Navana Tech

Company

Navana Tech builds text-free, image-based and voice-assisted technology for low literacy smartphone users.

Problem

Smartphone apps are text dependent and primarily in English, creating accessibility and usability challenges for internet users who speak local languages and have low literacy levels. Challenges are amplified in apps where money is involved, such as e-commerce and financial services. Because of this, there is a noticeable difference in app drop-off and user retention rates between urban and rural users.

Solution

Navana Tech develops text-independent, image-based and voice-assisted technology for low literacy users around the world. Their conversational AI voice bot enables digital actions through two-way conversations. In March 2021, Navana Tech received a grant to develop a conversational voice bot in multiple Indian languages (Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi and Kannada) and launch financial services and e-commerce use cases.

Impact

Since partnering with the GSMA, Navana Tech has:

– Increased the number of monthly active users to 1.75 million, 250,000 of whom are voice bot users.

– Acquired 60 new clients.

– Partnered with the Gates Foundation and the Indian Institute of Science ARTPARK (AI and Robotics Technology Park) to collect voice samples in nine languages to develop accurate speech-to-text and natural language processing technologies for agriculture and finance.