In a novel move to bridge the rural-urban learning gap, the young Deoria District Magistrate, Divya Mittal (IAS:2013:UP), has co-developed a free mobile learning app called Kiki English to help countless first-generation learners in the rural parts of the state to speak English.

Mittal differentiates between a subject and a language by saying that she observed that students were treating English as a subject instead of a language, which does not come through rote learning but through speaking and listening.

She says she drew on her experience of learning French at Alliance Française, where the emphasis was heavily on conversation, after realizing the need for a similar tool tailored for early learners in UP’s rural belts.

The idea crossed Mittal’s mind during her years of field experience, where she realized that children in rural parts, despite being eager to learn, lacked the confidence and ease in English speaking. The initiative is widely held as being capable of becoming a major support system for government school students in the days to come.

The popularity of the app is so wide that it gained over 5,000 users within the first 18 hours of its launch. It also partially works offline—speech practice and spelling tasks do not require connectivity, while listening modules need only a one-time internet load.

Developing this unique work was not child’s play. She collaborated with her spouse, Gagandeep Singh, an ex-bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur, and worked on it for over six months to turn Kiki English into a reality. While Mittal focused on the content—researching the first 500 essential words and crafting child-friendly, relatable vocabulary—the technical backbone and coding were led by her husband. Both are IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore alumni.

According to her, the app is designed primarily for children aged 3 to 6, though older learners with limited exposure can also benefit. It adopts a gamified format: children earn stars for completing activities, unlock badges as they progress, and appear on leaderboards that motivate consistent practice. Listening and speaking form the core of the curriculum that helps children to think in English even without a supportive home environment.

The app currently supports Hindi for limited assistance. Mittal intends to use it for students of govt school.

The public response on social media shows its impact, with many users from eastern UP sharing that they downloaded the app for children in their families, calling it useful, amazing, and a “blessing for poor families.”

Mittal said future expansion would depend on feedback from children, after which she plans to eventually add advanced language levels and additional foundational learning modules.

Mittal is also credited with bringing piped tap water to the water-scarce Lahuriya Deh village in the Mirzapur district in 2023, ending a 75-year crisis for 125 households.