Update - April 28, 2009

• FreeFairElections.com is now VoteReport.in (actually, has been for the past 3 weeks). Couple of weeks after eMoksha launched FreeFairElections, we came to know about another team working on a similar initiative using the Ushahidi platform and decided to merged the projects (for better use of resources and reach) under VoteReport.in. In less than 3 weeks of operation, VoteReport.in has 13,000+ visits to the site from 5,000+ unique visitors. Here is an article featuring VoteReport.in in one of the popular Mumbai newspapers. 
• FixOurCity intergration with corporation is expected to be completed in another couple of days and we plan to go for a full-fledged beta by first week of May. This beta was delayed by several weeks due to additional focus on VoteReport.in recently.
• On a personal note, I attended eDemocracyCamp2 in DC last week and it was an excellent experience. This should help set the bar for our iDemocracyCamp in Chennai on June 6.

Update - April 2, 2009

Below are important updates from past week.

• Free Fair Elections was beta launched few days ago, ahead of schedule by a full 2 weeks. All the credit for this goes to Munish for implementing the SMS integration in record-time. Overall feedback for the site has been very positive, with several suggestions to adopt the framework for community policing purposes, later on. Our biggest challenge yet, is that of spreading the word. Thankfully, we've a good partner in NNFI who're helping us stress test the system and introduce it to the Election Commission and National Electional Watch. For readers of this blog - please spread the word about Free Fair Elections to your families/friends and don't forget to use it yourself :)
  
• Fix Our City beta launch is now scheduled for April 14th. Shanmugam has been making good progress with the backend corporation integration and we hope to have the beta site ready for end-to-end testing by mid next week. Data population for the remaining 7 zones are planned be completed by mid of next week as well.
  
• iDemocracyCamp has been garnering slow but steady traction with 10+ new attendees signing up past week (and there are 9 more weeks left to go). We have signed up couple of corporate sponsors for the event so far, with a potential sponsor for the meeting space as well. More details in coming weeks.
• Lastly, we're excited to announce that Srikanth Nadhamuni from eGovernments has kindly accepted to be an advisor to eMoksha. Srikanth has a wealth of experience in enabling e-governance for many corporations/municipalities in India. We're looking forward to getting his guidance and collaborating with eGovernments on new initiatives.
  

On a personal note, I'll be at the eDemocracyCamp in DC on April 19th and in India between May-June for Fix Our City public launch and iDemocracyCamp. Please ping me if you want to connect in DC or India.