In May 2020, Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” where he talked about the five pillars of a self-reliant India which were Economy, Infrastructure, Demand, Demography, and System. Amidst the growing border tensions between India and China, the government of India banned 59 Chinese apps citing security reasons, 47 more apps were banned later paving the road for Indian apps to lead the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign.
On July 4, 2020 Prime Minister Modi announced the “Atmanirbhar App Challenge” and said,
“There is immense enthusiasm among the tech and start-up community today to create world class made-in-India apps”, and he spelled out his vision to create an “Atmanirbhar App Ecosystem”. - PM Modi
Indian app IamHere (www.iamhere.mobi) is following the footsteps and is exactly doing the same with its community platform. IamHere is a unique AI-powered location-first social network connecting people within neighbourhoods and within communities for social collaboration and social commerce. IamHere won the Atmanirbhar app challenge as the most promising app for “Community Collaboration”.
“You could be a singer trying to collaborate with musicians near you, you could be an artist trying to sell in your neighbourhood, you could be an NGO engaging with volunteers near you, IamHere provides you a powerful hyperlocal social network for you to do that” - Naren Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO of IamHere.
IamHere has now expanded its hyperlocal proposition to private communities as well, CEO Naren Kumar also added,
“As people started adopting IamHere, we got requests from our users to support closed communities. We have now rolled out a private community model where people within residential societies, companies and colleges can use IamHere to discover and collaborate internally. For example, an AI enthusiast can find an AI expert in his workplace or colleagues nearby can carpool together. A baker can sell cakes in her apartment, or college alumni can find each other in their neighbourhoods”
IamHere uses technology for social impact as well. As an example, IamHere has engaged with the Government of Karnataka to provide farmers and small businesses a local marketplace. IamHere has worked with the Government of Maharashtra in the past to provide a marketplace for small artists.
IamHere has been witnessing a positive impact post the COVID-19 lockdown.
“Our engagement numbers have more than doubled in the last few months. While pre-COVID, our users were forming sports teams, music bands, dance groups and travel gangs through the app, today they are purchasing farm produce, they are buying and sell within neighbourhoods, they are hiring doorstep services, all through the app. For example, I hired a laptop technician from my neighbourhood last week through the IamHere app”, - Pratik Khade, Co-Founder & CTO of IamHere.
IamHere is a one of its kind app that does not find many replicas across the world. To be able to bridge location-based technologies with the social networking models and provide meaningful engagement for both public and private communities, the IamHere team has got to be doing something right. Let us hope the app not only becomes a leader in the Indian market, but also takes Indian technology to the global stage, something that our country’s leadership has been talking about. Perhaps the time has come now!
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