Hindi digital news platform Quint Hindi (hindi.thequint.com), along with Google India, is hosting an event to celebrate the explosion of Indian languages on the internet. ‘Bol: Love your bhasha’ is a day-long event to be held on September 18 at The Leela Palace in New Delhi.
Commenting on the need for such an event, Raghav Bahl, Founder, Quintillion Media, said “The explosion of Indian languages in the years to come is estimated to be so significant that it will be impossible for all stakeholders involved to ignore it. This is why an event like Bol is essential to roadmap the future.”
The event will consist of panel discussions with the objective of highlighting the potential of language diversity on the internet in India. The event will be attended by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways and guests like Rajan Anandan, Vice-President, Google, India; Arvind Pani, Co-Founder and CEO of Reverie Language Technologies; Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group; Virendra Gupta, Founder and CEO of Daily Hunt and Raghav Bahl, Founder, Quintillion Media. These discussions will also be interspersed with performances by Sonam Kalra of the Sufi Gospel Project.
Indian language internet users in India are at 234 million and have already overtaken the number of English users (175 million). Encouraged by a decline in smartphone and data prices, Indian language users are expected to account for nearly 75% of India’s internet user base by 2021.
These are stunning figures, especially for a country with the second-largest number of internet users in the world. The conversation is now not on why businesses must enter the non-English user market, but how. ‘Bol’ aims to answer this question by bringing together the brightest minds in tech, business, media and policy.