Made in India Twitter alternative Koo wins government's app innovation challenge in social category

Koo, which was launched in March 2020, has won the challenge in the social networking category.

Koo, which is claimed to be India’s answer to Twitter for non-English users, was selected as one of the winners of the government’s Digital India Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge on Friday. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) innovation challenge was aimed to help identify the best Indian apps in eight categories that were already available for use and scale them to world-class standards. Koo, which was launched in March 2020, has won the challenge in the social networking category.

Koo has been co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. The micro-blogging platform is currently available in four Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. Koo allows users to “speak their mind” through 400 characters of text or 1-minute short audio or video “Koos.” You can also follow people, send 1-1 direct messages and use hyper local hash tags on Koo.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Shri Sadhguru, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Ashutosh Rana, and Ashish Vidyarthi are some of the prominent personalities using Koo.

“We are honoured to be a part of the winning list of apps that have been selected from among the 6,940 entries that the Aatma Nirbhar App Challenge received. We value and appreciate the thrust our government is placing on technology innovation for a better India. It’s a proud moment for our team and our contributors to be recognized for our creation. We look forward to giving a voice to a billion Indians through Koo,” Mayank Bidawatka, who is one of the co-founders of Koo said in a press statement.

As per the terms of the government’s innovation challenge, Koo was selected as the top entry in the social category by an unspecified jury with experts from private sector and academia based on four parameters, including ease of use, robustness, security features, and scalability. Winning the challenge not only gives Koo visibility and hopefully some direction, the makers of the app will be also eligible for a cash reward of Rs 20 lakh within their category.