Mangalorean.com: Engaging Mangalorean Expatriates

Situated on the west coast of southern Indian peninsula, Mangalore is today more than just a “port-city”. It is a bustling educational center as well as an industrial hub. However, Mangalore happens to have, also, one of the largest Non-Resident Indian (NRI) population in the country. Mangalorean.com, a bustling place on the internet for Mangalorean expatriates is doing a yeoman service in helping those Mangalorean to stay in touch with their roots. Our Features Editor spoke to its founder, Roshan D’souza. Excerpts:

Can you tell us something about your personal background?

I was born and brought up in Ganjimat which is 25 Kms away from Mangalore city. I studied in Aloysius and later moved to Manipal to pursue BE in MIT. After completing my BE I worked few years in Mumbai before migrating to US. It has been a decade since I migrated to US. But more I lived here more closer I have been to Mangalore! I have been working on internet programming and web security engineering; it was easy for me to chase my dream of having one website for Mangalorean community. I developed this website from the scratch and each piece of code on the site has my personal touch to it!

How did the idea of Mangalore come to your mind?

As already mentioned, I was working on web development and as I was single, then, I thought I need to give something back to my community. What more I could do than using my own talents and resources within my capacity to achieve this. I worked nonstop for 6 months to layout the initial design and programming. It was May 10, 2003, all was ready and with support and help of my friends, I announced the launching of this website through email campaign. The site has over 75,000 unique visitors worldwide today and also has loyal band of voluntary writers. Though I took the initiative in creating the site, the site is for mangaloreans, and is run by mangaloreans. They are the real “movers and shakers” of mangalorean.com!

Who are the other members of the team?

I have over 35 members in the team who are living in different parts of the globe. As more Mangaloreans are settled in gulf countries, we have representation in each of gulf country as well as in Europe, US, Canada, Australia and India.

How did people respond you when you started mangalorean.com?

It was not easy to get here where we are today. There were some websites which already existed. Though the community accepted wholeheartedly there were some Mangalorean sites that just wanted monopoly and troubled me as much they could. But readers wanted variety and diverse content. Because I received support from the community from all over we were able to meet their demands. We had a dream and we just followed it without heeding to any of the threats or competition.

What is the monumental moment in the times of Mangalorean.com?

Every day has been party time, trust me! Why I say that ways is because we receive emails and acknowledgements almost every day from our users. There are some who have received financial assistances from readers, and some who have found their soul mates and there are some who have even managed to run their business using free classifieds. I am satisfied with the fact that I have achieved my mere goal of giving service to our community.

What do you foresee for your site in the near future?

I want to bring together a community, I want to provide them a platform for their opinions, their aspirations and ideas, and my endeavor is to empower my readers with the right of expression enshrined in the constitution.

What do you think of the web media?

Web media is coming into prominence – it’s a global phenomenon today; it had never been better before. But with the living standards going up everywhere in the globe, every family has an access to computer, which means they can make themselves heard all over the world with a click of a button.