Find the perfect match

Kaabil, the Bollywood movie starring Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam that hit screens in January, centred on two visually challenged persons finding love and ultimately getting married. In the movie, they are introduced to each other by a mutual acquaintance. But movies don’t fully reflect real life. Especially in a country like ours, which is still waking up to the fact that differently-abled people should have accessibility to the same basic needs that everybody else does. And everybody deserves to find love and companionship.

Dating and even finding a bride or groom is now at our fingertips, thanks to the proliferation of matchmaking websites and apps that have found their way to our phones, owing to the app age we live in, with an app for almost everything. While Tinder, OKCupid and the myriad other dating platforms we see today cater to everybody, and differently-abled people can use them too, they do not specifically address the needs of the differently-abled such as type of special need, special care required, etc.

Enter Inclov (from inclusive love), a Gurugram (Gurgaon)-based matchmaking platform that is designed for people with special needs and health disorders. Inclov is the brainchild of Kalyani Khona and Shankar Srinivasan, which started off in 2014 as an offline matchmaking platform called Wanted Umbrella. “It was the first matchmaking app focusing on people with disabilities and health disorders,” claims Khona. The app has been on air on Google Play Store since January 2016 and Khona said that the iOS version will be out in a month and is currently being tested. “We have just launched Inclov 2.0, which has an algorithm for matchmaking and other features,” Khona says. The first version was a prototype and the latest Inclov has been upgraded based on research and was launched a year after the first version found its way online.

The latest version of the app has added features. Users can now ‘show interest’ in a profile in addition to sending a request straight up and Inclov claims this increases the chances of getting a match. The new algorithm helps match profiles based on the preference entered. For example, if a user knows sign language, then profiles of other users with a hearing impairment are shown first. Or if a user is visually impaired, then the profiles of those with a hearing impairment are avoided because communication is mostly by sign language.

Starting off with an offline assisted matchmaking service helped when Khona and Srinivasan were conceptualising the Inclov app. “I had already interacted with over a 100 clients myself, so I knew what they were looking for,” she says. “The kind of questions to ask, etc, all of it came from the agency.”

Unlike most other matchmaking platforms that require just a Facebook login, Inclov has a complete onboarding process, with questions such as the kind of aids that differently-abled people use to go about their daily lives, lifestyle choices, how often they go out, etc. There is also a 24-hour review process for the profiles on the app. “We tell them to put the right picture, if there’s something wrong that they have filled in, we ask them to correct it,” says Khona.

With regard to the safety and security of its users, the app has features such as not being able to send images on it so as to avoid cybercrime. Another import feature is that taking a screenshot on the app is not possible. The review process and the mobile verification of profiles aim to keep out fake profiles and spammers.

Shweta Mantrii, a disability rights activist, who has been using Inclov since last year, says that the other platforms that she used did not have a personal touch. While there are a few other web platforms exclusively for differently-abled people such as Disabled Dating India and Ability Matrimony, Inclov brings the process in an easier format to phones.

“This (Inclov) is on my mobile and it’s almost like using Whatsapp. It’s a much easier and casual experience and I could connect with it,” Mantri says. She felt that the app was tailor-made for differently-abled people thanks to the detailed questions posed during the onboarding process. According to Mantri, details about the nature of a user’s special needs or wants, which Inclov asks about, gave her a clear picture of the person she was talking to.

“Not having a barrier-free environment is the biggest barrier that prevents the differently-abled from coming into the mainstream,” says Mantri. “If you ask any person why they wouldn’t want to marry a differently-abled person, the answer would probably be that it would alter their pace of life, because differently-abled people cannot access places that people normally do. ” Inclov does look to be one such barrier-free environment, at least online, that is inclusive and welcomes all people — differently-abled or not — on its platform. According to Khona, about 50 per cent of Inclov’s users are people who have no special needs.

There are about 8,000 total users on the platform so far, and some of the matches that have been facilitated by Inclov have also culminated in marriages.

Khona also says that they are bringing back offline assisted matchmaking, now that they can reach a larger audience thanks to their app.