AT Conceptualized Free Android App that Works in 11 Indian Languages

Agrahyah Technologies (AT) is been conceptualized by three friends turned entrepreneurs - Sreeraman Thiagarajan, Rushabh Vasa, and Uppal Shah. The young Turks are developing AT as software technology start-up to build a suite of apps (applications), products, and content ground-up for the millions of Indians who are non-English literates.

Agrahyah Technologies aim to make technology useful for everyone and remove English as a barrier for getting full advantages of the internet. Calculator for India is our first product. It is fully functional and free calculator that is available in 11 Indian vernacular languages including, Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Telugu.

In past six months since inception, AT is working to build apps and content in Indian vernacular languages which cater to the masses in a culturally and a contextually relevant way. Technology giants and government are working to get more people online by increasing connectivity, but it raises an acute challenge in terms of inclusion. Of the approximately 400 million plus Indian users online, only 175 million users are comfortable with English.

The World Wide Web is dominated by English. India has over 400 million Hindi literates but WWW has less than 0.5% of Hindi content online. These stark differences will grow further if the language divide is not addressed adequately and urgently.   

There is a huge gap in the availability of high quality apps and content in vernacular languages. This is where AT steps in to build a bridge with a unique approach of building high quality apps and content for users in vernacular languages.

Our philosophy at AT is to be culturally and contextually relevant for each language. For instance, AT has developed 'Calculator For India' a free Android app that works in 11 Indian languages and also has GST calculation feature.

This is the first step to build multi-vernacular web for the growing number of Android users in India. AT is also launchingHotFridayTalks.com later this month, which is a Lifestyle and Entertainment portal that aims to be a tech lead, mobile first, new age hangout for youth. The vision is to develop a lifestyle portal with content written in each of the vernacular languages rather than merely translate it.

Another application in the works is called “MyNews”. An Android app to keep track of people, places, and things we care about in a language of our choice. For example the app lets you set a tracker for ‘Mysuru’ in Kannada or 'Narendra Modi' in Bengali. Once set, all the relevant news will be smartly delivered to the user and they can even choose to read it without ads and save it offline.

AT is a boot-strapped startup based in Mumbai. The men behind the dream include Sreeraman Thiagarajan, who’s been in the business of marketing for the last 15 years. An active Google evangelist, he has been a part of developer relations programs for past four years and listed as Google Expert. 

Rushabh Vasa started a full service digital marketing agency when India had less than 50 million internet users, and has come a long way in digital marketing, and remains the technology lead behind the idea. 

Uppal Shah is the staunch businessman, who has taken on a challenge to add technology to each arm of his vast family business which has presence from Kolhapur to Dubai.

With a vision to make technology accessible to everyone, the trio has taken the path less travelled on India’s digital landscape, by planning to localize the internet for the non-English masses in a country where the dialect changes every 50 kilometres, they have taken on an audacious task to break the language barrier and make Digital India truly inclusive.