SXSW Second Interview

Suneel Gupta is the creater of The Kahani Movement. This is a website where "members of the Kahani social network collect and share stories from the first major wave of South Asians that immigrated to the U.S. Kahani means “story” in Hindi," says Gupta. He was inspired to find a way to share stories from his own family's experiences he grew up hearing. Personal stories of living in exile, experiencing violence stemmed from racism, great triumph and adjusting to a new environment are recounted through videos, photos, and blog posts.

"David Isay's Storycorps proved that ordinary people have extraordinary stories to share – you just need to ask. The Kahani Movement brings the original Storycoprs concept into the Web 2.0 space," says Gupta.

Gupta is well versed in the world of Web 2.0 and open-source approach to projects. He was formerly the director of Mozilla Labs. "Social media allows our members to collaborate, share ideas, and promote each other's work, which is critical to the project's success," says Gupta.

Gupta needed a platform that would allow people to share their stories within their small communities and beyond. "Tools in the Web 2.0 space, have allowed us to reach millions of people and let them reach other," says Gupta. He built the Kanahi site based on Ning, a user-friendly social networking site. Gupta works closely with the Ning team to bring these untold stories to life online.

Gupta is looking forward to SXSW interactive 2010 as a panelist and participant. "There is no better platform than SXSWi to share a new idea and get feedback from interesting, innovative people," says Gupta. He's got the same idea all savvy SXSWi-goers have while attending the conference--contribute and grow. Gupta says, "we are hoping to share some of the things we've learned through Kahani -- where we've met our goals and where we stumbled a bit. Moreover, we're aiming to offer Kahani as a model to be replicated because we believe that every community has stories worth preserving.

Read more about Suneel Gupta's upcoming panel here StoryCorps 2.0: Social Networking Meets Storytelling (Suneel Gupta, The Kahani Movement).