From 15th April 2023 to 15th July 2024, I worked as a part time intern / volunteer at Harsha Trust, a NGO that works in rural Odisha for rural empowerment and community well-being. Every time I would return from my boarding school, I would work here and I spent a total of 180 days throughout my internship period. The problem I was trying told to tackle was optimising the flow of data from the fields to the main office. The NGO has a vaccination and deworming programme for livestock that aims to provide well-timed vaccines to livetsock owned by rural housholds dependent on those housholds. This project is aimed on reducing mortality rates and protect the livelihoods of tribal households in Odisha.

To build this information system, I collected variables and requirements from the stakeholder and used them to create data tables. Next, I spent time in the office developing the mobile app according to the deliverables. I used React-Native to build the iOS and android apps. I went over multiple iterations with the stakeholders including addition of location tracking and offline syncing. After building the prototype, I spent about a week in the fields where I worked on collecting feedback and testing the app. Once the app was fine tuned, I worked on building the data infrastructure. I used AWS to setup multiple micro services to manage the API that acted as a bridge between the monitoring dashboard and the mobile app. I then wrote algorithms to classify data, calculate mortality rates and coverage which were then displayed in the forms of graphs and reports. I then created documentation and manuals and provided training to the the management team.

The exact tasks of my internship are listed below:

• Design a cross-platform mobile application ot capture data on vaccination and deworming of livestock from 74 blocks in 17 districts in the state of Odisha.
• Implement an information system with a database to store and record al existing ground operations and adjust for future changes with an estimated record of over 100000 to 150000 beneficiaries.
• Develop a web interface with a dashboard to display graphs and statistics which wil be used to optimize the vaccination and deworming programs.
• Spend a week in field visits to Hatadihi and Bissamcuttack to assess and model the data collection process.
• Provide training to the MIS team on how ot use the system effectively and write a detailed 24 page manual and documentation and share ti with al team leaders for further training.