Kerala-based software firm wins grand challenge for developing video conference solution

Three more video conference solutions developed by three other entities have also been selected for government support. 

Union minister for electronics and IT, communications and law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad announced the results of the Grand Challenge for Developing Video Conference Solution today. 

“I am delighted that Indian entrepreneurs and innovators have responded to the clarion call for AatmaNirbhar Bharat given by the prime minister of India and have come up with some world class video conferencing solutions in a short span of four months. We are committed to develop India’s software product and mobile app economy in a big way and efforts like this will go a long way in that direction,” the minister said while announcing the winners of the Grand Challenge.

The ministry of electronics and information technology announced an Innovation Challenge for Development of a Video Conferencing Solution under the Digital India Initiative on 12 April 2020. The Innovation Challenge was open for participation from industry, start-ups and individual experts. It received overwhelming response from across the country, with a total of 1,983 applications being received, which were evaluated and subsequently supported through a three stage process (Ideation, Prototype and Product Stage).

Out of these, 12 applicants with innovative VC solutions were shortlisted to develop / improve the prototype for which support of Rs10 lakh each was provided. The prototypes so evolved were further evaluated by the eminent Jury comprising senior officers of the government, reputed academicians and eminent members from the IT industry to shortlist five applicants for building a ready to market product. The five shortlisted applicants were further provided financial support of Rs20 lakh (for three) and Rs15 lakh (for two), mentorship, testing and onboarding onto NIC cloud. Jury and mentors comprising of eminent experts from industry, academia and government provided extensive support to the challenge on pro bono basis. The five finalists have pitched the solution and Jury which evaluated each of these products in detail and declared the winners.

The jury declared Vconsol, a product of Alappuzha (Kerala) based Techgentsia Software Technologies Private Limited, as the winner. The winner of the challenge will be provided financial support of Rs1 crore with additional Rs10 lakh towards O&M for the next three years and will be adopted for use by government through a contract.

In addition, the jury selected the products developed by three applicants as potential products and decided to offer a developmental contract to be supported by Rs25 lakh each for further maturing their product within a period of three months. These three products will be further analysed by a technical committee and subsequently ministry of electronics and IT will recommend to onboard all selected four products on GeM. Details of these three products are.

The three companies and their products are: Sarv Webs Pvt Ltd of jaipur (Sarv Wave); PeopleLink Unified Communications Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad (Insta VC); and Instrive Softlabs Pvt Ltd, Chennai (HydraMeet).

All the aforesaid video conferencing products will be provided support of STQC, CERT-In, CDAC and NIC. It has also been recommended that all four products will be hosted on NIC cloud and NIC will facilitate for adoption of these products for government use through GeM. All teams, including winning team, shall also be free to market the product globally.

The grand challenge was conducted with active participation from some of the best experts working as mentors and members of the jury, which included Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh, Indian Angel Network chairman Saurabh Srivastava, Sharad Sharma of iSpirit, RajatMoona from IIT Bhilai, Professor Santanu Chaudhary from IIT Jodhpur, Professor YatindraNath Singh from IIT Kanpur along with senior officers of the ministry.