The most surprising tech champions of 2024

Lesser-known tech companies were rewarded by changing headwinds outside the West this year. India’s homegrown EV industry, a Chinese video game that became a soft power success, and a U.S.-based walkie-talkie app that proved unexpectedly popular in Kenya are some of Rest of World’s most surprising winners in global tech in 2024.

Even as India awaits its first Tesla, around 500 electric three-wheeler manufacturers — most of them homegrown — sold over 62,000 units in September, compared to the just over 6,000 electric cars sold in the country that same month. Three of the top five manufacturers of electric three-wheelers — YC Electric, Dilli Electric Auto, and Saera Electric Auto — are small local companies.

Their success can be credited in part to the government’s EV incentives. Still, these companies depend on China for critical source parts and technical know-how. For instance, most workers at YC Electric’s Sonipat factory were cleaners and welders who were initially mentored and upskilled by a team of Chinese engineers. Now, the older crop of Indian workers passes on the knowledge to the newer lot. Saera Electric Auto produces most of its vehicle parts locally, but the natural magnet for the motor and critical minerals for the battery come from China.

In neighboring Bangladesh, the government finally agreed to give e-rickshaws legal status after drivers staged a series of protests over fines and vehicle impoundments. Until now, between 2 million and 4 million e-rickshaws have been plying the roads without any regulations or monitoring. The unregulated sector gave rise to several makeshift vehicles being produced in informal workshops — often with poor designs that couldn’t withstand load and speed — which were sold at half the market price. 

Formal manufacturers hope the legal framework weeds out the fly-by-night sellers and brings more stability to the market. In November, the Dhaka High Court banned battery-powered rickshaws in the capital, but the Supreme Court ordered that status quo be maintained for a month — and also asked for the High Court order to be dissolved within that time frame.

When Threads first launched on July 5, 2023, Vietnam ranked tenth worldwide in terms of the app’s downloads. Meta’s answer to X has since gained traction in the country, with 12% penetration in the third quarter of 2024, up from 3% a year earlier.

The penetration rate for Threads in Vietnam remains modest compared to X, which has hovered around 25% since 2022.

In Vietnam, the top social media platforms are Facebook and the homegrown Zalo. X has failed to go mainstream because it is perceived as more political and less entertainment-driven, according to Ho Thuy Tien, a consultant at analytics firm Decision Lab. Meanwhile, by linking Threads with Instagram and Facebook, Meta has created “a seamless experience for the user to do cross-platform activities,” Tien told Rest of World.

This growth has been driven largely by Gen Z, but millennials, eager to keep up with the younger trendsetters, have quickly followed suit. Unlike Taiwan, where Threads saw a boom in young, progressive users mobilizing for protests, the most popular type of content in Vietnam is related to emotions, love, tips, money, and daily stories.

Still, Threads lit up with political content in Vietnam last July and August as users debated accusations of foreign interference into the country’s politics. Those flocking to Threads are drawn to a perceived sense of safety. “Every comment and like is scrutinized on Facebook, it’s scary, while on Threads, it’s like confiding with strangers,” said a top-rated comment on a thread discussing why the platform was more vibrant than Facebook.

The video game, developed by the Tencent-backed studio Game Science, is based on the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West. It follows the adventures of a warrior named Wukong as he battles rivals with weapons and spells inspired by Chinese mythology. It has become China’s first hit “AAA” game — the gaming equivalent of a blockbuster film. Launched in August, it sold 20 million copies in the first month. By mid-October, it had generated more than $1 billion in revenue on PC game store Steam alone.

Game Science had been developing the video game since 2018, during a volatile time for the country’s gaming industry. Chinese state media called video games “spiritual opium” that hurt children’s well-being. To curb addiction, regulators in 2021 restricted minors to only an hour of gaming time per day, and only on weekends and public holidays. For months from late 2021 to early 2022, no new games were approved.

While the game approval freeze has been lifted, investors and developers remain nervous about policy changes that could upend the industry. Black Myth: Wukong emerged as a new role model. It was highly lucrative while also serving the government’s goal of boosting the country’s soft power. State media lauded the game as a cultural triumph, pointing to its potential to introduce global audiences to Chinese heritage.

Among ordinary gamers, Black Myth: Wukong stoked a wave of national pride, as people celebrated being able to battle in their own culture after all the years of fighting in foreign settings. Tourists flocked to the temples and pagodas that were featured in the game.

In August, right after local authorities banned X in Brazil, users in the country flocked to Bluesky, a microblogging platform created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

According to data analysis company Similarweb, there were about 50,000 total Bluesky users in Brazil in July. That number ballooned to 3.4 million on August 30, the day the ban came into effect. 

Many Brazilians chose Bluesky over Meta’s Threads as they felt the former was a clean slate, according to six Bluesky users who spoke to Rest of World. To them, Bluesky resembled the early days of Twitter, prior to Elon Musk buying the company, renaming it X, and becoming too lenient on extremist content.

During X’s monthlong suspension in Brazil, right-wing accounts and politicians continued posting on the platform by using virtual private networks (VPNs), risking fines. Being active on X became a direct challenge to Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered the shutdown after Musk continuously failed to comply with orders to curb misinformation and hateful speech.

The ban on X was lifted in early October, after Musk complied with de Moraes’ demands and paid 28.6 million reals ($5.1 million) in fines. Later that month, Bluesky announced a $15 million funding round to grow its then-user base of 13 million — of which a significant number are Brazilians. After Donald Trump’s presidential win in November, Bluesky saw a large increase in its users, surpassing 22 million by the end of that month.

Seven college kids working out of their dorm room at the Royal University of Bhutan’s tech institute built the country’s first artificial intelligence startup and bagged big-name government clients last year.

NoMindBhutan makes and deploys chatbots for eight high-profile companies and government entities, including Bhutan National Bank, Royal Bhutan Airlines, the Bhutan National Digital Identity (NDI) program, the National Land Commission, and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Employment.

NoMindBhutan is “very highly motivated so they are keen to learn … to make quick changes,” Pallavi Sharma, NDI’s marketing and communications lead, told Rest of World.

When they set up NoMindBhutan in 2023, co-founders Ugyen Dendup and Jamphel Yigzin Samdrup were freshmen in the AI Development and Data Science program at the Gyalpozhing College of Information Technology, part of the Royal University of Bhutan. The college brought in over a dozen faculty members from Singapore.

Despite its prominent clientele, NoMindBhutan is currently restricted by the country’s lack of access to international payment platforms and cloud servers, but remains “committed to advancing AI in Bhutan and overcoming the barriers that stand in our way,” Dendup told Rest of World.

The company is also thinking beyond business chatbots. In June, it launched Sherig.ai, a personalized AI tutor for schoolkids with video lessons and quizzes based on Bhutanese textbooks.

More student-led startups from Gyalpozhing have followed in NoMindBhutan’s footsteps, using AI for water current management, driving assistance, fashion advice, and sign-language translation.

In June 2024, as civil unrest roiled Kenya, a little-known app named Zello emerged as the primary communication tool for protesters.

Developed by U.S. engineer Alexey Gavrilov in 2007, Zello allows smartphones to be used as walkie-talkies. This helped Kenyan protesters find meeting points, evade the police, and alert each other to potential dangers. 

The app became so synonymous with the protest that even Kenya’s president, William Ruto, acknowledged its key role.

Zello told Rest of World that the app was downloaded over 40,000 times on the Google Play store in Kenya between June 17 and June 25 — figures that were “well above our usual numbers.” According to analytic firm Sensor Tower, there were around 55,000 Zello downloads in Kenya between June 19 and June 24 — more than 50% of the app’s total downloads since launch.

Zello’s usefulness precedes the Kenyan protests: It was used in 2014 during Venezuela’s anti-government demonstrations; to conduct rescue missions in Texas in 2017, following Hurricane Harvey; and to coordinate protests and labor strikes in Canada and Russia the same year.

Zello’s popularity, however, might have peaked. “Zello was the right product, the right platform, at the right time and scenario. I don’t know if it has the longevity to go beyond that,” Moses Kemibaro, CEO of Nairobi-based digital strategy firm Dotsavvy Africa, told Rest of World. Zello downloads have declined since June, falling by 60% and 50% in September and October, respectively, according to Sensor Tower. Its 7,000 daily users in July fell to 1,500 by November.