Vokal - India’s Largest Question & Answer platform now in Tamil
- Your questions will be answered in Tamil
Chennai, 20th June 2019: ~90% of
India is vernacular and speaks a number of local languages while just 10% of
the country is well versed in English. The vernacular audience is now getting
access to smartphones and has been using the Internet. Naturally, the
information available on the Internet favours English and is notably less in
Indian vernacular languages.
As a step towards bridging this gap, Vokal, India’s
largest vernacular Question & Answer knowledge sharing platform, will be
launching the Vokal App in Tamil in Chennai on 20 June 2019 by its Founders
Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka.
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(L-R)
Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder, Madhubalan, Chief Engineer and Mayank
Bidawatka, Co-founder
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The smartest minds in the country answer questions
of users. This gives the common man unparalleled access to the best minds that
have subject matter expertise. The platform invites experts in a particular
subject matter to join the mission and help answer questions of millions of
Indians. Vokal innovated by being the first Indian Question & Answer
platform to have audio & video answers.
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(L-R) Mayank
Bidawatka, Co-founder and Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder
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The platform will also be made available in 10
other Indian languages. With this, Vokal will be enabling the users to ask
queries and receive responses in Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil,
Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Oriya and Assamese.
India’s vernacular internet segment is poised to be
twice the size of the United States and one of the largest segments in the
world. Very few companies have addressed the challenge of catering to this
segment with relevant products. According to a study by KPMG and Google,
regional language users are expected to account for nearly 75% of India’s
internet user base by 2021. Vokal is trying to bridge the information and
knowledge gap among these non-english internet users by enabling peer-to-peer
knowledge sharing through questions and answers, over voice and video.
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| (L-R) Mayank Bidawatka, Co-founder and Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder |
At the press conference, Mr. Aprameya Radhakrishna,
CEO, Vokal, said, “Anyone who doesn’t know English in India has a huge
problem of accessing relevant answers to their questions. Their Internet
experience is poor with a dearth of meaningful content. We’re building a
peer-to-peer Q&A network that can cater to their information &
knowledge needs. Language diversity is unique to India. We look at this
diversity as a reality and an opportunity. We are very excited to launch in
Tamil. We invite the best of Tamil Nadu to share knowledge with the rest of
Tamil Nadu.”
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| (L-R) Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder and Mayank Bidawatka, Co-founder |
Adding to this, Mr. Mayank Bidawatka, Co-founder,
Vokal said “We are very excited to launch our app in the Tamil language.
Tamilians really celebrate their mother tongue and are at the forefront of all
things knowledge. Vokal has a unique solution for solving the knowledge and
information needs of the vernacular market. We believe that these users will
turn to value adding products like Vokal apart from the entertainment apps they
use today. Our innovation lies in the Indianization of existing solutions and
providing the easiest way for people to express themselves. We are on a mission
to cater to 500 million vernacular internet users and we want to be one of the
first few products that achieves this milestone.”
How Vokal works
Vernacular users use this platform to learn
something new everyday from the best minds in the country. This knowledge
sharing revolves around 100s of topics of interest. Users get to choose from
10+ interests and can follow creators around these interests. Users can ask
questions that are answered in regional languages by volunteering experts on
the platform.
Vokal is simple to use. Users ask a question - in their local Indian language,
either through a voice message or text. This is then answered by an expert.
Experts are vetted, verified and approved before they can start answering
questions on the platform. So users know they get only the best, and the right
answer. Experts can also conduct live video sessions and share their knowledge
with a large audience, allowing for greater interaction and knowledge
dissemination. The platform has over 1,000,000+ questions and
answers, 15,000+ answerers & 2 million monthly users. Vokal aims to cater
to 100 million monthly users within the next 18 months.
For more details, go to the Vokal website: https://getvokal.com
