Engineering textbooks and learning material might soon be available in regional languages, thanks to an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay professor, who has developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based translation software – Project Udaan. This will enable translation of scientific and technical content from English to Hindi and other regional languages in one-sixth the time a team of domain and linguistic experts working manually would do.

Scientific and technical knowledge, which is largely available in English, has been difficult for those to understand who are not fluent in the language. In fact, many students in India who complete their schooling in vernacular mediums often find their engineering courses difficult due to the language barrier. Professor Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Institute Chair Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-B and his team had started on the project seven years back to address a similar challenge.