Working with Qualitative Evidence in Rural Livelihoods
This webinar explores how qualitative data from rural development programs can be structured, organized, and analyzed to drive real-time decision-making.
Using rural livelihoods work and farmer producer organizations (FPOs) as a case study, co-founders Akshay Roongta and Yashna Jhamb demonstrate how to structure qualitative evidence, from farmer interviews, staff observations, FGD transcripts, and multilingual audio recordings, into actionable evidence. The approach enables organizations to analyze and track changes over time, identify patterns across geographies, and make qualitative insights accessible to all stakeholders, not just M&E teams.
Key Topics Covered:
A two-stage framework for managing qualitative data: collection and organization (through templates, metadata tagging, thematic annotations), followed by analysis and decision-making.
How integrating existing tools (SurveyCTO, transcription APIs) into a unified platform addresses common challenges like language barriers, data silos, and variations in data quality.
Why decentralized decision-making matters and what tailored dashboards look like for different stakeholders
How AI supports qualitative data analysis through multiple annotation options, pattern detection, and contextual summaries grounded in source quotes.
What this approach looks like in practice through a case study of FPO programs demonstrating baseline-to-midline tracking, theme analysis from open-ended responses, and change over time visualization.
The live platform demonstration showcases automated transcription and translation for multilingual data, annotation workflows with theme/sub-theme tagging, filtered views by geography, stakeholder type, and demographics, and AI-powered summarization and pattern detection and mixed-method reporting capabilities.
In the webinar
Akshay Roongta, Co-Founder, Dots
Akshay Roongta has over a decade of experience working across WASH, public health, financial inclusion, agriculture, and education. He brings a deep understanding of how complex, ground-level realities can inform better decisions and systems. He believes that the most valuable insights often lie in lived experience — and that good technology should help uncover and act on those insights without losing their nuance.
Yashna Jhamb, Co-Founder, Dots
With a background in ethnographic research and systems thinking, Yashna Jhamb works at the intersection of design, data, and impact, helping teams make sense of complex realities through storytelling and structure. She is the co-founder of Dots, a SaaS platform built by Ooloi Labs that helps organizations collect, organize, and analyze qualitative data at scale.