The vision behind Lipikaar is an obsession with simplifying expression in all Indic languages without dependence on the writer's competence in the English language. The tool is designed to encourage extensive usage of Indic languages beyond a casual remark or a phrase. For example, typing a document, an article, an email, a presentation, a blog - all of these currently happen in English because we have a mechanical typing method (keyboard).

We wanted to provide a method that's as close as it can get to being simple and powerful without removing the keyboard thus making it suitable for the Web and the Desktop. Lipikaar's approach allows it to scale across languages therefore it is the only tool in the world that supported over 15 languages at launch.

Insist on your language. Let's make sure the the computer does not hamper our expression.

Who is behind Lipikaar?

Jugal Gupta: Lipikaar was developed and patented by Jugal Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Databyte Equipment Private Limited, a reputed technology company in India.

He has been working in Indian languages since 1989. Jugal completed his B.Tech from I.I.T (Delhi) and spent several years with Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (T.I.F.R) before co-founding Databyte with his wife, Sharayu Gupta, a gold medalist in Electronics and Telecommunications, from College of Engineering Pune (C.O.E.P.). Databyte was the first to introduce Bilingual Telex and Teleprinters in India, and Stand-alone Moving Text Displays for all Indian languages along with a range of other display and telecommunication products.

Santosh Dawara: Santosh is an entrepreneur in the technology domain. In the past, he has worked with Persistent Systems, Pune, Research in Motion, Seattle and Internet startup TeamOn Systems, Seattle. Santosh has a Masters in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology (R.I.T, USA) and Bachelors in Computer Engineering from University of Pune.

Anjali Gupta: Anjali is an entrepreneur in the online consumer space. She started with Persistent in Pune. In 2000, she founded Emphatech, a startup in the instant messaging domain. She has also worked with web and e-commerce companies, Netegrity Inc. in Boston, and Amazon.com in Seattle. She has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School and Bachelors in Computer Engineering from College of Engineering (Pune).

The story behind Lipikaar

Databyte is a leader in moving text digital displays which allows users to program advertising messages in any language with the help of an ordinary keyboard without a computer.

These displays are used by people from varied professions and with varied knowledge of English and computers. For example, a Sweets vendor wanted to create messages with the unique names of his sweets in Marathi. A bank executive in Calcutta wanted to create messages in Bengali. Everyone from General Stores, Banks, Colleges, Hospitals, Factory floors, Astrology Centers, Marriage halls, and even the Army Canteens wanted to create and display messages in their regional language.

With this requirement, Jugal, a scientist at heart, embarked on a five year long journey to create a keyboard driven method that is so simple that anyone without a strong computer/English background can type in any Indian language with an ordinary keyboard and with very little training!

Unfortunately, what was available in the market did not even come close to meeting any of these requirements. The overlays were clumsy, non-intuitive, required the use of complicated key combinations and the people who used them spent several days training themselves.

The early versions of Lipikaar was embedded in digital displays in early 2003 and was patented in 2007. Its ease of use has been proven by its usage in digital displays in many cities in India.

Based on the Lipikaar technology, we created AVITA - An Audio Visual Teaching Aid to assist and motivate teachers of primary schools and adult literacy programs to teach basic reading and writing skills to people across India.