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In conversation with Sanjoe Jose, Founder of TalView, participant in Intech50 2014.

Talview was founded as Interview Master in 2012. Starting up as an asynchronous video interview platform, in 3 years they have grown to a full-fledged Video Interaction Platform, with use cases as varied as hiring-training, telemedicine and customer engagement. In 2014, Mayfield funded them. Today, they have more than 60 large-enterprise clients, including many Fortune 100 companies.

TalViewDo you think that product companies in India have the mettle to go global? What was your experience?

In my opinion, a company’s ability to go global is defined by vision of the team. We strongly believe that every product company in India can go global if they get the right assistance. iSPIRT is doing a good job in this regard. As a company which has successfully acquired many global clients, we try and share our experience whenever possible with aspiring product companies.

Is India geared up to be a ‘product nation?’

Today, India is a services nation and I think we should be very proud of that. Service companies have tremendous capability to provide job opportunities to millions of our youth. Having said that, product companies are also great value creators and I would like to see a right mix of both.

Why did you consider participating in InTech50?

Initially, InTech50 looked like an exciting opportunity to connect directly with the decision makers of large enterprises. The scale and focus of the event was also very interesting for us when we considered applying for Intech50.

How has getting shortlisted for InTech50 helped you?

InTech50 helped us connect with many potential clients in India and the US. Some of the largest deals we closed in 2014 had their origins in Intech50. 

What advice would you give to other emerging companies as they plan their scaling up?

I think clarity and speed are very critical in building a global company. Identify the milestones; set timelines for milestones; and ensure that you have access to the resources you would require to execute your plan to reach those milestones on time.

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In conversation with the Founder of RippleHire – Sudarsan Ravi, participant – @Intech50 2014.

RippleHire is a SaaS-based employee referral product.

Tell us about RippleHire – your journey so far…

We help companies automate their talent sourcing by leveraging their employee pool.

We spent our first year working with the ecosystem getting feedback and crowdsourcing problems on hiring. Only then did we begin our sales process and that too with the top global brands, so that we get the right folks to get the product experience and results right.

The journey has been challenging and exhilarating – full of the regular highs and lows that every entrepreneurial journey has, along with the crazy experiences and insights that come with building a global company.

RippleHireWhat challenges did you face during the course? Any learnings from that? 

It was initially tough for us to go after brands like Adobe, McAfee, Capgemini. Convincing them to be among your initial customers was not easy. People love social proof and we will be eternally grateful to our first set of customers who have co-created this innovation with us and helped provide the social proof.

If I were to do one thing differently, I would focus directly on global customers.

Do you think that getting access to/finding investors is difficult in India? 

I don’t think getting access to investors in India is difficult at all. We have always believed that investment is a by-product of building a good scalable business. Our focus as a team has been about building a product that adds value to our customers (the real proof came through when they paid).

I always recommend startups to not focus on building a business for investors but for customers. Do take the inputs that the investors give you on the space and the approach. Factor that in. However, build the business to add value to customers.

Our approach has meant that we have always received inbound interest from investors. So, I think getting access to investors is definitely easy if you focus on building a good business.

Why did you consider participating in InTech50? 

We wanted to get validation from Indian and Global CIO’s on our concept. It was wonderful to have multiple CIO’s stop by our booth post our presentation and share their hiring challenges.

It was a great way for us to get feedback on RippleHire. Not only that, it helped us bag customers too.

How has getting shortlisted for InTech50 helped you? 

Being recognized as one of the top 50 innovative software companies coming out of India helped us a lot from our sales standpoint. People in India, and globally, take you seriously especially when the validation for the software comes from CIO’s.

We have also grown by 10X in the past year.

Who were the people you connected with as a result of InTech50, and can you give us a few specific examples of what those introductions translated into? 

We were able to get feedback from multiple CIO’s and introductions to prospects like Happiest minds and Ascendum through this platform. Ascendum signed up RippleHire as a customer as well.

What advice would you give to other emerging companies as they plan their scaling up?

Every startup is different and has different challenges when it comes to scaling up. I think it is important to get the following right when it comes to scaling up –

  • Your customer support and product experience should be consistent. Think of a Pizza Hut. As they scale customers, it is important that the Pizza quality stays the same.
  • Scaling well is about putting the processes in place that the experience stays the same. Getting this in place requires thinking of your engineering, sales and support teams in the form of units. Once you get one unit right in your support engine, scaling is about replicating that unit.

One recommendation I would give out to the InTech50 participants this year is that – research the sectors that are of interest for you. Hiring in our case is sector agnostic. It would have helped us if we had picked three sectors and focused on attendees from that space.

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If you have a B2B Product, here are 5 reasons why you should apply for #InTech50

If you have built an B2B Product and have aspirations to take it to a global scale, here are the 5 reasons why you should apply for #InTech50.

InTech50

  1. An opportunity to showcase, get validation of the concept and product direction, better understanding of business value in the enterprise from Global CIOs.
  2. High probability of being selected by Global CIO’s for pilot or early adoption.
  3. Possibility of being selected by large product companies for add-on/bolt-on value add/partnerships to their large scale product solution sets.
  4. Potential possibility of getting investors attention due to interest/validation from Global CIO’s/large product companies.
  5. Getting selected in the elite #InTech50 list and subsequently getting a high degree of visibility from different stakeholders especially media coverage.

The possibility of all this happening without the need to travel out of country is real! This is the 1st and only platform for Enterprise products to showcase their products to Global CIOs.

Only the 50 shortlisted companies will get to attend the event. So what are you waiting for, go ahead and apply, the last date is 18th Feb 2014.

Read more details here – Announcing InTech50 for 2015

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The Nascent Transparency Movement Shifts Gears

Two recent blogposts, one simply titled Transparency by Amarpreet Kalkat of Frrole, and the other labeled Sharing by Sumanth Raghavendra of Deck, have given embrynonic radical transparency movement a boost.

This movement in India started many years back when NPC started published its internal metrics (see the example for 2009 & 2010). Initially this caused a stir. Luckily, appreciation, especially, from entrepreneurs quickly kicked in and this level of transparency became the norm until the handoff of NPC to a corporatized setup.

Transparency movementThe transparency and sharing tradition carried over to iSPIRT. Nowadays, iSPIRT routinely shares the good, bad and ugly, often in the form of a “journeyline”, so that everybody in the ecosystem can learn from its experiences (see PNCamp’s example here). It even publishes its volunteer model so that other community efforts can build on its lessons. In fact, now, the concept of radical transparency is baked into iSPIRT’s guiding principles itself (alongside polycentric governance and open-access to public goods).

Early last year entrepreneurs started embracing the radical transparency movement. This started with PlaybookRTs. In these PlaybookRTs, the facilitator, always an in-the-saddle entrepreneur gets “metaphorically naked” till all the other 10 participants are (metaphorically) naked too. This nakedness sets the stage for tremendous give-and-take of insights and learning. Today, there are almost two-dozen entrepreneurs who regularly “pass knowledge to others in a pay-forward model” in these PlaybookRTs. They go by the name of iSPIRT Mavens. You’ll be happy to see that this list includes some of the most prominent software product entrepreneurs.

The example of Mavens motivated Raj Sheth of RecruiterBox (an iSPIRT Product Circle donor) to embrace radical transparency by sharing their December marketing plan openly. The recent blogposts by Amarpreet of Frrole and Sumanth of Deck have given this trend more momentum. Kudos to them!

This is an important dynamic that is playing out in our ecosystem. This type of radical sharing increases the tacit knowledge in the ecosystem and it drives faster learning for everybody. It’s particularly helpful for novice entrepreneurs. It builds trust since the sharing is entrepreneur to entrepreneur with no middlemen involved. All these soft benefits power faster growth of our software product industry.

Come, take inspiration from Raj, Amarpreet and Sumanth. Join the transparency movement and help India become a Product Nation!

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Pallav Nadhani @FusionCharts on Bootstrapping your Startup the right way, all the way #BootUpINDIA

Success is often measured by how much limelight you managed to get. Real success however, belongs to those who dig in and chart the fabled hockey stick growth path. Companies like Fusioncharts, Rategain and Wingify are but a few examples of globe scale bootstrapped Startups from India. Does Bootstrapping happen out of accident or by choice? Is it a long term bet or a compulsion? What are the other myths behind Bootstrapped vs Funded startups?

Pallav shares the secret sauce of successful Bootstrapping in this heart-to-heart chat with Sandeep Todi, iSPIRT volunteer and himself a bootstrapped entrepreneur. Listen to him talk about the challenges he faced and how iSPIRT #BootUpINDIA will help you as a Bootstrapped startup. You can view the video and post a question to Pallav right here.

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Budget recognises the Software Product Industry #Budget2014 #ProductNation

The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad spoke to iSPIRT members on July 1 in Bangalore during his first ever visit as Minister. Reacting to the pitch by iSPIRT members about transforming the face of India through a strong software product industry, Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad strongly endorsed the Government’s backing to the industry.

Government to Transform India into a Software #ProductNation from iSPIRT // ProductNation on Vimeo.

What started as a conversation ten days back has today been further reaffirmed by the Hon’ble Finance Minister and Defence Minister Sh. Arun Jaitley in Parliament. In his budget speech Sh. Jaitley recognized and mentioned the Indian Software Product Industry as one of the key industries of growth.

iSPIRT believes that the software product industry in India is an enabler for many other industries like Defense, Electronics and Communications. The creation of 100,000 Software Product Companies in India can potentially lead to direct and indirect employment of 3.5 million people and the creation of $500+ billion in market value in a decade.

With the impetus that the Government has initiated, there is no reason why the next Facebook, Google or Whatsapp should not emerge out of India. In fact, Software products have a clear role in shaping various core sectors of the economy including agriculture, education and healthcare and bring efficiencies and cost benefits to the masses.

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish #InnovateDelhi

This blog is part a recollection of the events of the Pitch Day. And part a farewell post to those amazing 112 students who continued to surprise us till the last day at Innovate Delhi.

This Sunday marked the culmination of the intense three weeks of action happening at IIIT Delhi as a part of Innovate Delhi Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA). Where on one hand we have extended weekend based startup events happening in the country. IDEA could could be described as being on adrenaline, with more rigor, creative problem solving and the fun.

The day was a typical June summer in Delhi, by being slightly hot than what was comfortable. The past weeks saw nearly 40 teams working on their ideas, iterating and pitching leading upto the main event. Only the top five were to present that day. With the certificates of participation distributed, the focus was now on two major groups. The finalists who were presenting that day to the investors/judges were practicing with Randy. The others were setting in motion the open house.

Speaker
Kiran Karnik

With the judges comprising of a diverse and interesting mix. The spectrum ranged from Mr. Vinod Rai, the former CAG of India all the way to Dr. Pankaj Jalote, Director of IIIT Delhi. The sounds of healthy debates boomed across the hall with the judges talking to the teams. There were student groups working on their ideas even before they came to the program to others who pivoted on their ideas and names the day before. The variety ranged from an online wig platform called WigVanity to MyParking which helped people find parking spots in NCR.

With the open house being wrapped up all of us moved to real attraction of the evening, the top pitches. The  welcome note by PK from IIIT Delhi was followed by speaker talks by Kiran Karnik and Sharad Sharma amongst others. One could see the hunger for knowledge and the collective wave of emotion in the student audience when Sharad quoted number and facts about the software and the startup industry in India. Celebrating the pride in our product startups.

We soon began with the pitches which made for the highlight of the evening. Weeks of learning for the final teams reduced to just five minutes. Which could make or break their odds of winning. With Surfing Couch taking the top honours for their idea of providing free community wi-fi, Shoutstr and Ripple followed close on the heels for a podium finish. Aegis (wearable for women safety) and ZapApp were the other two startups vying for the top slots.

ZapApp
ZapApp

The student testimonials on stage were a perfect example of the diversity and broke the stereotypical mold of the impression we have of an Indian entrepreneur. There were ‘students’ coming from remote Indian villages to others who were married. Talking of age, a very interesting observation came across. All the finalist teams had atleast one team member above the average age with atleast a few years of industry experience. What inference should we draw from this, I’ll leave that to you.

With the events of the evening concluding, it was not long before students had crowded around their favorite judges soaking in what wisdom they offered and asking them a lot of questions. Rem Koning had to be excused towards the end, with the Delhi weather taking the better of him. Students just loved Sharique Hasan, with requests for IDEA ’15 already pouring in. But the hands down favorite was Randy Lubin, and it was not long before he was posing for pictures.

Surfing Couch is declared the winner
Surfing Couch is declared the winner

After three weeks you could see the camaraderie in the students, now working on the details to execute their ideas in the real world. As members of the Indian startup ecosystem, we take so many things for granted. But seeing a batch of the next generation of builders, beginning their startup journey reminded many of us about why we started in the first place. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Acknowledgments: No event takes place without the healthy support from a huge set of unnamed workers. Special shout out two amazing people who helped with the creating the digital record for the Pitch Day.

a. Bhavna Nagpal for helping with the tweets on @InnovateDelhi. You can see the entire chatter at #InnovateDelhi.

b. Tasveer, the photography club of IIIT Delhi for helping provide pictures for this post. They also have an amazing album covering the proceedings of the day.

With Inputs from Gurpreet Bedi, 

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A Story of Mobile App. AutoCop, App That Will Make Your Auto Rickshaw Ride Pleasant

AutoCop Android App by ShimBi Labs. AutoCop is social awareness app that allows users to share their experiences of Auto Rickshaw ride with others. It helps a rider to channelize his frustration or good experience of Auto Rickshaw ride and share it on various social media platforms. We aim to facilitate people in India (including Auto Rickshaw drivers) to be more aware of the benefit achieved by accumulating the day­to­day service quality.

We interviewed Siddharth Deshmukh, Founder and CEO of ShimBi Labs. In this conversation, Siddharth explains about the idea behind the AutoCop App, how it can help to solve many of the problem today Auto Rickshaw riders as well as service providers face, his vision and much more…

How did the idea of AutoCop into being?

Early in life I use to use a lot of Auto Rickshaw, later once I bought my car naturally I stopped using them, but in recent for business, I was travelling across the country and sometimes I decided to use Auto Rickshaw. Whenever I am looking for Auto Rickshaw two things I experienced most prominently, it is likely that I will face either of these situations, refuses to go to destination or charges excess money. Earlier also it was the same experience, but this time, I decided to get to the root cause of it and decided to talk to stakeholders. Listen to what they say:

Passenger
“There is no way that the situation is going to change unless the traffic police department take strict measures. An auto rickshaw wala (Auto­rickshaw operator) going to charge excess or refuse to go.”

Auto Rickshaw Wala
“For some destinations, I found it difficult to get passengers. On many occasions, I had to return without any passenger.”

Police
“We are taking action against the errant drivers. But unless there is an active public participation the issue will remain the same”page1image18496page1image18656

I think there is an element of truth in each side, and every point of view needs to be answered after comprehensive study. Moreover, such study is only possible, if we have structured data, if not for all but the majority of such incidents.

So what is solution that you thought?

I think the solution lies in Big Data. We need to collect huge data if possible from users of Auto Rickshaw every time they use it. Once we have uniformly structured data from small Towns to Major Cities and Metropolitan Areas of India. Based on such structured data, It is possible to learn trends, generate heat maps and pinpoint some facts that need to investigate in great details.

For example in Pune at Magarpatta City many Auto Rickshaw Drivers are charging extra. In Navi Mumbai Auto, Rickshaw Drivers are refusing to go to Mumbai. Why because they have their own reasons, sometimes they are valid reason but not always. To take proper action and to find a sustainable solution needs large data, which can through insight and tell us many trends and facts.

How will you collect such data?

We at ShimBi Labs thought of addressing this problem. First step was to create one simple to use Mobile App. to capture user experiences and save them in uniform and structured format.

Then make it available to related Authorities, Auto Rickshaw Unions, NGOs, Data Scientist and Policy Makers. So that it can help making proper decisions and policies.

However, before we create this app. we were very clear on certain points.

1. This app is not for registering complaints.
2. This app is not for abusing anyone.
3. This app is to share your experience of auto rickshaw ride.
4. This app will gather user experience and help setting trends and heat maps.

So what should this App do?

1. Provide an easy way to capture the required data.
2. Data such as Auto Rickshaw number, time and location of the incident.
3. and exactly what happened such as Fare denied, Charge Extra, Meter Tempered and or everything was fine.
4. Provide some useful utilities such as virtual meter, route map etc.
5. Share your Auto Rickshaw ride experience with friends on Facebook and twitter So that is how AutoCop Android App took birth. Learn more about AutoCop App

Any examples of data and trend capture through AutoCop?

App is in very early stage so we are waiting for enough data. But following are few examples how it can through some insight information.

*These are just indicative figures

Example 1

In Pune we collect data:
Start Point: Laxmi Road Day: Wednesday Time: 7 pm Destination: Koregaon Park, Kalyani Nagar, Viman Nagar

Data was collected from 15 March to 18th March 2014

Above data clearly shows that it seems most of the time Auto Rickshaw on Lakshmi Road are reluctant to go to Koregaon Park, Kalyani Nagar, Viman Nagar or they over charge the passenger.

So find the solution to it, all stakeholders must find out real cause and proper solution to it.

AutoCop1page3image10000

Example 2

Start Point: Bangalore Railway Station
Day: All Days Time: 9 pm Destination: Any destination beyond 10 Km.

autocop2

Data was collected from 10 February to 20th February 2014

Above data is indicating that most of the time Auto Rickshaw at Railways Station are overcharging passengers. Great number of such Passengers may be a tourist or temporary visitor.

In both examples reasons can be many but such systematic data (Geo tagged and time stamped) is very useful to start an investigation.

Any further decision based on such solid data will be of more effective.

Example 3

Here is another example of Profiling Auto Rickshaw Number.

autocop3

These data will easily alert authorities to keep a regular check on these Auto Rickshaw Numbers. More details on what offends they are doing also can be obtained from data, including Geo location and Time.

What are the key execution challenges you have faced?

This complex task and unless active participation of people it is impossible to solve the problem. We request all stakeholders to help us. Spread awareness.

Auto Rickshaw transportation is going to stay here for long, and there is huge scope we can work together. If you share same thoughts and believe in this idea that it will work, some funding is welcome. Your suggestions are welcome, if anyone of you have some good idea, you are welcome to join our team.

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Looking for full-time Program Manager for Software Adoption Initiative(SAI)

Program Manager for Software Adoption Initiative(SAI), is a full-time position (preferred location: Bangalore, India) with iSPIRT, would drive full-scale and focused implementation of the Action Plan 2014 that is drawn up by iSPIRT Founder’s Circle.

The focus of SAI for the year 2014-15 would be to work with software product companies across multiple domains, software product buyers in India and iSPIRT partners and help materialize a lot of engagement between the software buyers and sellers in India. The role involves interactions with key stakeholders (product company execs, marketing agencies, iSPIRT team members, iSPIRT partners), program/project management, document preparation (example creating software adoption guides for various industries), conducting events and managing outbound tele-engagement team.

We are looking for someone who holds an MBA, has flair for communication and interactions with senior executives and has a cross-functional experience with any product companies in Sales/BD program management roles.

The position is very entrepreneurial in nature, where the individual’s drive and passion determine the results while guidance and participation from the core SAI team members would always be available. As a program manager, one would gain great insight into what drives software adoption in India and what opportunities exists for software product companies.

Profiles could be sent to me at avinash(at)ispirt.in. We request Product Nation members to refer anyone who could be interested in the position. Suggestions welcome.

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Presenting the iSPIRT Governing Framework

It has been a great, great year here at iSPIRT, and though we have a long way yet to go, we are confident that we are well on our way to get to where we want to be.

After all, well begun is half done.

But then, there is also the question of structure, not unlike the problem entrepreneurs face they have to scale their business – when the organization becomes big and responsibilities fragment and become more focussed, what if the core values get diluted?

This is why principles are important, and since we started with an ideal we wanted to reach, we have distilled it into three governing principles , which are –

  1. Radical transparency
    This is crucial to continued operation of our ‘peer production’ (volunteer) model.
  2. Polycentric governance aka Panchayat system
    Which means that SPIRT is bigger than any one individual.
  3. Open-Access Public Goods
    We work for many and not for any one company, no matter how important it might be.

The Governing Council (GC) is responsible for upholding these governing principles and ensuring integrity across the board. The GC is about empowerment, not control. It helps clarify the causes and initiatives that we pursue. It is responsible to the SPI at large and not to donors. Our inspiration comes from the world of Wikipedia and Linux.  It’s a world where people are organized but there is no traditional organization; disputes are resolved and order prevails but there is no single person in control.

In the GC, we have a clear conception of the long-term outcomes that we seek. Today SPI is not even an identified industry. We seek to change this. As we argued in the 2012 iSPIRT Annual Letter, India’s future depends on a vibrant software product industry.

To accelerate the growth of SPI we seek a healthier power-law distribution of big and small firms. Our focus on market catalysts like M&A Connect, Global CIO Connect (InTech50) and Software Adoption Initiative are geared to help companies scale faster. In keeping with the global practice, we measure ecosystem’s success in terms of market capitalization, not revenues. We hope to overtake Israel in number and value of M&A deals in the coming years.

The Governing Council is going to champion three causes in this regard –

  1. Solve market coordination failures (e.g. through M&A Connect Program),
  2. Influencing policy,
  3. Synthesizing and evangelizing playbook for faster success.

We recognize that these aren’t everyday tasks. And iSPIRT is just getting started. With our almost audacious mission of transforming India at large through use of software products, we know this is a marathon, not a sprint.

This governing framework that we are sharing with you has evolved from numerous discussions and conversations with our Founder Circle members, Fellows, Mavens and Saarthis over the last many months.  By placing this in the public domain, we once again commit ourselves to building a durable Think Tank that’ll turn India into a Product Nation.

Bharat Goenka (Tally Solutions), Jay Pullur (Pramati Technologies), Naveen Tewari (InMobi), Sharad Sharma (BrandSigma), Vishnu Dusad (Nucleus Software), Governing Council, iSPIRT Foundation

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Last 10 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India

The countdown to InTech50 has begun – as we are nearing the event that takes place on April 9-10, 2014 in Bangalore, to witness the 50 Most Innovative Products from India.

We now present the last 10 finalists for InTech50 2014 Most Innovative Products after announcing 40 finalists in our previous rounds. (See the complete list here)

  • AppExe from Mobilous is a zero programming product building tool that requires no development expertise. Apps built by AppExe are fully cross-platform –iOS, Android, Windows … including HTML5 capable. It offers easy integration plug-in framework to connect with backend databases – SAP, Oracle etc.
  • CereBrate is a digital platform for hospitals to manage customer experience and engagement. The product’s intuitive and powerful analytics enables the hospital management to identify areas of concerns and take action. Seamless integration with Hospital Information System using HL7 allows hospitals to ensure enhanced customer experience.
  • Continuity Patrol™ from PerpetuuitiTechnosoft, based on BS25999 standard provides full automation of the workflow activities that enables a single-click Disaster Recovery solution to enterprises. Its real-time dashboard provides ‘C’ level executives with complete visibility into health of the DR environment and services. Its cloud based business model helps customers maximize cost savings in a virtualized environment.
  • Heckyl – FIND provides real time news and data analytic platform for retail traders and brokerages. The app gets integrated with trading terminals to provide quality Information, Visuals, Heat Maps of Sentiments and Market Data to help traders find trading opportunities in this dynamic market.
  • Interview Master is based on the concept of automated video interviews, which comes with provision for recruiters to pre-design questions, setup interviews, and invite any number of candidates quickly and efficiently. This is followed by an automated process that also helps candidates with limited technical knowledge to attend interviews that are available in a structured inbuilt evaluation tool to the line manager at his convenience.
  • InstaClique is an engagement and conversion solution for E-commerce stores that converts casual online viewers to real customers by re-creating the social offline buying experience. This enables virtual shoppers get a personalized experience based on their shopping activities and preferences.
  • ILANTUS Unified Express  provides one-time sign on for all browser based application with self-service password and synchronization. Users can seamlessly access any browser based, web or cloud applications on their workstation without retyping their username/password. This helps enterprises adopt cloud applications in a secured way by providing industry standard protocol based on single sign on.
  • Linguify from LinguaNext is a zero-code change application solution that helps transform the way global corporations, software application vendors, and system integrators address the multi-language requirements for their applications. Linguify translates screens, reports and files to any language without requiring access to the application source code or database.
  • Notiphi is a leader in location analytics. By directly measuring locations through smart phones and leveraging big data technologies, Notiphi is able to understand the real-world paths and consumer behavior patterns, which empowers brands to send relevant rich media content to focused audiences.
  • ZapStitch is a Cloud data integration platform. It lets you seamlessly sync and integrate data between various Cloud/SaaS business apps without any custom programming or engaging API developers. The product meets the requirements of business managers who want to flawlessly integrate and sync data between these apps.

We congratulate all the 50 companies who have made it to InTech50. We also take this opportunity to thank each one of you for your participation and interest in InTech50 nominations.

Let’s keep the spirits high!

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Next 20 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India

After announcing the first 20 companies, we are pleased to announce the next 20 finalists for InTech50 – Most Innovative Products from India.

Picking just 50 finalists from over two hundred wonderful products was one of the most challenging jobs for our iSPIRT panel of selectors this year. We have been narrowing and narrowing the choice until we got down to 50 great products.  

Although selecting 50 was really daunting, yet it was greatly satisfying to appreciate so many innovative products from young and innovative startups. The names of the next 20 finalists (in alphabetical order) are:

  • a-mantra is a web based integrated facility management software that is developed in a modular architecture by Satnav Technologies. Asset Management controls the assets and its location. Fixed assets, IT assets and consumable assets can be managed using asset management.
  • Aujas Networks: Digital technology makes informative content easier to find, access, manipulate and remix, and to disseminate. Aujas’ Secure Digital Content Solution helps companies prevent unauthorized usage of digital content.
  • BrandIdea Enterprise Market Analytics™ is a SaaS-based, self-service, Business Intelligence enterprise tool for the FMCG vertical, aimed at the business user. It is powered with in-built granular information on Demographics, Income, Economic, Category and Micro data. It overlays the Client’s internal data to drive insights across – Market Potential, Media, Distribution & Sales for any geographical area in India.
  • Capillary Technologies’ suite of Intelligent Customer Engagement™ solutions enables businesses to capture and analyze data on customer behavior and shopping preferences through digital and mobile channels. Capillary’s customer engagement solutions enable merchants to provide real-time personalized recommendations to shoppers and allow merchants to offer relevant promotions across any channel of choice.
  • CloudByte offers solutions built for cloud and virtualized environments. CloudByteElastiStorTM is a full-featured storage software product that provides dynamically selectable performance to each application or tenant by continuously monitoring and adjusting key storage performance characteristics including IOPS, throughput, and latency.
  • The Ezetap solution is an end-to-end service that includes a mobile card-reader, a configurable mobile application and a flexible platform that allows Ezetap or any third party to build and turn on value-added services that are tightly integrated to its core payment service.
  • Hoverr.me is a native advertising platform that leverages eyeballs over celebrity photographs in the content publisher websites and redirect it to the E-commerce stores. The computer vision technology fetches similar looking clothes from e-commerce stores and provides it when someone hovers over the celebrity image and encourages instant buy option.
  • iViZ is the first company in the world to take ethical hacking to the cloud. iViZ has built a unique Artificial Intelligence based technology to simulate a human hacker which shows all the permutations and combinations of possible attacks and defenses against a hacker. The technology has already received a patent in USPTO and multiple other patents are under review.
  • LocoBuzz is an award winning Social Media Analytics and engagement platform, which offers unparalleled workflows along with insightful visualization of the digital chatter. LocoBuzz is a tool for brand reputation management, Lead Generation Analytics and Infographics.
  • Nanobi Analytics is a next generation analytics platform built with a highly scalable cloud based architecture. The nanobi analytics platform enables end-to-end capabilities for delivering analytics starting from push/pull data through a variety of interfaces, through to quick/instant data visualization. Its REST architecture enables a seamless API based connect to any other cloud platform or data source, for easy integration and data interface.
  • Ozonetel Systems: CloudAgent is India’s first Multi-Channel Cloud Contact Center which enables SMEs to set up their sales/support agents on a plug & play basis. It is a browser based system which operates on PSTN Cloud and calls for zero hardware and software installation at agent side.
  • ShieldSquare: For online business (classifieds,news/content portals, Ecommerce/marketplaces, Travel Sites), scraping of content by un-authorized bots is becoming a major concern that is affecting the competitiveness of the business. ShieldSquare uses big data analytics to block bots/scrapers in real-time there by increasing the traffic, revenues of the online business as well as cut costs in terms of infrastructure, resources.
  • Stelae Technologies: It offers content transformation software, creating structured, indexed, searchable and enriched output from unstructured content in multiple formats like PDF, ASCII, Word, HTML etc. This enables customers to re-utilize the information on multiple supports like print, web, hand-held devices etc. and store in easy to retrieve archives and make it readily available to their users, cost effectively and rapidly.
  • Pawaa has built a technology platform that secures files and documents. The technology can be seamlessly integrated with any application or use case and allows exchange of files securely. The platform is unique as it overcomes the limitations of encryption on enterprise, mobile and cloud.
  • Qubole Data Service (QDS) provides a Big Data Platform in the AWS and GCE clouds. Our award-winning cloud-optimized and auto-scaling Hadoop technology allows customers to run Hadoop in a cost-effective manner in the Cloud. Its user Interface make it simple for data analysts to use big data technologies like Hive, Pig and Sqoop, Presto and Oozie to integrate and analyze data from a variety of sources.
  • Thinkflow Software: Available on-cloud and on-premise, Thinkflow apps platform is helping enterprise app developers build business applications faster. The platform has modules to create process flows, create alerts, configure business rules, design forms, digitize documents and an inbuilt module for business process analytics.
  • Thinxtream: It offers PrintJinni – Consumer Printing Apps on iOS, Android, RIM platforms offering great quality, accuracy, wireless printing to any vendor’s printer. It also supports email, photos, PDF files, Microsoft® Office docs, Webpages and more. It is available in all major languages worldwide.
  • TouchMagix: MotionMagix™ Interactive wall/floor, a gesture based tracking technology lends any wall or floor the qualities of motion-sensing. The vibrant and customizable high resolution content responds to the consumer movements and encourages further interaction. A wall/floor projected advertisement/game can react as and when customers approach the zone.
  • Unmetric: Its product offers the ability to collect, interpret and take action on information – regardless of business field. Its offering are focused on providing social media teams. This provides the ability to understand and distill insights from competitive and complementary brands that are active on social channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.
  • VoxApp is a mobile survey product used by brands and research companies to get consumer feedback and on-ground market information in real time. In India, of the data collected for brand tracking, retail audits, stock/sales tracking, the bulk are executed on paper/ laptops with issues of data quality and turnaround time that are solved by using VoxApp’s mobile data collection platform.

About InTech:  InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network that recognizes most promising software products by India’s entrepreneurs.

The elected products that represent inspirational and pioneering concepts in software will be showcased at InTech50, a two-day event to be held at Bangalore from April 9 -10, 2014, where global CIOs and transformation leaders will be present.

(Check out the First 20 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India. Stay tuned for the last 10 companies which we plan to announce shortly.)

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Second 10 of the 50 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India

InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, that recognizes most promising software products by India’s entrepreneurs, is pleased to confirm the Second set of 10 selected products from over 200 nominations. Check out the First 10 of the 50 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products.

InTech50 logoThe elected products that represent inspirational and pioneering concepts in software will be showcased at InTech50 , a two-day event to be held at Bangalore from April 9 -10, 2014, where global CIOs and transformation leaders will be present. 

How we picked out the Top 10 showcase products:

It is quite an honor to be in the InTech50  considering there was an overwhelming response for product nominations.

An esteemed panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), venture capitalists, and product leaders from previous successes have evaluated the nominated products.

The products have been selected based on their capabilities and uniqueness, while having the potential to transform the world around us.

The Second 10 finalists for InTech50 2014 Most Innovative Products (in alphabetical order) are:

  1. Contify is a Web Intelligence application for enterprise and teams. The product mines virtually all relevant online sources for information and converts it into easily accessible qualitative and quantitative insights on customers, competitors, and markets.
  2. i7 Networks is a 100% Agentless-way (ZERO-Touch) of detecting all personal devices, secure quadrupled fingerprinting (US patent-pending) of devices and apps etc. and provides network behavioural analysis. It then denies access to infected and compromised personal devices connecting to the network.
  3. KiSSFLOW is business process automation software that is deeply integrated with Google Apps environment. KiSSFLOW is the #1 app in the Google Marketplace in its category and has more than 5000 organizations and active users spread across 120 countries.
  4. Kreeo is a “Collective Intelligence & Unification Platform” for Companies which addresses three important aspects of effective information/knowledge management – Expression, Organization and Discovery (EOD). It provides a unified platform where information is shared/aggregated in various contexts and is intelligently organized around various concepts of relevance.
  5. MindTickle is a cloud based learning platform which enables businesses to create, deliver, manage and track online courses. It is easy to create courses on MindTickle by uploading or embedding existing content (videos, PPTs, PDFs, quizzes, etc.).
  6. RazorFlow Dashboard Framework helps you build interactive dashboards in HTML5 that work well on all modern devices. You can configure components of the dashboard using an intuitive API, which will intelligently render the dashboard according to the capabilities and form-factor of your user’s device.
  7. RippleHire is a technology product that gamifies employee referrals and enables social recruiting. By empowering the most effective way you hire (Employee Referrals), it reduces your hiring cost and effort and unlocks the multiplier in your employee social networks.
  8. Sapience is an innovative, patent-pending software solution that delivers over 20% increase in Work Output, from the existing team. Sapience achieves this through Automated Work Visibility, without requiring any change in process or extra management effort.
  9. SignEasy is a simple and convenient app for businesses and professionals to sign and fill documents from smart phones and tablets. You do not need a printer, scanner or fax machine. SignEasy is currently available on iOS, Android and BlackBerry.
  10. Seclore FileSecure is an Information Rights Management (IRM) solution which allows unstructured information (documents, emails, drawings, images,) to be remote controlled. It is possible to share information but have control: WHO can access the information, WHAT can each person do and WHEN does each person use the information.

Check out the First 10 of the 50 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products. Stay tuned for the remaining 30 companies which we plan to announce in the next few days.

 

Posted on

First 10 of the 50 Finalists: #InTech50 Most Innovative Products from India

InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, that recognizes most promising software products by India’s entrepreneurs, is pleased to confirm the first set of 10 selected products from over 200 nominations.

InTech50 logoThe elected products that represent inspirational and pioneering concepts in software will be showcased at InTech50 , a two-day event to be held at Bangalore from April 9 -10, 2014, where global CIOs and transformation leaders will be present.

How we picked out the Top 10 showcase products:

It is quite an honor to be in the InTech50  considering there was an overwhelming response for product nominations.

An esteemed panel of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), venture capitalists, and product leaders from previous successes have evaluated the nominated products.

The products have been selected based on their capabilities and uniqueness, while having the potential to transform the world around us.

The first 10 finalists for InTech50 2014 Most Innovative Products (in alphabetical order) are:

  •  99tests is a Crowd sourced Testing Marketplace with over 6500 testers from over 20 countries. Software product owners can get their applications tested on different versions of web browsers and various mobile devices to find critical bugs.
  • Cerebra (patent pending), a product from Flutura Solutions is a Machine-to-Machine Big Data Analytics platform that has the capability to unlock signals embedded within cryptic machine logs.
  • CoCubes is India’s largest assessment and campus hiring platform. The company works with 450+ corporate for hiring that provide greater control and transparency, while assisting institutional clients measure and improve employability and helping students move ahead on their career path.
  • Datonis (TM) is a platform from Altizon which helps get any device connected to the internet, manage these connected devices and drive data related to their performance and usage to a cloud based data aggregation and analytical engine to glean operational and consumer insight.
  • Freshdesk is a leading SaaS based customer support software that has more than 16,000 Support Teams across the world using it to deliver exceptional customer service. Freshdesk allows businesses to support customers through email, Twitter, Facebook, chat, phone, forums and other channels.
  • Bizosys’ HSearch is an award winning Hadoop based search and analytics engine to handle several terabytes of data. HSearch has been deployed by clients in Telecom infrastructure, Pharmaceutical R&D, Energy management, online retail, financial analytics industries with the core search engine available as open source.
  • Uniken has developed a path breaking Secure Digital Platform, REL-IDTM – which delivers ubiquitous, rich multi-channel digital experience with military grade security to the customers, employees and partners of an enterprise. Through REL-ID, the end users enjoy a rich and secure digital experience across devices and platforms.
  • Whatfix is a solution for creating interactive support faqs, training and product tours. With Whatfix anyone can create such interactive guides with just a few clicks and integrate them with products, applications & websites.
  • WhistleTalk is a SaaS based referral hiring solution that allows companies to leverage the social network of all their current employees, reach out to their friends and hire them. This unique approach helps organisations to supercharge their referral hiring.
  • ZipDial is a pioneering Mobile Marketing & Analytics platform for emerging markets. Marketers and advertisers utilize ZipDial to transform their brand campaigns into highly interactive and viral user experiences, while building a loyal customer base.

Moving Ahead:  As the evaluation process is still underway, we will announce names of the subsequent finalists as we go along. So stay tuned and share your comments about these innovative companies.