Coolphabets, a US-based start-up company promoting the learning of alphabets in major global languages through social media and mobile phones, is launching an app that will be useful for Telugu learners on the World Telugu Day on August 29.
Founded by Ranjith Kollu, Kiran Yarlagadda and Venkat Yeleti, all old students of St. John’s Higher Secondary School at Gannavaram now working as software professionals, Coolphabets has already made its mark in helping the ‘digital generation’ learn alphabets in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Punjabi printed on household objects and merchandise made in the United States.
Its free app named ‘cool slate’, currently under testing and evaluation, will be available for downloading from the Google Play Store from August 29 and it contains alphabets of Telugu and other select Indian and foreign languages.
Announcing this at a press conference here on Sunday, Mr. Ranjith said there were some Telugu language schools in the U.S. doing an excellent job but the need to properly engage the children in continuous fun-filled learning was felt as a sense of disconnect with the mother-tongue had crept in among NRIs of Telugu origin.
“Can’t lose identity”
“We cannot afford to lose our language as that is nothing but losing our identity. The damage can be irreversible even if one generation skips learning their native language,” observed Mr. Ranjith. The cool slate will be a WhatsApp-like app that lets a child write and understand Telugu alphabets and share the content with family and friends on a real-time basis. “Coolphabets intends to be a global platform that promotes native language alphabets offline and through the ubiquitous social media,” Mr. Ranjith asserted.
