Thrissur-native Alkesh Das was at his home in Chamakkala during a power outage on April 25. With disruptions frequent, he tried reaching the Kerala State Electricity Board but failed. He then searched for online complaint platforms.
Frustrated, he turned to Reddit, where users were discussing the power cuts in the State due to increased electricity consumption leading to an energy crisis. With daily electricity consumption reaching 118.26 million units on April 26, as opposed to the 95 millions units during April 2025, load restrictions were announced by the Power Department, Kerala and Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) which were later withdrawn as summer rainfall strengthened over the State.
Alkesh built Currentundo.com, a crowdsourced website (an internet site which gathers information from a large, dispersed group of people), where users can report outages, to identify whether it affects an individual household or an area. “I started one evening; by the next day, on April 26, it was live. I shared it on Reddit, and it spread,” says Alkesh, who built the platform with the help of AI tools such as Codex (OpenAI’s coding agent) and Claude.
A Screen grab of Currentundo.com website | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
In nearly two weeks, the platform has drawn around 50,000 users and 10,000 daily visits, with nearly 1,000 users adding it to their home screens, tracking power supply status in their location, according to the founder.
The site tracks outages with the help of PIN codes and a Global Positioning System (GPS). “A user can enter the PIN code or use the GPS location on their device to report an outage. Once multiple reports come in from the same locale, we can infer that the power outage affects an area, as opposed to an individual household,” says Alkesh. The GPS system does not pinpoint the precise location of the user, but covers a two-kilometre radius.
Currently, a user cannot report an issue more than once within ten minutes, and an outage is registered only if at least three users from different IP addresses report it for the same location. Alkesh believes this helps weed out duplicate reports.
“We have also developed another way to check the power status of households by connecting smart devices such as refrigerators and televisions to the website, which sends updates every few minutes,” he says. Users can register these appliances through currentundo.com/api and input location details, following which the power supply status is updated every 10 minutes, adds Alkesh, who works for a Dubai-based company as a digital marketing manager.
Recent updates include district-wise chatrooms across Kerala’s 14 districts for real-time reporting. “We use IP hashing, a method that anonymises IP addresses without compromising user privacy. We also do not collect unrelated data, including users’ names,” says Alkesh, a computer science graduate from Government Engineering College, Sreekrishnapuram. “The chatrooms also have moderation systems that block abusive language, and users can report messages.”
A district-chatroom in Currentundo.com website | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Alkesh is now focused on improving the accuracy of the platform’s updates. “We’re exploring a collaboration with Kozhikode-based start-up Charge MOD, which has developed pole-mounted EV charging stations currently installed at around 2,000 locations across Kerala. This could help us automatically access real-time data from a location,” says Alkesh.
“We’re also developing an app that can send push notifications when a nearby outage is reported, allowing users to quickly verify the status in their area.”