IIT B’s aAQUA triumphs at Manthan Awards

aAQUA –IIT B’s web based query answering system that helps farmers with their agricultural problems has struck gold in the Innovative E-content (eInclusion) category at this year's Manthan Awards. The Manthan Award is an initiative by Digital Empowerment Foundation, India and PlaNet Finance India to select and promote the best practices in e-Content and creativity in India. It involves representatives from each state and union territory of India and visualizes the bridging of digital divide and narrowing of the content gap as its overall goal.

The technology for Almost All Questions Answered (aAQUA) was developed by Developmental Informatics Lab, KReSIT, IIT B and was sponsored by Media Lab Asia and Development Gateway Foundation's R&T Center. Rural kiosk support was provided by Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, and agri expertise was provided by KVK Baramati.  The key contributors to the project are Prof. Krithi Ramamritham, HoD, KReSIT, Anil Bahuman, Project Manager, Developmental Informatics Lab, KReSIT, Dr. Ms. T. Kadarbhai, Director, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, and Yogesh Kulkarni, Director, Vigyan Ashram.

aAQUA (www.aaqua.org) is a multilingual (Marathi, Hindi, and English) system which provides online answers to questions asked over the internet and has been deployed successfully in over 10 kiosks covering 50 villages around the Pabal area in the 3 talukas of Rajgurunagar, Shirur and Haveli
(Pune District). 60 farmers in Pabal and around use aAQUA forums on a regular basis in aAQUA clubs and over 300 users have sent about 475 questions.

Being a gold award winner, aAQUA is being nominated for the World Summit Award, an international competition in cooperation with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in Tunis, Tunisia from November 16-18, 2005.