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When technological adoption is concerned, especially digital technology, we must understand that India is a different model altogether. The Constitution of India recognizes 22 official languages, whereas the People's Linguistic Survey of India reveals the country is home to as many as 780 different languages. This massive combination of different linguistic families on the subcontinent means that the general population often has to learn or have a working proficiency in as many as 3 languages, something that is statistically possible for less than 13% of the global population. Coming to digital technology, English is the dominant language in this sphere, making it even more difficult for Indians considering that only 4% of the global population can understand or converse in 4 languages. This is one of the primary reasons that the Indian population has been struggling with basic digital literacy, but it can be addressed comprehensively with support from the public and private sectors.
To address this root problem, one of the most pertinent actions that we can take is to create Small Language Models (AI models) with a considerably big library of vernacular knowledge. This helps to cater to the Indian populace, giving them access to data banks that were previously either not available or not comprehensible. As these models provide knowledge in different vernacular languages, they will also create a funnel which will be utilized at a core where a linguistic dystopian state will be addressed with relevant information. At GUVI, we have been working towards creating this ecosystem that empowers talents with vernacular languages in a bid to ensure greater comprehension and retention power. This is a significant effort, but we are dedicated to making this a widespread reality, some of which can be already seen in the success stories of our community of learners.
The impact has been massive, to say the least. If we look at the data, over 64% of the Indian population lived in non-urban centres, majorly in tier-2, tier-3 cities and rural areas in 2023. This has largely been an untapped region for talents, the vast majority of whom do not get the same access to tech jobs in India or abroad particularly because of their lower comprehension of dominant languages like English. It is imperative to understand that technology is an enabler, and it does not depend on any dominant languages. If we look at South Korea, China and Japan, they have designed their vernacular language-based keyboards and coding, and they have been doing well. Over the years, we at GUVI have been trying to instil the same sense of belonging to talents who have little to no comprehension of English, and the impact has been massive.
For instance, GUVI has been associated with over 36 lakh learners’ education journeys, the majority of whom reside in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. They have submitted over 46 crore lines of code, and 84% of them have shown that they have a far superior understanding of complex topics compared to learners whose learning medium has been dominant languages. 78% of our learners have been able to recollect concepts faster than their conventionally trained peers, whereas 72% of them have completed their respective courses within 3 months.
GUVI was not conceived as a business model that prioritized profit, but as a movement that emphasised impact. We started as a YouTube channel with the focus of helping lakhs of undertrained youth talents in their tech careers. This school of thought has always been a part of our journey as we have pursued excellence over anything else, and the community has been kind enough to reward it in monetary terms. We never believed it to be risky to prioritize the vernacular language-speaking communities of India, who are also a part of urban India. We think there are no linguistic barriers in pursuing excellence, and as tech leaders, it becomes a responsibility for us to help the Indian masses in this regard.
There have been plenty of challenges. For instance, when we started a decade ago, the primary challenge was to educate people that tech could be accessible using vernacular language, and careers could be made based on that. It was difficult at first, but slowly and steadily, learners understood what we were trying to achieve. Secondly, another challenge was to get competent industry veterans who were also experts in their particular domains, and had good comprehension and teaching prowess in vernacular languages. We strategically aligned our interests in every obstacle that we faced, and GUVI’s originality helped us to navigate these challenges to benchmark vernacular-first learning models for the tech leaders of tomorrow.
This is a multidimensional topic. However, we must understand that AI developments are at a very nascent stage, and it's not important as a country to blindly follow the development patterns of the rest of the world. India must prioritize developing newer aspects of AI usage like Agentic AI, and build its expertise surrounding that. The Government of India recognizes this and has been forthcoming in its attempts to upskill the youth. Across levels of the government, both central and state, AI is becoming one of the leading aspects of education in the country. However, it is not about whether we are doing enough, since there will always be room for improvements, and I believe the policymakers understand this well. India’s biggest strength in this regard has been its ability to align strategically with what it needs, and not approach AI education blindly just because the rest of the world has been doing it. The methodology and precision targeting by the Indian government have been some unique adjustments, and I believe it would be rewarded by the inroads made by EdTech companies in the country as supplements.
I believe Indian policymakers must come out of the colonial education system that has been prevalent in the country for centuries and modernize it with era-appropriate measures. The colonial education policy in India was established to create a supply chain for clerical jobs, something that had gone out of national interest decades ago. We must integrate a technology-driven education system that prioritizes national interests like creating competent thinkers and professionals who have deep knowledge of technology and are able to drive innovation forward with their originality. While the Indian government has been gradually making changes with tools like the NEP, this shift must be prioritised for a national growth story.
This is simple. India is transforming at an unprecedented rate, and premier educational institutions like the IITs and IIMs are the hotbed of innovation on the national scale. Coupled with this, the state governments across India have been emphasising replicating the innovation at state levels, especially when it comes to technology. Leading an organization like GUVI that prioritizes technological innovation and originality, we work as an extended arm to this emphasis by IITs, IIMs or state governments by working in tandem with these stakeholders to scale innovation on a national scale through public-private models. These collaborations succeed because of our emphasis on national advancements and call it a blueprint or mantra, this is what keeps us moving and makes the collaborations fruitful on a national scale.
The functionalities of AI are practically limitless but at the same time, it is imperative to ensure the responsible usage of it as a supportive technology. At present capacity, AI is able to compile information from different pre-existing sources, and if used without responsibility, it hampers the originality and creativity aspects of users. This is why at GUVI, we help equip learners with the technological intricacies of AI. Learning the ticking points of AI helps learners to identify gaps and pain points, and use their innovation and originality to theorize more advanced versions. Furthermore, we focus on promoting responsible usage of AI at GUVI, helping learners to understand the difference between automatic drafting and building/innovating, all done under the umbrella of vernacular language-driven small language models.
As mentioned earlier, linguistic differences are not part of technological innovation. Coding in English and a vernacular Indian language, for instance, Kannada, leads to the same end result if not better. Developers who are part of the industry and had a vernacular language-driven learning experience have a better comprehension of complex topics — be that Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing or anything else. While the end result majorly remains the same in terms of quality, the vernacular learning experience is what sets them apart for a superior delivery at the end of the day. Driven by their superior understanding, these techies bring more innovation and originality to the table for building a supply funnel of advanced solutions from India, setting it apart for quality and cost-effectiveness.
We already offer courses in French, Arabic, Swahili, Vietnamese and Spanish — some of the most widespread languages in both Eastern and Western hemispheres. This brings a large community of people from Europe, South America, Africa and Asia under a unified umbrella of learning, potentially creating a global community of techies with vernacular language-driven learning experiences. The long-term impact of this is massive and can be measured by industry stakeholders by their superior technological understanding and capabilities. We keep making strategic advantages, especially in terms of emerging technologies and the willingness of learners over a particular technology. This has led us to incorporate different courses in the domains of Edge Computing, AI & ML, Cloud Computing and more. The global edtech trends are taking a sharp turn to cater to regional users, something that GUVI has been doing for more than a decade, and we aspire to sustain our position as industry leaders internationally.
Many things come to mind, but I would say the sense of responsibility was one of the major factors that helped me to keep on track. As the founder and CEO of GUVI Geek Networks, significant responsibility has been bestowed on me, and the professional development of countless talents. Coming from a remote town in Tamil Nadu, the cost of professional development was always clear to me, and it always has been a motivating factor behind my functionalities. It was never about ‘I have done all I can’, but more about, ‘What can I do more to help?’ Millions of talents every year seek guidance and opportunity to learn something, and their aspirations were the driving force behind my sense of responsibility, something that kept me going all these years.
