Vokal adds Tamil to its knowledge-sharing platform

Vokal, a leading vernacular question and answer knowledge-sharing platform in the country, Friday added Tamil to its platform.

Now, the platform would have 11 languages such as Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjab, Oriya and Assamese, Vokal co-founder Mayank Bidawatka told reporters here.

Stating that only 10 per cent of 40 lakh internet users in the country is well-versed in English and notably less in vernacular languages, Mayank said this was a step towards bridging the gap so that more number of people benefit, particularly in the rural areas.

The country's vernacular internet segment is poised to be twice the size of US and one of the largest segments in the world, its founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said.

The regional languages users are expected to account for nearly 75 per cent of Indian internet user base by 2021, he said.

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, Radhakrishna said.

The Vokal app has already 10 lakh question and answers, including 25,000 in Tamil, he said.