Google CEO Sundar Pichai makes surprise visit to Andheri school

Students at DN Nagar Municipal School in Andheri got a surprise visitor on Friday afternoon — Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai.

Pichai took part in an event organised by Piramal Foundation, in which students of the school were introduced to Google’s new application, Bolo. Bolo is an Android application that parents can download to help children improve their reading skills.

Pichai’s visit took everyone at the school by surprise. “While students were aware of the fact that there was an event being organised by the NGO and some dignitaries would come, they did not know that it would be such a renowned person,” said an official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

A representative of one of the organisers of the event said the event was held between 1pm and 5pm. Around 300 people, including students , teachers and some parents took part. Pichai spoke to the students about the importance of reading and shared information about the different features of the app. Representatives at Piramal Foundation could not be reached for a comment.

The Google CEO later interacted with students from the school. When Arshiya, a student, asked him what he likes to eat, Pichai said, “Pani Puri!”, to rapturous applause from students.

When another student asked Pichai how he can become an engineer, he said, “Do you have a radio and TV at home? When it gets old, just learn to break that apart.”

Pichai later tweeted about his visit. “Earlier this week, we launched #Bolo in India: a reading tutor app powered by #GoogleAI text-to-speech & speech recognition. Had the chance to visit some students today who are learning to read using Bolo, excited for all the great books they’ll discover!” he wrote.

The Bolo app is designed for primary school students, and is powered by Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology. It encourages students to read aloud and gives instant feedback on their reading skills.

Mahesh Palkar, municipal education officer, said “We knew that an event was going to be held today and had granted permission for the same. (But) we did not know that the Google CEO was coming.”

First Published: Mar 09, 2019 12:53 IST