Made in India robot ‘Mitra’ becomes Modi’s friend

HYDERABAD: ‘Mitra’ is a robot, Made in India, who can meet your customers, interact with them, holds discussions, provide customer support, welcome guests and what have you. ‘Mitra’ can do just about anything including tweet for you!If Prime Minister Narendra Modi got the loudest ovation, Ivanka Trump was a major attraction and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was impressive, ‘Mitra’ was the cynosure of all eyes at GES-2017.Developed by a Bangalore based start-up, ‘Mitra’ can just about do anything. On Tuesday, his actions were restricted to just welcoming Modi and Ivanka. “From Hyderabad, Mitra will next be taken to Helsinki on November 30,” Balaji Viswanathan, CEO of the start-up, told TOIat HICC. And it is in Finland that the prowess of ‘Mitra’ will be exhibited before another international audience. The launch of ‘Mitra’ at GES was to showcase it before a major global gathering.Mitra can be a party photographer, an intelligent DJ, and an entertainer too. India’s Mitra has also made its debut on the international scene with some of the world’s top corporations using Mitra for events.Balaji Viswanathan said ‘Mitra’ has been named with a meaning. “It is to make friendship as the name suggests,” he said explaining how the character was found in mythology.There are many functions that ‘Mitra’ can do, including customer service at reception and also in rooms as an autonomously navigating robot. ‘Mitra’ can also recognize speech in multiple languages.Before the inaugural of GES-2017 on Tuesday evening, all through afternoon, ‘Mitra’ was busy rehearsing the steps and movement for the evening. The robot briskly moved towards PM Modi and Ivanka, as planned, to welcome them.