Taking on new roles…
I was back to Goa after a gap of two years. My stay in Delhi and a short stint in Malaysia was an enriching experience. It was a new life altogether. There was no question of joining any local paper for the very reason I had decided to quit it. The dream was to start something of my own; something different. The meteoric rise of IT had thrown up lots of opportunities. Goa too had made foray in the area of IT, and it had big plans. Goa had an edge over its counterparts due to her peculiar socio-economic conditions.
IT was nothing new for someone in the area of journalism, since we had been dealing with information all along. Having realized the power of information, it was my endeavour to harness the technology to make it an instrument of change.
With this objective in mind, I decided to set up a small company and named it Aparant Infomedia, (after the historical name for Goa). The basic objective of this venture was to bring the fruits of IT to the masses and use it to bring about a positive change amongst the lives of thousands of people, especially for the underprivileged.
An IT newspaper or magazine for Goa was just one idea amongst the many which the company aimed at. There were some innovative ideas to capitalize on the potential thrown up by the Internet, and particularly by e-mail, for the benefit of the common men. The paper got priority over other things simply because there was a need to create awareness amongst the masses.
There were a number of efforts underway in Goa in the area of IT by the government, industry, NGOs and the like . But there was a lack of co-ordination and hardly anybody knew what was going on in the other camp. Opportunity came calling, indicating that there was an urgent need to create a common forum for the discussion of IT-related issues and cost effective solutions.
This was priority Number One. Thus Goa's first IT fortnightly was born in the beginning of the year 2002. It was appropriately named Digital Goa, to encompass not only computer specific issues but the whole gamut of information technology even beyond computers.
Initially, this idea evoked a cautious response from both media stalwarts and IT professionals, some of whom even outright dismissed the idea as non-workable. Two individuals were exceptions to this rule, and they jumped onto the idea and have been a constant motivating factor all throughout i.e. GCCI President and D-Link General Manager Nitin Kunkolienkar and our own colleague Frederick Noronha.
One was aware of the average Goan's apathy towards reading, leaving aside few daily newspapers. This explains the fact that no periodical worth its name, and with a widespread readership, could be established in Goa, despite factors like Goa's high literacy, and relatively higher affluence levels. In the past one decade, a number of family-oriented and political magazines have hit the stands, only to disappear without making their mark. Those existing are struggling for their survival or are backed by big corporate houses. Then there was a new trend of free-sheeters that gripped Goa for a while. That too is seems to be slowly fading away.
On this backdrop, it was really a risky attempt to start a specialized magazine, leave alone the general magazine. Number one, there was no corporate house backing this effort nor did one have any savings to run it without any expected returns for the initial period. Most importantly, I did not have any other source of income since this was my full time activity.