Project Information
24/08/2025 11.30 AM - 01.00 PM
John Samuel Raja, founder of How India Lives (HIL) — a Delhi-based data search and visualization startup — conducts sessions on data journalism that emphasize using public data for storytelling and decision-making. An economist and former financial journalist with The Economic Times and Mint, Raja specializes in breaking open data silos and making complex information accessible, even for those without prior technical expertise.
His sessions are designed to show how credible, evidence-based stories can empower local voices. Core topics include sourcing public data from government portals, applying spreadsheet tools like Excel for analysis, creating visual narratives with platforms such as Tableau or Google Data Studio, and understanding the ethics of data handling to avoid bias. Raja illustrates these concepts through How India Lives projects, such as the Smart Cities Tracker, which highlights patterns in infrastructure and economic development.
The workshop is interactive, with participants working hands-on to query datasets and build visualizations. In one exercise, for example, Raja has demonstrated how fertility rates can be correlated with private hospital births to provide insights for market analysis — a method he previously showcased in a 2020 YouTube talk on customer understanding with data. His experience as a Tow-Knight Fellow at City University of New York, where he conceived HIL to make public data searchable and visual, shapes the session’s emphasis on overcoming barriers like unstructured PDFs or fragmented datasets.
Raja’s entrepreneurial journalism background also brings an inclusive dimension: he conducts training in regional languages for grassroots groups such as women’s collectives and local governance bodies. The aim is to strengthen civic participation, a goal HIL has advanced since its 2015 launch, serving over 30 clients and uncovering instances of corporate malpractice through public records.
Beyond journalism, Raja introduces participants to the basics of artificial intelligence and machine learning in everyday applications, always with a focus on ethical use. Drawing on case studies — from urban planning in Gurgaon to corporate accountability — his sessions encourage critical questioning and practical outcomes, with participants often leaving with visual reports that spotlight local issues.
By bridging the digital divide, Raja enables content creators, community leaders, and political stakeholders to turn raw data into actionable insights. His contributions to events like The Media Rumble further highlight the central role of data in shaping narratives around economy, governance, and civic life.