India's New Email Service Supports 8 Regional Languages

Home to 220 million users, India has some of the highest number of people using the internet. Yet, less than 0.1% of the content on the world wide web  is in an Indian language says Ajay Data, founder of company Data XGen Technologies. The company recently launched linguistic email service  called ‘Datamail’  in 8 different regional languages including Hindi, reported BloombergQuint. A report  by the Deccan Chronicle further states that at  the launch event of the service, Data said, “Over 89 percent of India’s population do not speak English and are therefore unable to read and communicate via email as the language of communication on the world wide web is English.”
The company has achieved this phenomenal feat and has beaten its global peers by providing a service that India desperately needed to bring more of its population into the digital fold. It is not just individuals who will benefit from this innovation. Governments  corporations  and communities can have their e-mail addresses in 8 languages-  Hindi, Bangla, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, reported the Times of India. The company also has services to  include languages like Russian, Chinese and Arabic since the demand for such a service in international languages too has been massive, reported the Economic Times.

Almost as if he was born to do this, the man behind the initiative is Ajay Data who is an innovator, investor and entrepreneur. Speaking to BloombergQuint, he said, “The issue of language is extremely critical, which remains largely unaddressed. Datamail can break this clutter and lead the Digital India dream.” The Digital India initiative aims at connecting millions of Indians by improving internet access and awareness. The report further added that Data hopes that the government would come forward to support the initiative as it can help break down the language barriers that is holding back a large part of the population. With 22 official languages and over hundreds more that are present in India, this technological innovation was one that was long overdue.
In the past, email providers like Google, Yahoo and Outlook did allow mails to be sent in regional languages, it was necessary that the e-mail id as such had to be in English. With Datamail, that barrier has been removed and people will have the opportunity to have an e-mail id that is purely in the language of their choice, adds the BloombergQuint report. It is truly inspiring that instead of waiting around for other global software giants to pick up this idea, this company has gone ahead and completed it. Nobody encapsulates this better than Data himself, who told BloombergQuint, “We want to realise the dream of Swadeshi for India. Until now we have only called ourselves an IT superpower, but it’s high time we take an important step towards actually becoming one using our own indigenous technologies.”

Feature Image Courtesy of Bloomberg Quint