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Hello everyone,
Apologies! Got so caught up that I missed sharing the last quarter update. Won’t happen again!
Here is an email sharing the exciting latest developments from Sama in the last 6 months!
As always, thoughts and questions are welcome! :)
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A. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
1) Cases Filed - 1,10,10,700+
2) Total Settlements - 22,14,500+
3) Resolution Rate - 15.7%
4) Total Clients - 43 (Chola Mandalam and Bajaj Life Insurance are the latest additions)
5) Total Resolutionaries (Mediators, Arbitrators and Case Managers)- 3,160
6) Presence - 437 cities
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1) Sama facilitated the 4th Online Lok Adalat for Maharashtra and the 3rd Online Lok Adalat in Gujarat!
It feels good to see Government users coming back to Sama and adopting Online Lok Adalats. All these lok adakats were held under the able leadership of seasoned ODR professional and State Coordinator, Ajitesh Priyadarshi. The latest detailed reports of Maharashtra and Gujarat are available here and here.
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2) Supreme Court Justice U.U Lalit, Nalsa Executive Chairman (and the next Chief Justice of India) attended an Online Lok Adalat hearing on the Sama Platform!
I immediately shared this picture with my family WhatsApp group! We felt proud!
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(Hon'ble Shri Justice U.U. Lalit joining Online Lok Adalat proceedings using Sama Video Conferencing!)
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3) Total cases filed on Sama crossed 1 crore!
After complaining for years about pendency in courts crossing millions, it felt slightly good when Sama crossed the 10 million mark! The majority of the cases were Motor Vehicle Challan Matters from Online Lok Adalat, facilitating recovery of 100+ crores to the Maharashtra govt!
1,10,10,712 to be precise, and total resolutions recorded are 22,14,502.
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4) After 8 months of rigorous content preparation and handling millions of cases, Sama launches its first-ever in-house Sama ODR Certification Course!
Completing this course will make you a certified Sama Resolutionary and makes you eligible to get cases allocated from the Sama Algorithm. This course will be mandatory and ensures uniform quality amongst Sama’s neutrals and case managers. For the first batch, we only have 10 spots left! Please note the course will cost Rs 5,000. Details of the Course are available here.
Please apply only if you are interested in exploring a full-time career in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and helping people settle disputes from your home. Interested people can click here. We will get back to you within 7-10 days if your slot gets confirmed.
Major major gratitude to Paul Thottan, Head of Communications, for bringing the course together!
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5) 15,000+ Arbitrations Awards passed in a month!
For the first time, we passed more than 15,000 arbitration awards for our banking clients in one month! :)
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6) Sama got 2 new big enterprise sign-ups - Chola Mandalam and Bajaj Life Insurance!
After months of perseverance from Jishnu Veetil, Head of the Business and Operations Team, these 2 enterprises will be using Sama for Online Arbitration and Online Conciliation respectively!
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7) Sama closes the funding round with Campus Fund; gets valued at 50 crores! :)We are extremely excited to have Richa Bajpai, Co-founder of Campus Fund, to join us as a strategic investor for Sama! :)
(right: Akshetha Ashok, co-founder at Sama, relieved after the signing of the Shareholders Agreement)
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8) Sama’s Weekly Rituals
From this year, Sama’s weekly rituals look like this-
Monday - Wish for the Week (Each team member states his/her wish for the week, and all team members pray for it to come true)
Tuesday - Team Meetings (All hands)
Wednesday - Fed Talks (To keep track of interesting trends in business, ODR etc)
Thursday - Reflection Circles (Non-Work Hours on interesting themes like childhood, financial routines, friendship etc)
Friday - Thank You Cutlets ( Team members can drop a thank you voice note for someone who helped them during the week)
Additionally, every month, we get a seasoned veteran to provide curated learning experiences for the Sama team, Neutrals, and Case Managers, on different themes such as– Strengthening Communication Skills, Improving Personal Accountability, What Drives Me etc.
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(Sama Team at the Vision Alignment Training held by Solomon P, Former Director at Ashoka Changemakers)
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9) Sama participated in the National Consultation for Vision@2047 held by the Department of Justice, Government of India!
Sama was one of the institutions identified to contribute to discussions on what our justice system looks like in the year 2047. The Department of Justice is keen to build a Speedy, Affordable & Technology Enabled Citizen-Centric Doorstep Justice Delivery system and heard Pranjal Sinha & Ajitesh Priyadarshi on the work Sama has done through Online Lok Adalats and the Madhya Pradesh Pilot Project.
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10) Sama records a net profit of 1 crore+!
This profit is getting completely re-invested in further improving the product and supply of Sama. :)
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1) Sama launches its own Community Forum!
Coordinating with neutrals and case managers across multiple WhatsApp groups was becoming cumbersome! The Community Forum seeks to be a place for Sama’s Mediators, Arbitrators, and Case Managers to get to know each other, post their queries, get access to training materials, knowledge share etc. Sign up for the Community Forum here!
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2) Sama Security is getting strengthened!
Sama team is adapting its processes and workflows in order to meet the requirements of ISO & PCIDSS. GDPR certification is done. The full compliance process is long and comprehensive, and Sama is 80 percent there!
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3) Use of IVR!
Sama is using IVR (Automatic) calling to weed out non-starters (cases where numbers are not available) and get consent from customers, in order to handle huge volumes of cases and ease the calling burden on Sama Case Managers.
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4) Sama has introduced “Post Award Remedies” in its institutional Arbitration Rules!
In order to keep up with best global practices in Institutional Arbitration, Sama has become one of the few online arbitration institutions in the world to allow for an in-house appellate mechanism for arbitration awards.
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5) Sama develops an algorithm with the World Bank Team to appoint arbitrators and conciliators!
Manual appointments were getting cumbersome and in order to bring full transparency (especially in light of appointment-related challenges in arbitration) and efficiency in the appointment process, this algorithm uses a combination of pre-determined parameters and machine learning to track the past performance of arbitrators, mediators, and case managers. To know how it works in detail, checkout rule 5.3 by clicking here.
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1) An upset client!
Due to some misunderstanding in case uploading instructions, a client faced issues in filing cases and got upset with us! We felt bad that the situation escalated and did a full team meeting with the client, reassured them, and got the cases filed in 2 days.
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2) Hiring in Tech!
Tech hiring has been a challenge, especially in finding like-minded people. After spending a few months, some members had to be let go due to not being able to find an appropriate fit for them in the team. While going, their primary feedback towards us was to bring in more structure and improve the onboarding processes.
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3) Communication Gap
Similar to the last time; As the team is growing, we faced challenges in maintaining clear communication within the team. In order to tackle that, we have started using communication rituals like 1:1s, weekly team meetings, fed talk, reflection circles, etc to improve communication within the team.
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1) Join our Sama Community Forum, and participate in the Bug Bounty Program. We see immense value in having community members look out for vulnerabilities within the Sama ecosystem and will reward (in cash!) those who can identify errors in our Rules & Procedures and Templates (Notice and Award)! Register on the community forum by clicking here (Sign Up)!
2) Refer a contact either from Legal Service Authority, Police, or Financial Enterprises across the country who would be interested in using Sama ODR services. You can submit the lead reference by clicking here.
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Sama is growing! In the last 6 months, we officially onboarded Sayak, Gaurav, Arpit, and Shradhha in the tech team. Sayak is presently leading V2 development. Gaurav, hailing from Rajasthan, is a self-taught coder and joined the team in April, 2022. Arpit, who is coordinating the ODR API development for the Account Aggregator System, comes from Kolkata. Shradhha, with more than 6 years of experience, is going to join the team as Senior Developer and Tech Lead. The team size is at 10 now with 5 engineers and 5 lawyers.
The team had its second retreat in Goa, organized to perfection by our very own, Paul Thottan. The retreat was a great opportunity for the team to meet, do “some” adventure sports (cliff diving), and attend a wonderful training on vision alignment and improving communication from Solomon P, Former Director at Ashoka Changemakers.
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The Co-founders are all good, adapting to the changes happening around and excited to see what the second half of 2022 has in store for Sama!
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1) We are aiming at 50 lakh resolutions on Sama by March 2023
2) We aim to resume our work with the Police Stations in Madhya Pradesh.
3) We aim to reach 5 clients by the end of this financial year, who file at least 10,000 cases each, annually, on Sama.
4) We aim to work with 10 State Legal Service Authorities by the end of this financial year. ( we are at 7 right now!)
5) We aim to incorporate the best practices and ensure uniform quality amongst our arbitrators, mediators, and case managers.
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H. What does Sama do again?
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Sama helps people resolve their disputes fully online! Started in 2015, Sama, an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Institution, recognized by the Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India, has more than 2000+ Neutrals (Mediators, Arbitrators, etc) in 243 cities across India to provide services such as online mediation, online arbitration etc.
Based on the motto “Suljhao, Magar Pyaar Se”, Sama strongly believes that the solution to the problem of poor access to justice in India lies in using collaborative dispute resolution mechanisms and leveraging on the power of technology. To know more about us, click here- www.sama.live.
As always, if you’ve read this far along- you’re awesome and we love you! Until next time! :)
Akshetha, Vikram & Pranjal
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