About Us

MQUAD's Journey

In 2020-21, a group of Researchers and Social Scientists from the Population Council and PopulationCouncil Consulting came together to deliberate on designing an end-to-end digital data solution that can be used by data enthusiasts, Researchers, Program Managers and Policy Makers. The centre-piece of the deliberation was on the limitations of the existing digital data collection applications used for conducting surveys. Thereby, they discussed about creating features that can help data collection, management and visualization easy for monitoring and evaluating programs.

Today’s data producers face multitude of challenges while using the available digital data tools available in the market. These include but not limited to complicated programming for designing a survey or program monitoring form, no in-built feature for quick sampling and faster data collection, limited features to monitor data quality, and lack of real-time visualization of data collection progress to results.

To address these challenges, MQUAD (the four Ms refer to Map.Measure.Monitor.Manage) was designed over a period of two years which has customizable question types, quality control at multiple stages, sampling feature, internal data visualization, and seamless integration with other visualization platforms. The prime principle used for designing the solution is – easy to navigate and use.

High level of rigour was set in to design the product and today, MQUAD is available in all Indian and International languages and has been used in several countries for data collection and management.

Product Overview

Who Can Use MQUAD?

Anyone who is trying to gather and use evidence to gain better social impact, desire to conduct program monitoring with minimal support, make meaning out of data on real-time basis, can use MQUAD.

Potential Challenges

  • Grantees not able to collect meaningful and good quality data

  • Grantees data is stored in different locations by different grantees

  • Program and evaluation data available in varied formats, making comprehension and data formats complex

  • Tracking the cumulative impact of multiple implementation programs on same theme is challenging due to grantee-dependent data capture methods, often involving different set of questions and various platforms for data collection

Solution @ MQUAD

MQUAD ensures that data is stored centrally, allowing for synthesis and comprehensive learning. It provides a holistic view of cumulative impact and facilitates the creation of data collection formats in Excel, which can be deployed with minimal support.

Potential Challenges

  • Lacks expertise in research and program monitoring

  • Data collected manually or in excel formats for many programs

  • Data analysis and visualization skills are low or negligible

Solution @ MQUAD

MQUAD is user-friendly and easy to navigate. The application and additional features provide a comprehensive solution for CSR teams to plan, execute and visualize the data, facilitating quick program investments and informed decisions. Additionally, MQUAD DataWorld supports teams with in-depth data analytics, including report preparation.

Potential Challenges

  • Most data is in manual format

  • Unable to make meaningful interpretation of data

  • Hiring a third party for monitoring and evaluation is expensive

Solution @ MQUAD

MQAUD empowers Program Managers at civil society organisations with all the necessary information on sampling, questions, data collection, and quality. The MQUAD support team can help customize data analytics according to the organization’s needs to provide meaningful interpretations.

Potential Challenges

  • Data quality is a major concern

  • Analysis and visualization needs significant improvement

  • Ensuring data security is a critical challenge

Solution @ MQUAD

MQUAD addresses these challenges by providing a collection of solutions that ensures high data quality through standardized collection and validation processes. DataWorld within MQUAD offers investors a platform to synthesize and interpret data about what works and in what contexts for the social developmental programs. Furthermore, MQUAD prioritizes data security through stringent security measures to protect sensitive information, ensuring that all data is stored and accessed securely.

Potential Challenges

  • Lack of skills to design a robust survey tool

  • Inadequate programming skills for questionnaire design in digital data collection platform

  • Data security concerns

Solution @ MQUAD

MQUAD provides researchers across institutions with all necessary features to conduct their research efficiently in a short time. MQUAD is equipped to work across various thematic areas such as health and nutrition, education, agriculture, environment, or purely the surveying of market products. DataWorld within MQUAD also provides publicly available data for reference and synthesis.

Potential Challenges

  • Data in manual formats

  • Data security concerns

  • Weak monitoring and evaluation teams

  • Lack of platform that can allow access to data sources and synthesis analysis

Solution @ MQUAD

MQUAD provides government with tools to easily develop and implement program/policy monitoring, research, and evaluations. The features of MQUAD enhance the quality and security of data, addressing the specific needs of government entities.

User’s Talking

Program Lead

I have used multiple data collection and management tools. I have found MQUAD very user friendly and easy to operate. Questionnaire design is very simple in Excel and the logic function is so simple that most of my team members are able to execute. The application has all the features that a researcher needs.

Recently, I have completed a multi-country study and we have used the collaboration feature extensively. We could work seamlessly and finished our work efficiently.

Senior Researcher

The striking feature of MQUAD is its quality feature. I have been able to monitor the quality of data on a real time basis. It has helped me to provide feedback to the data collection team and do course correction quickly. In some of the questions, I plugged in ‘audio’ feature which enabled me to understand the way a question is asked, what the respondent has said and how it was entered by the data collector.

We are now using MQUAD application in most of our projects.

Resource Mobilization Specialist

MQUAD has helped us to resolve the data security and storage. Our partners/clients have been extremely sensitive about the data security and we have been struggling with this for quite some time.
Now, I can assure my clients that the data collected in MQUAD is completely encrypted. I am happy to share that this has helped us to get new and exciting projects.