Version 1.0 · For research at Mulakate rooms, including the Edge City programme
The short version
We study how rooms work — what makes a table click. If you take part, your answers go into a study, never into a profile anyone can trace back to you. Saying no costs you nothing: you keep your seat, the room runs the same, nobody at the table knows either way.
1. What the research is
We're trying to understand how strangers become comfortable with each other: which room formats work, what changes the feel of a table, how people describe a room afterwards. Some of it runs with partners — research programmes, universities, or cohort-based communities such as Edge City — named to you before you agree.
Each specific study runs under a documented internal research protocol describing its questions, method and data handling, available to you on request.
2. What we collect if you take part
- Short questions before and after a room.
- Observational notes taken by a researcher or host — about the room, not about you personally.
- Your existing Aina responses and attendance record, in de-identified form.
- Optionally, a short interview or recorded conversation. Separate consent, asked separately.
What partners receive: aggregate findings only — counts, distributions, themes. No individual responses, no contact details, no Aina profiles, no recordings. If a specific study ever needs identifiable participation, that's a fresh consent asked at the time, not this one.
3. Taking part is optional, always
You can decline before, during or after a room. You can answer some questions and skip others. You can withdraw afterwards and we'll pull your data from the study, up until the point findings are published or the dataset is anonymised — after that, there's nothing left to pull, because there's no link to you.
Declining changes nothing: same seat, same price, same room, same matching. Nobody at your table is told.
4. How your data is protected
Research records are separated from your account at the point of collection and held under a study code, not your name. The key linking the two is held separately and destroyed when the study closes. Findings are reported in aggregate only. No participant is identifiable in anything published.
5. Recording, where it happens
Audio or video is recorded only with separate consent, transcribed with names removed, and the original deleted within 90 days of transcription unless you agree otherwise.
6. Risks
Low, and honest about it: some questions ask how you felt in a room, which can be uncomfortable. You can skip any of them. If a room brings up something difficult, tell the host or write to connect@mulakate.in.
7. Compensation
None by default. Where a specific study offers something — a credit, a free seat — it's stated upfront and doesn't depend on what you say.
8. How long we keep research data
Under a study code for the life of the study, then irreversibly anonymised and retained for analysis. Anonymised data isn't personal data under the DPDP Act and can't be traced back to you by us or anyone else.
9. Publication
Findings may be published — as a report, a post, or a paper — jointly by Mulakate and the partner programme, with either party able to ask not to be named. Nothing published identifies a participant.
10. Your rights, and who to ask
This is a consented purpose under the DPDP Act. Withdraw any time in Settings → Privacy, or at connect@mulakate.in. Questions go to the Grievance Officer, Pratik Chirania, at the same address.
I agree to take part in research as described. ☐ Yes ☐ No I agree to be recorded, where a study asks. ☐ Yes ☐ No
Name ______ · Date ______ · Study, if specific ______ · Consent version 1.0