About the Organization
Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children’s book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India.
In the last few years, we have invested deeply in technology-based initiatives to further our mission. We are now looking for a Data Engineer as we significantly scale these initiatives.
About the Platform
StoryWeaver is a digital platform that hosts stories in languages from India and beyond, so that every child can have an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. All stories on the platform and the platform source code are openly licensed. In two years, StoryWeaver has scaled from 800 stories in 24 languages to 22,000+ stories in 252 languages by engaging with a community of users. We want every child to have access to quality reading resources in their own language.
StoryWeaver is being recognized as an emerging innovation that can transform the early literacy reader ecosystem globally. Our vision is for StoryWeaver to be the largest multilingual open library in the world for children by empowering communities to address the scarcity of reading resources in their mother tongue languages and scale the quantity and quality of content being produced.
Job Description
We are looking for a passionate individual wanting to make a difference, one who believes that technology can be a powerful enabler in creating equitable access to resources. This role requires an individual contributor who can work effectively, both independently and collaboratively, in a team environment and deliver the project in a timely manner within allocated resources and budgets.
We are looking for a Data Engineer to work closely alongside our Product Development team and other internal teams. You will discover the insights within our data sets, and help us make smarter decisions to deliver better results for our end users.
In this role, you will be responsible for providing requirements for new features for collection of data, execute data validation checks, ensure data integrity, use statistical techniques to analyse and interpret data, take complete ownership of Google Analytics, identify trends and provide insightful reports to internal and external audience.
We’re looking for a self-motivated, detail-oriented individual who loves digging into data, developing insights and communicating data-based recommendations. You will work closely with the internal teams and tech partners to implement your recommendations, track the impact and course correct.
The position will report to the Senior Management of StoryWeaver. The person needs to be an out-of-the box thinker and should be a strong believer and propagator of use of open technologies.
The individual will be responsible for the following:
Work closely with internal product owners to understand the target audience and their motivations, generate the product enhancement, development ideas and requirements docs.
- Perform steps required to create analysis-ready data sets.
- Perform regular data analysis to demystify, assess readership, content gap, trends and performances.
- Extracting valuable insight from our data and generating analysis that drives user retention and conversion.
- Build a visualization tool that allows internal users to interactively explore the data and insights.
- Respond to ad-hoc report and analysis requests from other teams as needed.
- Take all data driven features to fruition by working closely with the product development teams.
- Be the bridge in between organization and other data-for-good communities.
Minimum Requirements
- Bachelors in Computer Science, Statistics, Market Research, Operational Research, or related quantitative discipline.
- Experience working with databases and dashboards
- Experience / Capability to draw insights from Data
- Experience working in data analytics.
- Good technical background with some hands-on experience with Python/R, relational databases (PostgreSQL) to perform data analysis.
- Ability to interpret findings through data visualization and delivery of presentations to both internal and external stakeholders.
- Expertise with Google Analytics and common Data Visualization platforms like Tableau, Apache Superset, Google DataStudio etc.
- Strong analytical thought process, ability to extract data and transform it into valuable, actionable insight.
- 1-3 years of experience in the industry
Nice to have but not mandatory
- Experience working with non-profits.
- Experience with Machine Learning.
Location: It is a full-time position based out of Bangalore.
Salary: Compensation will be commensurate with experience.
Interested candidates can email their resume to [email protected]
An interesting idea. Key will be location, location, location.
very urban usage…
need to stock and supply these with new titles at regular intervals…
long delays in new issues will not bring in repeat buyers…
What we kept them at key railway stations and bus stations so that the audience is just not urban?
@Anon 1, 2 & 3: Location is key so will experimentation. New titles aren't as important so long as the location has different people passing through, yes? Railway and bus stations are interesting.
Thanks for the comments!
It’s definitely a novel idea.
But.
1. Conventionally, vending machines carry two kinds of products – impulse purchases, and regular purchases which one stocks up on – like cigarettes/condoms, etc. Books, and childrens books, don’t fall in these categories – unless you have reason to believe that they do, in India (it’s possible, but I’d like to hear some reasons or findings to that effect). Also, my understanding of the purchase frequency of something like this is a once a month at most – which is much lower than typical VM products.
2. The entire rationale for a Vending Machine is to cut costs on the overhead of a shop, as well as provide 24/7 availability – Most railway stations/bus stations have bookstores already, which everyone uses. In our country, the cost of running a store isn’t high enough for vending machines to exist. Yet.
3. Technology adoption in India is a mystery – some technologies take years to be adopted, and some things outdo every country (like cellphones, for instance) – there is a technology angle to this – that of educating the buyer of how to use the machine – this isn’t a very helpful point, because all I’m saying is that it might swing either way. Heh. 🙂
4. My opinion is that the reason this might work is not because of a large demand for the product, but more a novelty of using the VM, and the impulse of suddenly buying something. If there was a large demand, having or not having a VM wouldn’t make a huge difference – it would merely be a matter of convenience. If however it does work, and people buy one, and get hooked to the books, and this drives some sort of wave/fad/trend of buying, it might in turn drive the demand of the books up – that’s the optimistic point of view.
@Mr. D: Good points, all of them. I’m wondering if price points will make a difference to the success or failure of this idea. What if we price the books really low, to compete *with* the booksellers on the platform et. al.? Also, novelty isn’t a sustainable method of operations, no?
As Anon 1 mentioned -location would surely be an important factor. With places like bus stops and railway stations, vending machines could (at times) intimidate people. But then again, if the psychedelic weight machines seem to be a hit amongst the people, this could attract people as long as the prices are not high.
Many malls these days have a centre to look after your kids while you grab a bite or do some shopping. A vending machine in such a place would also be a good idea.
From ReneeBC
I agree with Maya – South Africa’s Freedom Toaster is a huge success in shopping malls and universities (different audience to what you’re trying to reach though).
Gautam, Herman Manson is one of SA’s top branding / marketing experts. You can follow him on Twitter (marklives) or here: http://www.marklives.com/
And if you want an introduction, please shout. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping your cause 🙂
@Maya and Renee
Thanks for the thoughts. Will follow them up!
Few thoughts,
Isn’t Pratham trying to reach children who are slightly disadvantaged? I mean, kids in urban areas have certainly more access to books than their rural/townie counterparts.
So, having colourfully lit up vending machines with book covers / illustrations that catch the eye of the rural/townie parents and kids will be a viable option.
A touch screen kiosk giving you a synopsis of the book, the price, other books in the same genre/ setting is also something to think over. Computerized kiosks are expensive but for a cause like this, I am sure helping hands will abound.
Language also plays a role – are you focussin on English or Hindi titles? And for what age group?
Enough has been said about the Internet slowly killing the passion that people share for books – but the Net has made reading much more interactive, inexpensive, easy to navigate and customise your reading experience.
Novel ideas such as a Book VM will have to out-best the Internet even in rural / town areas, where computers and the Internet have made deep inroads!
All the best,
Furry-Byter
Hats off to Pratham Books. I am constantly impressed and envious about the fact that they first do and then talk about it. Usually, publishing house do the opposite. Cheers to your amazing team of creative, dynamic professionals.
Its true that location is important but so is the mass reachability. I think Pratham Books is bringing forward a revolution of sorts. Kids who are at an economic disadvantage can be helped to read books if we can create mass scale awareness. In bus stops and railway stations, vending machines may intimidate people but they will get used to it just as they've got used to ATMS and now everyone knows its use.
In Delhi, most malls have these kiosks but whenever I've tried using them, something gets stuck and then manual assistance is required. I think user friendly functionality is very important. A vending machine in popular places like malls, cafeterias, Railway stations, popular libraries in a city or rural area, and near playschools and local schools would also be a good idea to boost a love for books in kids.
I think this endeavor by Pratham Books is amazing and totally different from the typical money making goal that most publishers pursue.
I would love to support this cause in any way that I can.
Hi Swapna, thanks so much for you feedback…