Having started Wanted Umbrella, India’s first exclusive matchmaking agency for differently-abled people last year, 22-year old Kalyani Khona is now setting sights on a wider reach. She is planning to launch an app called Loveability by the end of this year, and will focus less on horoscopes and financial backgrounds. The app will also have a four-level privacy setting for each profile, should you want to withhold your identity, before accepting a date request.
Hoping to up the pace, Khona explains that they’re counting on the app to make many more successful matches. There is a crowd-funding campaign for the same, with a target of Rs 5 lakh of which Rs 3.5 lakh has already been generated. With around 25 requests daily, Khona feels Loveability can help handle the increasing traffic. It has brought around 150 people under one roof, all with the intention to find their life partner. “We just took a few registrations to understand the issues people face with regards to matrimony and were shocked to find they sometimes did not consider themselves marriageable,” she says, hoping to help them understand that they deserve love, just like anyone else.
Wanted Umbrella, the main company, is headquartered in New Delhi where registrations are received on the phone or through mails, after which the company sends them registration forms (as MS Word documents, which can be read by the visually impaired with the help of reading softwares like JAWS). “We send them suitable profiles via mail, based on filters like level of dependence, medication status, and so on,” she continues, adding that there is also a feature called ‘Social Spaces’ on the website, through which people with similar disabilities can interact.