How I built Bangladesh’s first AI keyboard and what it taught me about serving 170 million underserved users

1. The problem (the quiet frustration of Bangla typing) If you’ve ever tried typing Bangla on a smartphone, you already know the struggle.

It’s slow.
It’s inconsistent.
And most of the time, it feels like you’re fighting the keyboard instead of expressing your thoughts.

For millions of people in Bangladesh, typing in Bangla isn’t just inconvenient — it’s a daily friction point. Whether it’s messaging family, posting on Facebook, or writing something meaningful, the tools just aren’t built with enough intelligence.

We’ve accepted this as “normal.”

But it shouldn’t be.

That frustration became the starting point:
What if typing in Bangla felt as effortless as thinking?

1. Why existing keyboards fall short There are already popular Bangla keyboards out there. They’ve done a great job solving basic input problems — phonetic typing, layouts, predictions.

But they stop where things are getting interesting.

No real AI assistance.
No contextual rewriting.
No tone adjustments.
No help with creativity or productivity.

Typing is still… just typing.

In a world where AI can help you write emails, generate ideas, and refine your thoughts — Bangla users are largely left behind.

That gap is massive.

Write on Medium
And it’s not just a feature gap — it’s an opportunity gap for an entire population.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

1. The hardest bug: IME display metrics The most painful part of the journey wasn’t AI.

It was the keyboard itself.

Android IME (Input Method Editor) development is… tricky. Especially when dealing with:

Different screen sizes
Keyboard height calculations
Suggestion bar rendering
Overlay alignment
At one point, everything worked perfectly — except on certain devices where the UI would shift by just a few pixels.

That “few pixels” broke the entire experience.

The issue came down to display metrics inconsistencies across devices. Fixing it meant diving deep into how Android reports dimensions vs how keyboards actually render.

Not glamorous.
But absolutely critical.

Final note
লিখি AI Keyboard is live.
10 free credits daily.

Play Store Link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindcraft.banglakeyboard&pcampaignid=web_share