The Locra.org Logo

The past few weeks have been hectic weeks for the Locra.org team. We’re beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel as the various pieces start to come together, and things are beginning to pick up momentum. The Locra.org welcome site went online last weekend, and since has been receiving quite a few visitors (1000) without much publicity.

I have begun to realize amazing a thing it was for Locra.org to happen. 5 months ago, the then called “BeneficiariesDB” was just an idea, scribbled on pieces of paper in a notebook on a 18 hour flight from San Francisco to Singapore. Back in Stanford a month later, I tried to look for people who were interested, emailing lists- although there was interest from a number of people, nobody wanted to commit to it. I remember nearly giving up then, as the stresses of trying to fit into a new society and working on this idea was too much to handle.

It was only with encouragement from a few people (Adam Tolnay, James, Derianto) that I continued with this idea a month later, eventually setting up a “recruitment” site at Needintel.org after crystallizing much of the idea. I again advertised this through mailing lists- out of which one (and only one person) replied. That person was David Murray, who today manages everything Locra.org is.

It was also by a miracle that I met Keshav, who came on the team 3 months ago. During the last class of Winter Quarter, the conversation in our IHUM section inexplicable turned to social entrepreneurship. Keshav spoke a bit about Ashoka and social entrepreneurship; deciding not to pass up the opportunity I spoke to him after class about the then called UnseenPeople, and within a day he was on board. His business “instincts” and dedication is probably the single reason why we’ve managed to move so quickly from where we were 3 months ago.

That’s the story up to three months back- I’ll continue this at some other time, when there’s less work due (it gets much more interesting!). Meanwhile we’re working on the first iteration of the site, so it’s an exciting time for all of us.