ThePrint published a report with some background quotes from me about Prashnam:
Prashnam founder and internet entrepreneur Rajesh Jain explained that any survey irrespective of the population could be representative in nature if it included participants across demographics and highlighted different voices such as people from urban and rural areas, men and women, etc.
And if a survey had such diverse voices then roughly 1,000 people being surveyed was enough for it to be representative of the population, he added.
“Our basic idea is that we want to transform surveys. What Google did to information, we want to do to opinions,” Jain said.
Explaining how the surveys are conducted, Jain said there is an opt-in panel, IVR system, which does the outbound call. They are telephonic surveys and randomised samples. And Prashnam has all the details of the people being surveyed, he added.
“Our main objective is that we want to democratise surveys. Usually comprehensive surveys are very time-consuming and expensive. On our website and soon to be launched app, we will allow people to conduct their own respective surveys by paying a small fee. They can choose their own geographical area. Our sampling cuts through demographics and can be conducted district-wise, state-wise and even pan-India,” explained Jain.
The survey being representative in nature is taken care of by the back-end. And the results of the survey can further be verified by picking 10 numbers randomly and can be cross-checked to verify if it was what people said, Jain added.
“We hope this enables people to make decisions based on what people are thinking,” he said.
With this new model of surveying, Jain said that he hoped that the decision-making process improves and becomes data driven.
“Currently a lot of decision making takes place in a vacuum,” he said.
