“India Story” – an app to chronicle the story of India
through its monuments – was built by a 17-year-old teenager, Avantika Khanna,
from Gurgaon, India. The app had been launched for both the Android and iOS
platforms and provides audio-guides in cities like Kolkata, Bangalore, Lucknow,
Chandigarh, Mumbai, and Delhi.
The Social Entrepreneur’s idea was born during a
family trip to UK a few years ago, where she realized the perfect maintenance
of monuments, and audio-guided tours. Both of these aspects of tourism were not
so good in India, along with the unavailability of guides in certain lesser
known monuments. This triggered the fire in her to promote India’s rich history
and culture to the world using technology, and she began working on “India
Story” way back in 2016. Today, avantika handles a total of 30 staff – writers,
photographers, history lovers, and programmers – who works as a team. Certified
tour guides can be contacted through the app along with organizers of cultural
walks.Both the app’s user interface and the business model,
was designed by Avantika herself. She has been able to raise seed funding from
the Indian Angel Network, only after overcoming many hurdles. She now looks
forward to expanding to more states and cities.
