked by existing service providers. The position will be at the vanguard of this transformative opportunity and working with us will be an amazing, highly rewarding experience.
- Opportunity to work with a world-class team driving innovative tech-led solutions to positively impact underserved communities around the world.
- Opportunity to lead a team and build new products from scratch
- Opportunity to influence the organizational strategy. We are a small team and your say matters.
- Salaries at par with industry standards.
- Flexible working hours, work-from-home, and remote working options with prior approvals.
Write to us
The position is based out of New Delhi. We also expect all team members across functions to travel to various parts of the country, to interact and engage with the communities we work with, and build an empathy and a strong understanding of the user needs.
Please email your CV to hr-admin@oniondev.com
Gram Vaani has won several awards and received global recognition:
- Knight News Challenge in 2008 to develop low-cost technology for community radio stations.
- Manthan Awards in 2009 for innovations in using technology for development.
- Economic Times Power of Ideas awards in 2010 for our unique business model.
- mBillionth South Asia Award in 2012 and 2014 for innovations in journalism for rural areas
- Grand Challenges Rising Stars award in 2012 for improving health services in rural areas using technology.
- Flame Rural Marketing Award in 2014 for our unique advertising and marketing model
- Grand Challenges Canada award in 2016 to improve immunization practices of rural households.
- NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum Challenge 2016 for our multi-layered development model through technology.
- Grand Challenges India award in 2018 for digization of mother-and-child protection cards.
- Winner of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge Round One in 2018.
- Finalists in the Equals in Tech award in 2018 for helping bridge the digital gender divide.
- Winner under the category of ‘Building beneficiary awareness’ as part of the Ayushman Bharat – PMJAY Start-up grand challenge 2020.
- Winner of the World Bank #MissionBillion Challenge to improve grievance redressal in digital identity systems.
- Inducted as a Member of the ‘Million Lives Club’
- Finalist in the Agami prize 2020 to strengthen social justice through technology.
