: It was in 2007 that Umesh Sachdev struck upon the idea that took over his life.
“If voice could be used to communicate with machines, we would solve massive problems. That’s when we started building speech recognition and artificial intelligence based software products, which have today become Uniphore,” said Mr. Sachdev, Uniphore’s co-founder and CEO who recently made it to Time Magazine ’s 2016 list of 10 millennials changing the world.
After Mr. Sachdev and his co-founder Ravi Saraogi completed Computer Science engineering, they got onto the entrepreneurial stride and conceptualised the speech recognition software. The idea was to reach millions of users who were not part of digital revolution due to illiteracy or language constraints.
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“We wanted to use technology which allows people to interact with devices such as mobile phones in their vernacular languages and connect to the internet to access information and carry out transactions,” said Mr. Sachdev, who started the venture at the IIT Research Park in Chennai.
Citing an example, the 30-year-old Sachdev said, “Imagine a housewife in a village who wishes to recharge her cable TV (DTH). Today, she is able to do so by dialling a number and saying her command in one of 14 Indian languages and the transaction is fulfilled.
In near future, these applications will be smarter. It will remind her that her daughter’s school fee is due and that she should also transfer it along with the TV bill.”Empowering people
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Having pioneered Indian and Asian vernacular languages, Uniphore is now investing in ‘natural language’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ capabilities.
“The impact of this, we believe, would empower people in various ways in the coming years,” Mr. Sachdev said.
The startup firm has added over 70 global languages and expanded to South East Asia, the Middle-East and the US. Till date, the startup has received investment from a series of investors, including IDG Ventures India; India Angel Network; Ray Stata, the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Analog Devices; and YourNest Angel Fund.
It also received seed investment from IIT Madras’ Rural Technology and Business Incubator; Villgro Innovations Foundation; and the National Research Development Corporation.
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has also invested an undisclosed amount in the firm.
Having pioneered Indian and Asian vernacular languages, Uniphore is investing in ‘natural language’