ScriptMagic helping banks, brands go rural

For India Inc, local languages are becoming an important driver in its rural journey. And at the heart of the language localisation drive is Rajeevlochan Phadke’s ScriptMagic, a program that provides local language interface, as well as output capabilities, to enterprise software like SAP and Oracle or core banking systems like Finacle or FlexCube.

To boot, Phadke’s program now powers local language interface at 16 nationalised banks, the Indian Railways, and is a major contributor to the rural foray of most brands, which face difficulty in getting the right kind of manpower when they travel to the countryside.

Phadke started off at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) but quit it in 2001 since the job didn’t allow him to focus on his passion for coding in local languages. Image Point Technologies soon followed.
“Local language support is a must to increase the penetration of any software.

All functionally-strong software were in English and to localise them was economically unviable. As I had worked extensively on Windows, I thought of devising a system which could change the interface and output without modifying the software,” Phadke says.

It wasn’t all hunky-dory intially. He had exited to form the start-up just before the dotcom bust took place in 2002. Plus, he was promising something which the global technology companies had already claimed as can’t be done. Many systems still running DOS was also a big challenge. So, Phadke spent around three years just showing the proof-of-concepts to banks and system integrators, while continued with other service offerings to keep funds coming in.

The big break came when State Bank of India (SBI) announced its decision to move to a core banking platform. Phadke got a chance to present his product and was selected. A 10-member-team from Image Point facilitated the installation at 10,600 SBI branches within 15 days.

“This deal established our capability and then we became part of all future installations carried out through system integrators,” says Phadke. HP, a major systems integrator, used ScriptMagic for installations at seven banks, where the tech major handled end-to-end implementation of core banking solutions.

Shashin Shah, project director at HP and head of implementations of HP’s banking projects, said: "Regulatory compliance requires banks to have bilingual capabilities, but all software available in the market display screens and generate reports only in English. We tried ScriptMagic for language conversion and found it very useful. It worked on the fly, converting English words and phrases into its Hindi equivalents.

It works without altering or tampering with existing software data, making it absolutely safe and secure to work with.”

Shah said the company had evaluated other language localisation products before finalising Scriptmagic. “The other products were expensive but more than that, ScriptMagic was very easy to implement, and affordable. Most important, it worked without using additional system resources that are very critical in core banking environment where lakh of transactions are carried out every minute.

Language localisation has seen a steady spurt. Windows now comes with a user interface in 11 Indian languages. Search giant Google offers search capabilities in nine Indian languages. Both Google and Microsoft offer Indian language input software, which allows users to type in around 14 languages. The popular online resource portal, Wikipedia, is looking at having a strong presence in 10 Indian languages by 2015.

Earlier this year, UN Singh, the-then head of Central Institute of Indian Languages, said by 2016, India will have a population of 500 million with less than five years of schooling, and another 300 million not passing out of high school. “A knowledge society will be impossible unless we find innovative means of reaching these people.

Localising mass-based and mass-use software could be a positive step forward that will have a far-reaching effect and impact”, Mr Singh has said, adding that 95 percent Indians still prefer local language over English in their work and personal life.