Uliza builds local-language voice platforms to allow off-net people to access the Internet;

and businesses to reach their non-English speaking customers... all using a basic phone!

What we do for our users:
Uliza allows millions of people who cannot access the Internet because of constraints in:
- Language: 80 percent of recorded information is in English
- Literacy: In East Africa alone there are over 14 million people who have no education
- Technology: Computer and smartphone ownership and 3G or higher network coverage
- Cost of Data: For the bottom quarter of the world, cost of data can be as high
                        as a quarter of GDP per capita per day

All they need to do is call Uliza from any kind of phone, ask whatever question they want,
in whatever language they speak, and we will provide them with an answer.  

We do this by combining Interactive Voice Response platforms with a distributed network.

What we do for our business clients:
- Use our platform to communicate with your people at scale, without needing a call-center
- Answer customers' phone calls by email
- Get transcriptions and translations in most languages
- Conduct phone surveys in remote communities

Uliza means "ask" in Kiswahili, the language of over 100 million people in East Africa.

NEWS:

June 2017: Uliza builds an IVR platform for Refunite in Kenya and the DRC

June 2017: Uliza builds an IVR platform for Sauti Africa in Kenya

May 2017: Uliza is working with The Busara Center for Behavorial Economics in Ghana

19-21 April 2017: Uliza NYC investors roadshow

31 December 2016: Finalists in the InnovateAFRICA $100K competition

4 October 2016: Uliza is a registered LLC in Delaware

16 September 2016: The pilot was a success! We served 600 users and over 1,400 questions from all over Kenya.

6 July 2016: Uliza builds and pilots a prototype in western Kenya, in Kiswahili!

4 May 2016: Uliza is selected to the semi-finals of Mass Challenge, Boston

7 April 2016: Uliza wins runner-up prize at the Tufts $100K Competition

12 March 2016: Uliza is selected for the Boston finals of The Hult Prize

27 February 2016: Uliza is showcased at the HBS Africa Business Conference

28 October 2015: Uliza is a finalist at the MIT $100K Pitch Competition

The Uliza Team has backgrounds in behavioral economics, finance, software development, and linguistic data, but most importantly we are passionate about democratizing access to information.

Grant Bridgman, CEO

Grant has a background in applying technologies for development, behavioral economics, and startups in Africa. Grant began thinking about how to make phones better information portals for people who speak local languages when he was in Sierra Leone working with MIT. This idea became Uliza when he met Maity and Janeth. Grant is based out of Nairobi and Cape Town.

Abhishek Maity, CFO

Maity has a background in mathematics and finance. He has worked as a management consultant in the US, an economics teacher in India, and in startups in Lebanon and the US. Maity is a scrupulous data wizard.  Maity is based out of Washington DC.

Janeth Jepkogei, CTO

Janeth is a computer scientist specializing in natural language processing and has worked as a technology analyst for Deutsche Bank. Janeth is a native Kiswahili speaker.  Janeth is based out of Boston.

Our Advisers:

Lisa Braden-Harder: Appen Linguistic Data; Harvard University

Robert On: Google, One Acre Fund; UC Berkeley 

Janet Cahn: AT&T, MIT

Watch Uliza's MIT $100K Competition Pitch here