When we at RailYatri.in started working on RailWisdom – the crowd sourced platform for facilitating train travel information and intelligence in India – we were driven by the following hypothesis (we also called it as architectural assumptions)
Hypothesis No. 1: Every real traveler has discovered/knows something special and unique .
We believe that in each of us (aka – Yatri/Traveler) lives a way of knowing something special and unique information related to travel – and sometimes highly localized too – which exceeds far much than what exists in Travel Guides or Wikipedias of the World.
We wanted to make sure that the platform for RailWisdom have the inherent ability to identify such individuals and enable them an easy way to share their acquired wisdom with others.
Hypothesis No. 2: Human Psychology makes travel insights filled with biases.
While Hypothesis No. 1 is very true, we also believe that thoughts of an individual can be limited, biased, or extreme. The acceptance of these individual thoughts by others requires an aggregation, contextualization, and identifying it with the whole picture – thus creating an unbiased collective intelligence/wisdom.
Hypothesis No. 3: Travel-related information exists everywhere. Key is to know if someone has used it.
We believe that today’s travelers need both knowledge and wisdom. It is not just about knowing something special about a travel – but it is also about the experiences of someone who acted upon that knowledge. An accumulation of knowledge that comes reinforced with experience becomes Wisdom.
Hypothesis no. 4: Volume of travel content has grown exponentially – however travelers today deal in bits and bytes. Lack of context to this information makes it meaningless too.
We believe that the sheer volume of travel information available to us through channels such as Search Engines, Knowledge-pedias, etc. is becoming overwhelming. Lack of this information’s association to the context of travel tends to override its value or certain times become meaningless.
Hypothesis No. 5: Discovery of real/helpful local travel information today is more driven by luck/chance.
We believe that travel in India (and especially on a network like Indian Railways) entails useful knowledge which exists in the minds of travelers who have made it to a ‘place’ or used a ‘train’ or traversed a ‘route’ before. This knowledge till date exists in pockets/pieces and the discovery of it is more driven by chance (or by luck as some may want to refer to).
We would love to hear your thoughts too.
