The Indian Railways’ First Trilingual Touch Screen Information Kiosk.

In 1998, when India’s digital infrastructure was still finding its footing, I introduced one of the country’s first real-time interactive public information kiosks at Madurai Railway Station: the Indian Railways’ first trilingual touch screen information kiosk.

At a time when most passenger enquiries depended entirely on counters and manual assistance, this kiosk provided travellers with direct access to information through an interactive touch interface. Passengers could instantly check their PNR status and access railway information. It also helped travellers by providing information about Madurai and nearby tourist destinations.

In Madurai, the kiosk was custom designed and developed with a 24-inch capacitive touch display and the software with a live connection to the railway server over an extended Railway network, delivering live PNR status responses within milliseconds across three languages: English, Tamil and Hindi.

Looking back, the idea behind creating that solution was to make information more easily accessible to the public. I had the courage to build something before the market fully understood  its value.

But that has been my mantra all along – shape the future, not just keep up with it.  It’s the same mantra that drives A&T – today we call it “Experience Next”

Stay tuned with me! More milestones soon.