From Jharkhand village to innovating in AI

Digital communication needs a personal touch.’ Inspired by this insight, Rahul Prasad began his journey to develop a tool that would soon become handy in the hands of thousands using mobile devices. Rahul, cofounder and CTO of Bobble AI, was recently in Ranchi to inspire young innovators at the Jharkhand edition of Technovate for India organised by TOI with the support of Talrop, a platform that is engaging youngsters to develop an ecosystem for technological innovation.

Rahul spoke about his journey from a remote village in Jharkhand to becoming a pioneer in AIpowered communication technology. He said that his entrepreneurial journey began early, with website development for small and medium industries in Jamshedpur during a time when digital was still nascent.
Initially launched as a content creation app, Bobble AI evolved to become an innovative AI-powered communication platform. “We wanted to encourage people to express themselves through their creativity.
One idea that worked for us was letting users convert their selfies into avatars, which they can creatively use in other social networks or on their (digital) conversations,” Rahul said.
Today, Bobble AI supports 30 languages. Users can convert text into visual elements like stickers, GIFs, emojis, and custom fonts. Stickers and GIFs can be personalised with the user’s own face, expression, and message.

The company faced significant technical hurdles, particularly in developing solutions for India’s unique linguistic landscape. With no prebuilt solutions available, the team had to conduct extensive research on how Indians communicate, especially considering the prevalent use of hybrid languages like “Hinglish, Tamilish, and Bengalish”. This pioneering work resulted in multiple patents and development of the multilingual keyboard.
“We leverage advanced natural language processing (NLP), on-device AI, and deep learning models to enable real-time, predictive text input and transliteration for regional languages. Our proprietary language models and personalised suggestions’ capabilities ensure a seamless multilingual experience. Edge AI optimises speed and privacy, while continuous research in computational linguistics enhances accuracy and adaptability,” Rahul said.
Asked what he looks for in aspiring professionals, he said curiosity, problem-solving, and critical thinking were as important as technical skills.