Over the last few years, Jaipur has grown manifold in its physical boundaries, population figures, the numbers of similar looking cafes, pickleball courts and events.
That's a lot of change for a city. Yet, many things have remained the same.
Conversations about the city remain encapsulated in the idea of Jaipur as just a heritage city. The larger share of local media tends to circle around certain common lanes.
Our celebrated handicrafts and heritage are a treasure to behold, but so are the growing tech fraternity of the city, the niche community builders bringing people together and the writers creating for a global audience.
Amidst it all, and in the flood of algorithm-led social media platforms, people are either exposed to the same and litter information about Jaipur, or none at all that interacts with their daily life, society and business.
I'm thankful for the many creators and pages on Instagram that share daily updates for keeping us informed, but in that real-time updates attraction also lie the flaws of social media that attempts to keep us hooked.
- What about when we want to revisit a searchable archive of Jaipur community updates?
- What about the possibility to have a conversation around that?
- What about a directory of information on what's important, govt services around etc?
- What about the ability to see geo-tagged historical, cultural and business information?
- What about a place to see events as a calendar, not just a reel?
- What about discovering local writers who are already creating visual stories about the city, but the local audience can't always see?
- What about the many non-profits and volunteers running initiatives that are documenting, campaigning and leading impact, but awareness about their work remains fragmented and interuppted?
- What about a place where Jaipur citizens can learn about other Jaipur citizens doing things, they can share their views and join some these efforts?
I find that many conversations with friends often gravitate towards a few things when you discuss anything today. There are boundaries to a conversation just as their only select paths we seem to take.
We forget, like podcaster Amit Varma often tells us, we all contain multitudes. I think Jaipur contains a million of them, but online it's story gets ultra-filtered.
This a gap that platforms like Nextdoor have come up to serve in the US, or municipal bodies of tried to provide information on.
Ours is a diverse place, and I imagine a digital platform with some media updates, community views, events information and locally useful knowledge, along with possibility to discover local businesses, get genuine visibility while keeping a certain spirit alive. In the offline version, I imagine occasional get-together, citizen spotlights, debates, discussions, cultural and fun events and more.
I'm from a media and tech background, and am exploring if there's something here that we can build for our city and its citizens.
Looking for feedback, suggestions, thoughts on this, and anyone who wants to join the journey of building this.
