The mission to drive the ‘Digital India’ force won’t stand the test of times unless technology interferes and convert contents for the population that understands languages that is other than English. Jagdish Sahasrabudhe, CEO, LinguaNext Technologies, explains in an interaction with ENN’s Ritika Bisht
Tell us about how LinguaNext Technologies got its start in India.
As far as LinguaNext is concerned, we are adding one more element to digital world and consumerisation of ITs by emphasising that the digital makeover will only be successful if we also include the part of the population which does not speak English. When we consider India, a major part of the population does not speak English in the tier II and tier III cities and this is the population that will be the primary consumer in the digital world.
LinguaNext believes that it has the right technology to benefit these consumers as it is positioned to support and handle the requirement.
Being a language localisation software solution company, can you explain in brief about some of your best-selling products?
LinguaNext’s products add value in Banking, Insurance, e-Governance, Manufacturing and e-Commerce. These are industries where the consumer of information has language needs other than English. For example, in the Banking sector there are ATMs all over India, however a majority of those ATMs have English as a user interface language and there is a drawback for those who do not know English. Most ATMs currently generate a receipt in English even if a transaction is done in Hindi. To counter the problem RBI has released guidelines for banks to provide printing of ATM receipts in Hindi as well. This is a move which will align with the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana programme. LinguaNext already has products which can be deployed immediately for customers to use ATM facility in their language.
The government has embarked on the ‘Digital India’ mission in a big way. Do you see any opportunity for you there?
We believe that Digital India cannot reach its mission unless the digital content is available in local languages. Taking the content and getting it into the required local language will help Digital India initiative reach greater heights.
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Health industry, entertainment industry or e-commerce industry do not provide the information to their services in any other language other than English. Now, this is where LinguaNext will enter to help the population who are not versed with English. This transformation is needed if we wish to achieve all that is necessary to spread the Digital India initiative throughout the country.
Digital tools make Financial Inclusion happen, and your clientele list includes most of the top banks in India like CBI, SBI, PNB and many more. Do you have any plans with regard to the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana Programme.
LinguaNext aims to provide assistance to customers in their local language when he visits a bank, this is important because people from rural areas refrain from going to the bank as they are not able to understand the terms and conditions properly, but if they are assisted via local language format then it would be more comfortable for them to do and understand banking.
We also believe that mobility is going to play a very essential part in banking and thus we have our presence in mobile banking, SMS and in the ATM space. By working with the banks, especially cooperative sector, we believe this is the sector where our organisation can really help the PMJDY programme.
LinguaNext is based in India and now you have started your Japan operations. What differences you find operating within India and in Japan?
In India, we are mostly into banking, financial services and insurance sector as well as e-Governance while in Japan our focus is on the private sector. Japan tends to be welcoming to the adoption of technology as it matured in this aspect years ago, whereas in India all these are in the growing phase. That is why, for us, setting up a company in Japan was relatively easier, whereas this is a comparatively lengthy process in India.