A team of NRI management consultants has come up with a virtual facility for young Indians by launching ‘Netamaker’ — an internet-based forum to exchange ideas, get feedback and stay connected on topics that matter to their electorate. This is a first of its kind application worldwide.
The virtual facility also allows politicians and emerging leaders to set up their profiles on Netamaker, and communicate with voters.
“Given that the new generation of voters will demand more transparency, question status quo and actively air their views on social media, Netamaker would give them a place where all things political will play out in the future,” according to Dr Saji Salam, founder and CEO of the initiative.
The America-based entrepreneur noted that the politicians in India too have a changed outlook in modern times. “They would like to engage with the aspiring class of 500 million social media-savvy citizens below the age of 35,” said Dr Salam, who is a global healthcare management expert heading a group of NRIs, mostly management and technology consultants based out of USA, UK and the Middle East, with an interest in ushering in accountability in electoral decision-making process in India.
Currently, Netamaker runs a website (www.netamaker.com) that provides relevant information on politicians and gives opportunity to evaluate politicians by certain parameters that are relevant to the electorate, thus moving towards issue-based campaign and candidate selection process from a mostly rhetoric-driven campaign process.
“Right now we have a subscription of 30,000 Facebook users (and growing) and have already reached out to over 60 lakh youth in India via our Social media campaigns.
The CEO revealed that the research team has identified ten top parameters to evaluate the electability of a candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, which comprised their ability to prevent corruption, control price rise, ensure women’s safety, job creation, law and order, infrastructure development, communal harmony, delivering on poll promises and uplift of the poor besides their criminal history if any. “Since the site functions real-time, you can see the ratings change as soon as you rate the candidates.”
The site provides the ability to compare politicians with their peers and see how they rate on the same parameters. “A smart phone application of NetaMaker will be launched shortly,” added Dr Salam. “Our rating algorithm provides weight age to scoring based on how important these issues are to the electorate. As we hear from our users, we shall continue to revise and refine these parameters,” added Dr Salam who has been an advisor to clients such as Duke University Hospital and Allina Health Systems besides health insurance clients such as United Health Care and Aetna.
Educated at University of Liverpool, MIT and Harvard, Dr Salam has been working with multinational consulting firms such as Deloitte Consulting and as the Director of Clinical Informatics at a $ 5 Billion multinational company headquartered in Europe. Currently, he serves in advisory roles to healthcare firms in the US.
This is the first time in the world that a platform to objectively rate and compare politicians is being created. After the Indian Loksabha elections we will be focusing on the US Presidential elections and elections in UK.
The typical user of the system is the youth in the 18- 24 year demographic, the new voters in this election. Early trends indicate intense youth engagement on the site among AAP and BJP supporters.
Netamaker is launching a campaign for the best comment of the week, starting April 1. An Ipad Mini will be awarded to the best comment from all the comments on the website site for the month of April. Details to be announced on website soon.
