Technology

Open-source hacker collective from Bengaluru building lightweight, self-hosted developer tools, communication platforms, and FOSS infrastructure

Organisation Technology India, Karnataka, Global

Venture philanthropy providing early-stage funding to social entrepreneurs.

Organisation PhilanthropyEconomy India, Karnataka

Community-curated directory of AI tools, dashboards and open projects built for Indian public-policy research and practice

Directory GovernanceTechnology India

Open-source research lab at IIT Madras building datasets, machine translation engines, and speech models for 22 Indian languages

Organisation TechnologyCulture & heritage India, Global

IndiaAI's national AI platform — 358+ curated datasets, 220+ models including Indic language LLMs, toolkits, and free GPU compute via AIRAWAT supercomputer

Data source TechnologyGovernance India

V. Krishna's open-source Kannada-English dictionary — 247K entries with full-text search, built by Zerodha's tech team and freely accessible to all

Tool Culture & heritageTechnology India, Karnataka

Open-source Freedom of Information platform by mySociety that powers public Right to Information request portals across 25+ countries

Tool TransparencyGovernance Global, India

Open-source investigative data search and cross-referencing engine for tracking corruption, corporate registries, and leaked records

Tool TransparencyLaw & policing Global, India

Open-source web platform for georeferencing, curating, and overlaying high-resolution historical maps from digital library IIIF repositories

Tool Culture & heritageTechnology Global, India

Convert Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB, CSV, and PDF to clean Markdown — built in Rust with Node.js and Python bindings, 8K+ GitHub stars

Tool Technology Global

Open-source data exploration and visualization platform for querying databases and building interactive, shareable public dashboards

Tool TechnologyTransparency Global, India

Open-source active-learning software that helps researchers screen large collections of papers for systematic reviews

Tool TechnologyEducation Global, India

Open-source field service and data collection for community programmes — designed for Indian nonprofits with offline-first mobile apps and longitudinal tracking

Tool HealthEducation India

Cultivating public technologists who bring design, UX, and systems thinking to technology inside government, through the Build for Bharat Fellowship

Organisation TechnologyGovernance India

ISRO's geoportal — satellite imagery, thematic map layers and administrative boundaries for India

Data source LandCities India

Open-source Python library for extracting structured tables from text PDFs into Pandas DataFrames, CSV, and Excel

Tool TechnologyGovernance Global, India

Open digital public good for managing healthcare facilities, patient records, critical care and distributed public-health operations

Tool HealthTechnology India, Global

Open-source omnichannel customer support and helpdesk platform integrating WhatsApp, email, live chat, and SMS in a unified inbox

Tool TechnologyMedia Global, India

Research lab using open data, data science, and design to improve public finance, legal transparency, procurement, and civic tech in India

Organisation TechnologyPublic finance India

Open-source constituent relationship management for nonprofits — manage donors, members, events, campaigns, and casework, used by 14,000+ organisations

Tool TechnologyGovernance Global, India

Civic-tech platform enabling citizens to participate in public consultations and lawmaking.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India

The open-source data portal behind data.gov.in and hundreds of government portals — publish, manage, and share datasets with APIs and rich metadata

Tool TechnologyGovernance Global, India

Open-source citizen participation platform for citizen proposals, participatory budgeting, public debates, and collaborative legislation

Tool GovernanceTransparency Global, India

Community-based digital public infrastructure for natural-resource planning, resilience, and landscape stewardship.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan

Bridging the gap between science, technology, and policy through modelling, tools, and digital platforms.

Organisation HousingCities India, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Assam

The foundational open-source JavaScript libraries for data visualisation — D3 for bespoke interactive graphics, Observable Plot for quick exploratory charts

Tool TechnologyMedia Global

Open-source data platform helping nonprofits consolidate programme data, automate transformations and produce dependable reporting

Tool TechnologyGovernance India, Global

India's open data community — mailing list, city chapters, and the maintainers behind several widely used boundary datasets

Community TechnologyGovernance India

Open-source tool for exploring structured data and publishing it as a searchable website with a documented JSON API

Tool TechnologyTransparency Global, India

Create charts, maps, and tables for the web — the tool behind most data journalism graphics, with a generous free tier for newsrooms and nonprofits

Tool MediaTechnology Global, India

Open-source digital citizen participation and participatory democracy platform for consultations, voting, assemblies, and participatory budgeting

Tool GovernanceTransparency Global, India

Open-source digital infrastructure for governments to build interoperable public services, registries and administrative workflows

Tool GovernanceTechnology India, Global

Modern open-source forum and community platform — the standard for online discussion, used by thousands of communities and Indian civic groups

Tool Technology Global, India

District-level building volume and monthly nighttime lights for tracking physical capital and economic activity across India

Data source EconomyCities India

Open-source, self-hosted collaborative wiki and documentation workspace for research teams and non-profit knowledge bases

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source digital repository platform — the standard for institutional archives, used by 3,000+ universities and research organisations worldwide

Tool EducationTechnology Global, India

Fast, in-process analytical SQL database engine for querying large CSV, Parquet, and JSON datasets locally without server infrastructure

Tool Technology Global, India

Independent policy research on financial inclusion, household finance, social protection and consumer protection in India

Organisation EconomyWelfare India

Python toolkit, CLI, and web app for extracting features from Esri REST APIs and searching 24,000+ public government GIS layers

Tool TechnologyGovernance Global, India

Microsoft's open-source visualisation language for the AI era — lets AI agents reliably create expressive, good-looking charts from simple human-editable specs

Tool TechnologyMedia Global

Create animated, interactive data visualisations and stories — bar races, network graphs, 3D maps, with a generous free tier for journalism and nonprofits

Tool MediaTechnology Global, India

Promoting and strengthening the Free and Open Source Software ecosystem in India through community building, events, conferences, and project nurturing

Community Technology India

Open-source exchange rates API tracking daily currency reference data from 84 central banks covering 201 currencies since 1948

Data source EconomyPublic finance Global, India

Open-source software company behind ERPNext and Frappe Framework — the most widely used FOSS ERP, deployed by businesses, nonprofits, and governments worldwide

Tool TechnologyLabour Global, India

The foundational library for geospatial data conversion — translate between any GIS format, reproject coordinates, and process raster/vector data at scale

Tool TechnologyLand Global, India

Browser-based OpenStreetMap tool for inspecting, styling, compositing, and exporting multi-layer GeoJSON vectors as PNGs

Tool TechnologyCities Global

Free, private-by-design GIS for visualising, editing, and analysing geospatial data across browsers, desktops, mobile, and Jupyter

Tool TechnologyLand Global

Open-source network analysis and visualisation — explore connections in social networks, organisational relationships, trade flows, and citation patterns

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source publishing and newsletter platform for independent journalists, policy publications, and research collectives

Tool MediaTechnology Global, India

Open-source WhatsApp platform for nonprofits — two-way messaging, chatbots, and programme management on the channel beneficiaries already use

Tool TechnologyHealth India

Household-level data on financial inclusion — bank accounts, savings, credit, digital payments, and financial resilience — for 140+ countries including India

Data source EconomyTechnology Global, India

Google platform using satellite imagery and ML to delineate farm field boundaries and monitor crop seasons at individual field level

Data source AgricultureTechnology Global, India

Interactive AI weather observatory and cyclone tracker showcasing WeatherNext 3, GenCast, and GraphCast global forecasts

Dashboard ClimateDisasters Global, India

Planetary-scale cloud computing platform pairing a 90+ petabyte Earth observation catalog with parallel geospatial analysis APIs

Tool EnvironmentTechnology Global, India

Daily AI forecasts of riverine flooding up to seven days ahead, with gauges, water trends, alerts and inundation maps worldwide

Dashboard DisastersWater Global, India

Participatory media and voice-tech platforms for communities excluded from mainstream information systems.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India

Managed hosting for open-source tools built for Indian nonprofits — one-click deployment of ERPNext, chat, fundraising, and more without server headaches

Tool TechnologyGovernance India

Narrative longform journalism and evidence-based essays exploring state capability, policy reform, and progress in LMICs

Publication GovernanceEconomy Global, India

Knowledge platform publishing actionable ideas and lessons for India's social impact sector.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India

District-level nighttime lights panel for India (641 districts, 2012–2024) from VIIRS satellite data, with annual radiance statistics and an automated pipeline

Data source EconomyCities India

Research centre measuring firm-level productivity in India — generates the India KLEMS database and diagnostic tools for understanding economic growth drivers

Organisation EconomyLabour India

Digital archival and preservation of Indic language cultural artefacts — books, publications, and documents — available for free and open access

Organisation Culture & heritageMedia India, Kerala

The web's memory — archived pages, books, government records and broadcasts, plus the Wayback Machine

Archive MediaTechnology Global

India's foremost digital rights organisation — defending free speech, privacy, net neutrality, and surveillance reform through litigation and public advocacy

Organisation RightsTechnology India

Premier science centre in Bengaluru visited by lakhs yearly, running astronomy education, telescope lending, and an undergraduate research programme

Organisation EducationTechnology India, Karnataka

Promoting transparency and accountability in governance through open judicial data — building a reliable open-source knowledge hub for the justice system

Organisation Law & policingGovernance India

Free, open-source interactive computing platform — create documents with live code, equations, visualisations, and narrative text, the standard for data science

Tool TechnologyEducation Global, India

Powerful open-source geospatial visualisation tool — drag-and-drop millions of points and create beautiful interactive maps in the browser, no code required

Tool CitiesTechnology Global, India

Open-source field data collection that works offline on cheap phones, widely used for humanitarian and survey work

Tool TechnologyHealth Global

Action-research collective tracking public welfare delivery, MGNREGA wage delays, and digital exclusions in rural social security systems

Organisation WelfareLabour India

Fast, helpful, open-source document parser from LlamaIndex — extracts structured text from PDFs, Word, and other formats with high accuracy for LLM pipelines

Tool Technology Global

Canonical government codes and mappings for states, districts, villages, panchayats, urban bodies, wards and constituencies

Data source GovernanceCities India

Builds a searchable, machine-readable repository of India's digitised manuscripts and inscriptions for research and public access

Organisation Culture & heritageTechnology India

Free offline-first mapping toolset designed with Indigenous communities for locally controlled territorial documentation

Tool TechnologyLand Global

Community-led open-source mapping engine for rendering interactive vector tile maps on web and mobile devices

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source spreadsheet-like interface for non-technical teams to edit, explore, query and collaborate on PostgreSQL data

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source no-code web extraction platform for turning websites into structured datasets, scheduled workflows and APIs

Tool TechnologyTransparency Global, India

Open-source business intelligence tool that lets team members ask questions and build dashboards from SQL databases without code

Tool Technology Global, India

27 official Indian statistical datasets, queryable in plain language from an AI assistant rather than through a download page

Data source EconomyLabour India

Interactive browser for over 1,000 global satellite imagery layers, updated within hours of observation, nearly 30 years back

Tool EnvironmentClimate Global

Monthly UPI transaction volumes, values, bank-wise performance, and digital payment adoption across India's real-time payments rail

Data source EconomyTechnology India

Fast, locally runnable speech-to-text models for transcribing interviews, meetings and recordings with punctuation and timestamps

Tool TechnologyMedia Global, India

Free village boundary shapefiles for all Indian states and UTs — downloadable in GeoJSON, KML, and SHP formats from the National Water Data Portal

Data source LandGovernance India

Open-Source Alliance for Social Innovation and Sustainability — a network united by the vision that FOSS can empower citizen sector organisations at scale

Community TechnologyGovernance India

The open-source foundation for mobile data collection — build forms, collect offline on Android, and manage submissions, used by field teams worldwide

Tool TechnologyHealth Global, India

AI-driven workflow automating Right to Information filings on Central and Karnataka portals using Claude Code and Playwright

Tool GovernanceTransparency India, Karnataka

International non-profit opening up public procurement data and contracting processes to prevent corruption and improve public spending

Organisation TransparencyPublic finance Global, India

Bulk dataset of 32.5M Indian judgment chunks, 1.1M legislation provisions, and tribunal matters, with the scrapers that build it

Data source Law & policingGovernance India

Open-source AI tools and MCP servers connecting assistants to 330,000+ economic indicators, Stata, MATLAB, and academic writing workflows

Tool EconomyTechnology Global

Open, crowd-sourced historical world map documenting geographic and political boundaries across centuries using OpenStreetMap infrastructure

Data source Culture & heritageDemography Global, India

Powerful free tool for cleaning messy data — transform, reconcile, and extend datasets with web services, essential for government spreadsheet work

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source database and matching engine consolidating international sanctions, politically exposed persons, and public procurement blacklists

Data source TransparencyGovernance Global, India

Offline-oriented tools for subtitling, organising media and documenting oral knowledge in Indigenous and low-resourced languages

Tool Culture & heritageTechnology India, Global

A map of the world built and owned by its contributors, and the base layer under a large share of civic mapping work

Data source CitiesTransport Global

Open-source multimodal transit routing engine combining OpenStreetMap road networks and GTFS transit schedules for journey planning and transit analysis

Tool TransportCities Global, India

Independent daily-scored skill leaderboard evaluating AI and physics-based global weather forecast models

Dashboard ClimateDisasters Global

Web-based query tool for OpenStreetMap — run spatial queries like 'all hospitals in Bangalore' or 'all water bodies in this district' and export as GeoJSON

Tool CitiesTechnology Global, India

Maker space in Bangalore focusing on experiential STEM education through the intersection of art and science — from 3D printing to carpentry and papercraft

Organisation EducationTechnology India, Karnataka

Open-source document management system that transforms physical scans and digital documents into a searchable archive with OCR and automated tagging

Tool TechnologyTransparency Global, India

Open-source PDF structure visualisation — inspect text blocks, images, and metadata inside any PDF, essential for debugging document parsing

Tool Technology Global

Systemic digital and organisational infrastructure for commoning and social change.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India

The standard open-source desktop GIS — full-featured spatial analysis, map-making, and geodata processing, free and cross-platform, with a vast plugin ecosystem

Tool LandCities Global, India

Open-source publishing system for reproducible reports, policy briefs, presentations, dashboards, websites and books

Tool TechnologyEducation Global, India

Batteries-included static site generator turning Markdown folders into websites — the standard for publishing digital gardens and knowledge bases

Tool TechnologyEducation Global

Peer-to-peer lending platform for unbanked communities.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Meghalaya

Open-source visual workflow engine by UNICEF for building multi-channel messaging bots and surveys across SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram

Tool TechnologyHealth Global, India

Government science centre in Calicut hosting lakhs of visitors annually with interactive exhibits, 3D space shows, and children's science programmes

Organisation EducationTechnology India, Kerala

Nonprofit repurposing donated devices and e-waste into digital skilling and coding education for underserved women and youth

Organisation EducationTechnology India

Funds and connects Indian projects creating public commons, institutions, community spaces, and lasting social value

Organisation PhilanthropyTechnology India

Builds open Kannada language technology, literary research tools, and freely accessible digital collections of books and periodicals

Organisation Culture & heritageTechnology India, Karnataka

Research-based public engagement at the intersection of sciences, engineering, art, and design — part of the global Science Gallery Network

Organisation EducationCulture & heritage India, Karnataka

Thousands of datasets contributed by participating Indian cities covering urban infrastructure, services, mobility, environment, and governance

Data source CitiesGovernance India

Legal services organisation defending digital rights, user privacy, free expression, and tracking internet shutdowns across India

Organisation RightsTechnology India, Global

DPIIT-recognised startups database — 100K+ entities registered with state, sector, gender, and eligibility details, published under the Startup India initiative

Data source EconomyTechnology India

All-in-one open-source PDF manipulation toolkit — merge, split, compress, OCR, convert, sign, and dozens more operations through a simple web interface

Tool Technology Global, India

Open-source multilingual text-to-speech model for Indian languages, enabling natural voice synthesis across regional languages and dialects

Tool TechnologyCulture & heritage India, Global

Extract tables from PDFs into CSV or Excel — the essential first step for working with Indian government data locked inside PDF reports

Tool TechnologyGovernance Global, India

Free qualitative research software for highlighting and coding documents, collaborating on analysis and exporting findings

Tool TechnologyEducation Global, India

Building shared data infrastructure and capacity so civil society organisations can collaborate and tell stronger, data-driven stories together

Organisation TechnologyGovernance India

Catalogue of Indian data portals and datasets, filterable by domain, geography, format, access and machine readability

Directory TechnologyGovernance India

Helps Indian nonprofits build practical technology capacity, open-source infrastructure, and communities for lasting social impact

Organisation TechnologyEducation India

Conservation impact through appropriate technology.

Organisation CitiesGovernance India

Secure documentation app for human rights — encrypt photos, videos, and audio on mobile, with camouflage features for high-risk environments

Tool RightsTechnology Global, India

Open-source optical character recognition engine supporting over 100 languages, widely used to extract text from scanned documents and PDFs

Tool Technology Global, India

24×7 community makerspace in Kochi for tinkerers, coders, and hackers — a thriving hub at the intersection of technology, art, and philosophy

Community TechnologyEducation India, Kerala

Quarterly and annual statistics on telecom subscribers, broadband, teledensity, usage, revenue and service quality

Publication TechnologyEconomy India

Create custom interactive maps with OpenStreetMap layers in minutes — no coding, just drop data, style, and embed anywhere

Tool CitiesTechnology Global, India

Open-source evidence database for organising, connecting, analysing and publishing human-rights documents and records

Tool RightsLaw & policing Global, India

Open-source, self-hosted WhatsApp communication platform with visual node-based IVR, call recording, and automated messaging workflows

Tool TechnologyMedia Global, India

The World Bank's data storytelling platform — curated visualisations tracking progress on people, prosperity, planet, infrastructure, and digital globally

Dashboard EconomyDemography Global, India

Firm-level survey data from 150+ countries on constraints, infrastructure, corruption, finance, labour, trade, and productivity — India data from 2014 and 2022

Data source EconomyLabour Global, India

Free, open-source reference manager — collect, organise, cite, and share research sources, with browser integration and collaborative group libraries

Tool EducationTechnology Global, India

Open-source, topic-based threaded team chat platform designed to organize conversations and prevent information loss in distributed teams

Tool TechnologyMedia Global, India