With micro-blogging available in 10 languages, including Telugu, Koo boasts of a sizable community of users from the region. As part of this MoU, the Government of Telangana will work jointly with Koo on the use of Telugu to increase reach among non-English speakers in the state. “The collaboration will also promote the rich legacy and heritage of Telugu as a language, in addition to the unique culture of Telangana,” said a press release from the platform.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, KT Rama Rao, Minister for ITE&C, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, and Industries and Commerce, Telangana said, “We strongly believe that social media is an important mechanism for advancing government effectiveness. By collaborating with Koo, we are hopeful that our efforts to connect and engage with citizens for disseminating information and services of Telangana Government will be augmented further.”
Sharing his thoughts on the MoU, Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder and CEO, Koo, said, “Language-based social media is the need of the hour, especially in a multilingual country like India. Being neutral and independent, Koo is the platform-of-choice for Indians. We are truly honored and privileged to collaborate with the Government of Telangana to further our cause of empowering voices with digital freedom of expression. The development center in Hyderabad will be a key enabler in this mission.”
Koo was launched in March 2020. The objective was to enable users to express themselves online in their mother tongue. Currently, it is available in 10 languages – Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Bengali and English. The app has over 40 million downloads.
