Sathya Sankaran. Urban technologist, CEO of Rainmatter Foundation, Co-Founder of Urban Morph, Bicycle Mayor of Bengaluru, author of Break the Block, host of the OoruLabs podcast. Technology professional by training, public policy by postgrad, social tech consulting by trade.
mdshareMarkdown sharing with the widest surface area: paste in the browser, edit from Obsidian, commit from VS Code, or drive it from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex & Gemini CLIs via MCP. Four permission tiers, inline threaded comments anchored to text, real-time WebSocket sync, and instant link revocation. Free, no-login, open source.
mdshare.live
bharatlasIndia's open atlas. 100+ map layers, free to explore. Administrative boundaries from state down to village, wards for 30+ cities, plus rivers, forests, highways, groundwater, floods and seismic zones. Slice any layer and download it as GeoJSON, Shapefile, Parquet or PMTiles, or drop your own geo file and share it by link. Open licences, queryable from AI tools via MCP, no signup, no tracking.
bharatlas.com
IrrationalA field guide to the mistakes your mind makes. Describe a decision and Irrational writes an adversarial prompt that argues the other side, refracting your choice through 22 cognitive biases: sunk cost, anchoring, overconfidence. Your own AI runs the audit; nothing is stored. Works as an MCP tool. MIT, no login.
irrational.pages.dev
MugiluThe open sky of India. Name any place and Mugilu reads what the air is doing to you right now: AQI with the full pollutant breakdown and years of life lost, heat and wet-bulb stress, wind, fog, dust, crop-burn smoke, UV, and any live NDMA or IMD warning overhead. Search in Indian languages or use your location, no map needed. Open source, no login, queryable from AI tools via MCP.
mugilu.live
twelveswarasShazam for raagas. Hold your phone to Carnatic music and twelveswaras names the raaga: the top three matches with confidence, the tonic pinned from the tanpura drone, and plain-language cues for training your own ear. Audio is read on the spot and never stored. Free, no login, open source, a CC-BY public good.
twelveswaras.com
OverlookedIndia's species from every public source, in one list. Overlooked joins GBIF, iNaturalist, the Zoological and Botanical Surveys of India, Kew and the IUCN Red List to show, species by species and state by state, what has been observed, what has a confirmed name and what is threatened, and what changes each month. An experimental page gives people who identify iNaturalist photos a short list of names to check. Open data, no login, open source.
overlooked-india.pages.dev
ChaalwiseStrategy lessons for people who run things, or are learning to. Chaalwise teaches thinking ahead, weighing odds, sizing a risk and keeping a cool head: each idea shown in chess, poker or a game-theory lab, used on cases from work and study, and brought back until it sticks. Against the computer only, with no money, no account and progress kept on your device. Free, open source.
chaalwise.com
Biodiversity · Open data
The Overlooked Species
96% of India's biodiversity records are birds. Most beetle species have none.
Climate · Monsoon · Agriculture
The Bill Arrives on Time
India sees El Niño coming months ahead. The bill still arrives in full.
Land · Water · Map
Land Ledger
Of every 100 kg of nitrogen on the fields, the harvest carries away about 48.
Food · Agriculture
Where India’s Food Goes
India grows more food than it needs and throws away a tenth of it.
Air · Waste
Upwind
Only 30 percent of Delhi’s winter air is its own.
Commons · Emergence
Influence the Rule, Not the Bird
Money and effort add speed. Only the rules change direction.
Business · Biodiversity
The Question They Made Optional
786 big companies sit beside nature. 33 said what they do there.
Soil · Agriculture
The Best-Measured Soil in the World
Over 5 million soil samples a year, and no second opinion.
Biodiversity · Governance
The Register No One Reads
2.72 lakh People’s Biodiversity Registers. Two formally approved.
Rural India · Sustainability
The Ground Beneath the Report Card
Villages are graded on today, not on whether they can last.
Wildlife · Human Conflict
The Uncounted
100,000 conflict incidents a year. Deaths counted for two species.
Forests · CFR Rights
Whose Forest Is It?
Less than 3% of mapped community forest has been recognised.
Agriculture · FPOs
The Hollow Collective
Nearly 50,000 farmer companies. Just 4% employ a paid manager.
Livelihoods · Women · SHGs
The Ground They Stand On
9 crore women in self-help groups. 71% never get past saving.
Three decades transforming cities through technology and data-driven solutions in sustainable mobility and energy transition. The unusual mix (a technology background plus a PG in Public Policy) is the whole point: most urban problems aren't blocked by ignorance, they're blocked by the gap between people who can read systems and people who can read the bylaw.
The work itself is in the cards: the open tools up in §01, and the platforms, initiative, book and podcast just below in §04. What stays here is where the time goes now.
Also associated with WattsNext Energy, Bioman Technologies, and as visiting/adjunct faculty at Kautilya School of Public Policy and Mount Carmel College.
AltMoGPS-verified mobility intelligence, double-booked: tonnes of CO₂ avoided for ESG and city-planning ledgers, active minutes for employee wellness. Its data drove a 342% increase in cycling & walking allocation in Bengaluru's Master Plan, helped establish 20+ km of cycle tracks, and won Silvassa Smart City an Excellence in Innovation award. Challenges, leaderboards, and city analytics on top.
Relief RidersCOVID-19 cycling response. Volunteers ferrying medicine, oxygen, food across 12 Indian cities. 2021 UN World Bicycle Day Special Award; 2022 Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Watch the story
Break the BlockThe brutally honest playbook for changing your city when you have no power, no money, and no political connections. Twelve lessons drawn from the decade-long Namma Railu campaign: five citizens, ten years, one Union Cabinet approval (2020) for Bengaluru Suburban Rail.
breaktheblock.in
SyntheSYSAI-powered services for orchestrating and coordinating urban solutions and accelerating progress at scale, ward to nation. Currently shipping: Active Mobility policy to programs orchestration via cfam.in, district and vertical dashboards for the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, Neighbourhoods of the Future (notf.in) for citizen-organised hyperlocal action, and digital information synthesis for a range of businesses and public-good initiatives.
urbanmorph.com/synthesys
OoruLabsIndia's premier urban-affairs podcast. Long conversations with the people who hold or move levers on cities: Indian transit chiefs, mayors, ward activists, climate scientists, and an Amsterdam Deputy Mayor or Dutch cycling envoy when the question calls for it.
podcast.oorulabs.com| Organisation | Role | Mandate |
|---|---|---|
| Rainmatter Foundation | CEO | The job: enabling climate-resilient places. Prepare alt-everything for the climate crisis that is upon us. |
| Urban Morph | Co-Founder & Director | Full-stack, AI-native urban-tech venture studio in Bengaluru. Ships AltMo, SyntheSYS, and platforms across mobility, governance, and citizen engagement, with government, philanthropic, and corporate partners across India. |
| Bicycle Mayor of Bengaluru | Civic Responsibility (BYCS) | Advocacy and policy work for cycling infrastructure, road safety, and active mobility. Founding-team member of Cycle Day, India's longest-running community-driven open-streets event: 800+ events over 10 years, run by 80+ community partners. |
| Also associated | Advisor / Director / Faculty | WattsNext Energy: energy delivery for EVs and built form. · Bioman Technologies: circular-economy waste management. · Visiting / adjunct faculty at Kautilya School of Public Policy (Hyderabad) and Mount Carmel College (Bengaluru). |
For collaborations, talks, podcast invites, advisory work, and book-related queries: a DM on any of these channels is the best route. Replies generally same-week, sometimes from a moving train.