Bolo, which translates literally to ‘speak’ in Hindi, works without an internet connection, making it accessible once downloaded even to those in remote locations in the Indian subcontinent.

“We piloted Bolo in 200 villages, and results are very encouraging”

The application also uses a voice assistant to help guide children through all of the language lessons included. Lessons themselves are a mixture of games and simple tasks that reward children as they progress.

Using Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology, Bolo will ask children to read both sentences and phrases. Then the application listens to what has been said, quickly reviews the audio, and then using an animated assistant called Diya, helps out with pronunciation before continuing with the story.

Using Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology, Bolo asks children to read both sentences and phrases and use an animated assistant to help out with pronunciation.

“Bolo is designed as a reading-tutor app that helps primary grade students to improve their reading,” explained Google Product manager Nitin Kashyap.

“We have been piloting Bolo in 200 villages, and the early results are very encouraging. We are now actively working with a number of nonprofit partners to take it to more people across the country who could benefit from it.”

The application is only currently available to download in India and has been designed to help improve reading and comprehension throughout the massive rural regions of the country.