Category: Tools
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Zen Updates – Feb ’26
Sometimes things stall. Sometimes they move, but don’t quite land. This month was different: things both moved and landed 🙂 There were challenges, but we’re getting a better grip on handling them, helped in no small part by having a strong champion in the BDA. On to the specifics now 🙂 BDA: eAuction portal update…
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Build Civic Compass for Your City: Our New Extensible Version Is Live
It’s been a year since we started Zen Citizen to make government processes more accessible for everyone. Our vision is to scale Zen Citizen across departments in every state, and perhaps to other countries as well. We plan to do this by working in the open – sharing our ways of working and building in…
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Marriage Registration: Gateway to Kaveri and First Gen AI Chatbot Use Case
This month, we’re building a browser extension that opens a Gen AI chatbot on the Kaveri portal to assist with marriage registration queries. Why start with Marriage Registration? We believe marriage registration is a strategic entry point and gateway service for citizens to start using the Kaveri portal. All of this helps build a habit…
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Call for Volunteers: Help Build a Chat Assistant for Navigating Government Sites
Who we are Zen Citizen is a grassroots, volunteer-based, open‑source initiative that demystifies everyday government procedures in India like getting a driving license, marriage registration, property registrations. We aim to rein in petty corruption by empowering citizens to navigate the system with confidence and to challenge bribe demands instead of submitting to them silently. We…
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Making Remote Volunteer Teams Work Across Time Zones – Lessons from Civic Compass
What is Civic Compass Like every Zen project, Civic Compass provides essential, crucial, yet hard-to-find information. In this case, tool where you could just enter an address in Bengaluru and instantly see the BBMP, BDA, Revenue, BESCOM, BWSSB offices, and Police stations, for that location. All in one place. How it started: A “lazy question”…
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Building Civic Compass
Volunteer Credits: AN developed the prototype; Abhik and Nishit scaled the tool; Priti led the UX effort. What is Civic Compass If you’re a Bengaluru resident, you can use Civic Compass to identify the BBMP, BDA, Revenue, BESCOM, BWSSB offices, and Police offices for your area. Access the tool here. Why We Built This Tool…
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Building Kaveri Village Finder
Volunteer Credits: AN developed the tool for Bangalore Urban district; Sioux helped formulate the problem; Abhik & Nishit extended the tool to cover all Karnataka Access The Tool <br />&amTo locate your property, you should search using the name of the ‘Village.’ In the Revenue Department, a Village is the basic administrative unit. While you…