Vodafone, Nasscom Partner to Launch 'Vodafone Social Apps Hub' in India

Vodafone Foundation has launched the ‘Vodafone Social Apps Hub’, a platform that curates all mobile apps designed and developed for community welfare on a single platform.

Developed in partnership with the NASSCOM Foundation, this unique first of its kind app store for India, showcases the best of technology which addresses real life socio-economic challenges.

Launching the Vodafone Social Apps Hub, P Balaji, Director, Regulatory, External Affairs & CSR said, “The potential of mobile technology to address several of our country’s socio economic challenges is unparalleled. In addition to reducing the barriers in inclusion and communication, mobile technology has proved to be an effective means of development. Several mobile apps, across sectors, have already created substantial impact with their insightful approach and innovative solutions resulting in better education, health, livelihoods and safety. However, the awareness of such apps amongst beneficiaries, app developers, the development sector and general citizens is quite low. The Vodafone Foundation, guided by its philosophy of ‘Connected for Good’ has curated the Vodafone Social Apps Hub to solve this problem.”

Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation said, “With the number of mobile connections across India crossing the 100 crore mark, mobile has been able to create inroads to the most remote part of our country and has become the best suited platform for social development. While the underserved communities across India are opening their minds to the power of mobile phones, it was a necessity to make sure that the best of the social apps that benefit them are all carefully handpicked and made easily accessible at one single web address. 'Social Apps Hub' is such a platform and we are proud to partner Vodafone Foundation in creating and helping them scale this further both in terms of the number of apps as well as the number of users benefitting from it”

Vodafone Foundation envisages the hub to create an ecosystem for users from diverse backgrounds to actively engage and learn about mobile applications and technologies which make lives easier and enable 360 degrees societal development.

Designed to be extremely user friendly, the Hub is structured such that the desired information about the sector of interest and relevant apps are easily accessible to download and use. Once a user clicks on the selected app, he/she is directed to the app page which gives app description and its features. Upon pressing the download button, the user is directed to the relevant app store where she can download the app.

The Vodafone Social App Hub also features multiple case studies on how mobile technology has created impact at the grass roots, pan-India across socio-economic indicators. Listed in order of popularity, this feature enables social organizations to showcase the impact of their respective work to a larger audience.

The ‘Call For Apps’ section gives a chance to the socially aware citizen to post a problem statement which she feels can be effectively solved using mobile technology. The information that needs to be supplied includes the objective of the proposed application, elaborate description of the idea, features that the app should have and the potential beneficiaries the app will address to. This acts as a rich source of problem statements for Developers, who can develop their own apps and submit on to the website. This section is also a great tool for NGOs and social organizations to seek a technological scalable solution to the multiple programmatic barriers they face on the field.

The D’Corner section gives a provision for developers to discuss technology trends and issues in the social sector through the ‘Developer Forums’. They can also access information on various upcoming developer contests across India in this section. Lastly, users can also learn of the latest developments in the ‘technology for good’ sector through the ‘Tech Insights’ section, which curates content from various relevant sources.