BENGALURU: India has 22 official languages, with 6,000+ dialects. Even so, little information is available on the internet in vernacular languages. Which is where mobile app ‘Vokal’ is attempting to give people a chance to ask their questions and get answers from experts who are fluent in that particular language. Users can ask questions in Hindi, which are then translated into text automatically, and shared with experts, who either answer in video or voice mode in Hindi.
While interacting with non-English speakers, Mayank Bidawatka and Aprameya Radhakrishna felt that the Internet had little to offer for non-English speakers. As a result, most of them resorted to using WhatsApp to share forwards. “They’ve never been able to meaningfully use the internet,” says Aprameya, who along with Mayank, started Vokal in January this year.
He adds, “The internet was created by and for the English speaking world. Ninety per cent of India doesn’t speak English. When a user looks for information in Hindi or any other Indian language on Google, they find few sites with accurate information. Thus, we decided to solve that problem with an Indian solution.”Currently, the app is available only in Hindi.
“With low-cost smart phones and easy access to the internet, Mayank feels that the number of internet users is on the rise on a daily basis. “This segment of non-English speakers is almost twice the size of the population of the United States — one of the largest segments in the world. We want to cater to this population. We are trying to reach out to 600 million language internet users in India. We are at almost half a million downloads and want to get to 100 million users within a year. Our near-term plan is to launch in the eight largest Indian languages,” he says.
USER SPEAKS
Rahul Salve, who recently downloaded the app, points out that in smaller towns they depend on family or friends to answer their queries. “This is where the app has come to use. Now, with the help of experts, we’re able to browse and research popular and interesting topics. This helps to bridge the knowledge gap.”