Ashoka students launch the University’s first Community Radio

Students of Ashoka University recently launched the first ever Ashoka community Radio, with the vision of staying connected with the alumni, as well as with the current and prospective undergraduates and Fellows.

Ten months of hardwork comprising conceptualization and implementation of the idea culminated with the official launch of the radio in the first week of June. A team of three Young India Fellows- Feroze Menon , Bhushan Kumar and Uday Sarup took up the Radio project as their experiential learning module. While they started with the ideation in September 2014, the radio went live with trials in June 2015.

“The project has been formed mainly for educational purposes, with entertainment as a by-product. The vision of our team is to connect the University to as many people across the globe as possible- especially, the alumni potential students of Ashoka University,” said Bhushan Kumar, Young India Fellow, Class of 2015.

The project involved setting up a technically-sound radio station at the University campus, after careful evaluation and approvals. The student Radio team will now organize shows, manage broadcasts and conduct post broadcast reviews of each show.. At the moment target audience of the Radio is the current batch of the YIF and UG; and possibly the previous batches of the YIF.

Vineet Gupta, Pro Vice Chancellor and Founder of Ashoka University said, “It has been exciting to see the YIF ELM team implement this project. It was very entrepreneurial, quite like the University itself. Honestly, when this started I wondered if we will ever get this done. But the team persevered. It was great team work and entrepreneurship at its best.”

The initiative was entirely self motivated, and inspired by the crowdsourcing model. Student organizers have fascinating experiences and learnings to share. “The most important challenge that faced the team was the lack of technical expertise amongst the members. This manifested itself while taking decisions on matters like infrastructural requirements and purchase of technical equipment,” said Feroze Menon.

Uday Sarup added that there are a number of learnings that the team has picked up, like tackling legal matters relating to copyright and permits, structuring of a show and the habits and psychology of the target audience.

“We believe that the radio station’s audience is the most important aspect. The audience should decide what they want to listen to, we as founders are just facilitators. We have opened up content creation to both the YIF and the UG and have received a fresh and enthusiastic response,” said Uday.

Some of the future applications of the Radio include streaming of guest lecture audios, education shows and interviews with the founders, faculty and guests.