Knight Fellow Shubhranshu Choudhary is using mobile technology to help citizens in India's most isolated regions to produce news reports for the first time in local languages. Choudhary has worked with MIT and Microsoft Research India to create a system that allows citizen journalists in tribal regions to use cellphones to record audio reports and send them to a server. Professional journalists vet and then post the stories. Local residents can simply call a phone number and listen to the reports.

This mobile service, CGnet Swara (Voice of Chhattisgarh), is experiencing tremendous success. About 75 citizen journalists in Chhattisgarh state are regularly producing and distributing stories for the first time in the local language on mobile phones. Since December, the number of calls by citizens to the service has doubled to 200 a day. Since its inception, citizens have made more than 32,000 calls, with nearly 800 news reports posted on Swara’s website. Choudhary is training another 65 citizen journalists, who will expand coverage to six states in the central India tribal region.

CGnet Swara is attracting worldwide attention—from the BBC to Global Post—for the transformative way it brings news for the first time to people in remote areas. In April, an NGO worker filed a report that villagers in Chhattisgarh had not been paid, a violation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. After newspapers picked up the CGNet Swara story, the government paid the villagers and ordered a statewide investigation.

Another report first revealed brutal attacks by police on several indigenous communities in Chhattisgarh. After The Times of India and The Hindu did follow-up stories, the government promised to compensate victims for damages and injuries. Choudhary and software developers are working to lower the cost of calls. They are also exploring ways to tag stories by topic and location. Choudhary is also advising groups working with remote communities in Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia and Iraq eager to start similar services.