📚 OpenStacks for Change
A modular, evolving collection of open-source documentation, research tools, MEL frameworks, and participatory knowledge practices—rooted in the realities of Indian and South Asian public interest work.
📂 Repository Table of Contents
-
📁 InsightStack
Visual documentation and participatory tools for research workflows. -
📁 FieldStack
Survey, evaluation, and field-based research infrastructure. -
📁 EquityStack
Python data tools for health, gender, education, and climate equity. -
📁 SignalStack
Research Rundown archive and development research highlights. -
📁 OpenStacks.dev
Project hub connecting research, fieldwork, and storytelling toolkits.
🔍 Explore the Repositories
InsightStack
Visual documentation, participatory analysis, and storytelling tools for development sector work. Includes Observable notebooks, Open Data Editor, Miro facilitation manuals, Excalidraw diagrams, and Descript visual ethnography.
What's New: Added participatory workshop templates (Miro) and Descript-based fieldwork visualization examples.
FieldStack
Evaluation, field survey infrastructure, and applied R and Stata modules for survey research, MEL, and quasi-experimental designs. Includes survey templates, data cleaning scripts, analysis frameworks, and econometrics walkthroughs.
What's New: Expanded econometrics examples: RDD, HTE, MDE calculations, and Stata visualizations.
EquityStack
End-to-end Python workflows for data cleaning, modeling, and visualization focused on public health, gender, education, and climate sectors. Includes plug-and-play Jupyter notebooks, dashboard exports (Excel, Power BI), and pipeline automation tools.
What's New: Completed survey weighting notebooks and dashboard generation templates.
SignalStack
Hosting the Research Rundown issues archive—a curated newsletter featuring the latest in global development research, open data, tools, and methods—plus featured insights from the OpenStacks ecosystem.
What's New: Launch of Research Rundown issues archive and featured repository highlights section.
OpenStacks.dev
The coordinating repository for the OpenStacks for Change project. Houses the roadmap, repository links, citation formats, and OpenStacks philosophy connecting research, fieldwork, and visualization toolkits.
What's New: Fully structured roadmap, project meta-organization, and citation guidance finalized.
About the Maker
Dr. Varna Sri Raman is a development economist, writer, and award-winning social researcher with two decades of experience working across public health, education, food systems, gender equity, and climate resilience in India and South Asia.
Her work blends rigorous evaluation methods with human-centered design to strengthen institutions, build equity, and improve governance systems. Varna is the founder of StoryWell Books and has led programme design, MEL strategies, and research with Oxfam, UNICEF, Gates Foundation, PLAN India, and BBC Media Action.