India Panchang in Hindi for Amazon Alexa by Agrahyah Technologies

Agrahyah Technologies, a Mumbai based innovative technology company, recently unveiled its digital almanac (panchang) in Hindi language named ‘India Panchang’ that works as an Alexa Skill compatible with Amazon Echo devices.

Agrahyah Technologies, the software company, has been working towards making technology more accessible and useful to the non-English speaking literate population in India by building a suite of mobile apps, voice products and digital content from ground-up in vernacular languages.

Voice assistants are the latest inventions of Artificial Intelligence powered virtual assistants. Already touted as the big step in the direction of robotics and machine learning, tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are bringing in their latest inventions into modern homes. However, like the web and mobile, voice as a platform too is skewed largely towards English as a medium. While English dominates 51% content on the web, followed by Russian at a distant second at 7%, Hindi stands at a negligible 0.5%. For a country that has over 400 million Hindi speaking audiences, that’s an abysmally low quantum of content, let alone other 21 official languages of India.According to a report by Google and KPMG India published in April 2017, nine out of ten new internet users between 2016 and 2021 will use local language- A range that only further re-iterates the need for web, mobile and voice platforms to be more accessible and offer content in Hindi and other Indic languages.

Agrahyah aims at addressing this need through effective partnerships with a variety of technology and enterprise clients, creating customized and intelligently created content in Hindi and other non-English Indian languages that can excite and engage the Indian population.Apart from creating its own IP products, Agrahyah is also listed as a preferred partner by Amazon India for Alexa Skills development.

The India Panchang is one of Agrahyah’s latestAmazon Alexa Skill that works in Hindi. The India Panchang is an initiative to bring the Hindu Solar based almanac to the digital platform. Designed as an Alexa skill, the India Panchang will enable users to refer to it as a voice command on Alexa, getting instant information regarding tithis, muhurats, karna, rashi, yoga, nakshatra and more. This is an effort to help users, including Hindi speaking literates, to save time and find accurate information about any queries related to the Panchang.

Speaking about the launch of the India Panchang as a skill for Amazon Alexa, Mr. Sreeraman Thiagarajan, Co-Founder of Agrahyah Technologies, said, “At Agrahyah Technologies, we build products that are culturally and contextually relevant to the market we operate in. Building Alexa skills to cater to the Indian cultural and linguistic sensibilities is vital for making technology useful for all. Voice can connect with people in a fundamental way and helps in technology percolating into their lives for a better tomorrow.”