British Council announces India’s 1st student chatbox

The digital assistant will help aspiring and emerging Indian creative professionals discover potential international collaborators for their ongoing projects. It will provide them access to greater resources, more networking opportunities and potentially a wider global audience for their work.

DARA is an extension of the British Council’s commitment to democratizing arts and connecting artists from the UK and India. The Council has been at the forefront of creating opportunities for aspiring Indian artists and creative professionals. It acknowledges the importance of technology and the power of the World Wide Web in bringing together artists across geographies.

DARA was the result of an Open Call announced by British Council in 2018. The Open Call invited proposals that leveraged digital technology to facilitate greater collaboration between artists and creative professionals from India and the UK. DARA was one of the proposals, submitted by India-based tech artists, Archana Prasad and Sean Blagsvedt.

The project received a grant from British Council for its development along with research and development support from Jaaga.in and mentoring from Microsoft Research India.

DARA has been designed as an intuitive smart assistant, learning and evolving through conversations with the user. Initially, the user will be guided through a series of questions helping DARA learn more about his/herprojects and preferences and returning names of potential collaborators or inspirational peers from the international creative community.