The clarion call for Aatma
Nirbhara Bharat on 12th May 2020 amidst Covid 19 lock down while
announcing Covid 19 economic package has raised eyebrows of many until it takes
a U-turn with Youngistan’s overwhelming response to Prime Minister Modi’s
Innovation Challenge. Raising a threat to China’s web conferencing solutions in
the world market, Vconsole, a new product developed by a young web research and
development company Techgentsia Software Technologies Pvt Ltd from a small town
of Kerala became the one-crore worth winner of the Innovation Challenge. While
announcing the winner, on 20th August, Minister of Electronics,
Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad noted that it gives an indication of
changing India where technological advancements can take place even in small
towns. Thus, a locally made Vconsole becomes an Indian solution to web
conferencing while pushing down the entry of Chinese-American App Zoom along
with Google Meet and beating giants like HCL and Cisco gives hope and
confidence on youngistan in the new world market in a post Covid world order.
The winner company will
get a financial support of 10 lakh for next three years for operation and
maintenance and will be the official web conferencing solution partner for
Government of India during this period. When asked about the experiences of the
company in the venture, its Co founder and CEO, 43-year old Joy Sebastian
humbles down. “It’s a team effort. The co-founder of the company Tony Thomas and
CTO Ankur Deep Jaiswal have done a commendable job along with the entire team
of 50 members to achieve this.”
The Indian achievement
comes in the eve of a survival challenge in the global pandemic condition that
hit India’s and China’s billion club population putting them in social
distancing and travel restrictions for months along with other nations. Thus,
quantum leap innovations of these kind from remote India is an indication on
her potential to become an active player in world software technology market.
“India has been a country for downloads of apps for too long. It is time for
India to become a country where apps are also uploaded... Since video
conferencing was an important instrument, especially during this pandemic, we
always discussed why not we have a ‘made in India', video conferencing,” says
Ravi Shankar Prasad while declaring the winner. “The government is committed to
develop India’s software product and mobile app economy in a big way and
efforts like this will take us a long way in that direction,” the minister
added.
Undoubtedly, the
government gives high priority to the security aspects of its web conferencing
solutions. Hence, preparations to develop Vconsole was not an easy task for Joy
Sebastian. “Security aspects of the product is a great concern for us. Vconsole
is the result of a 10-year long research of Techgentsia. While the government’s
task was to develop a web conferencing solution that can actively participate
25 people, we developed a solution to accommodate 100 active participants and
another 300 spectators at the same time. It will work even at a low internet
speed. It does not require different video streaming for each person that
enriches the data quality and ensures less data usage compared to other
solutions,” he explains.
According to a PIB
release, the Innovation Challenge was open for participation from industries,
start-ups and individual experts. The competition was held in three stages- Concept,
Prototype and Product Stage. Among 1983 companies selected for submitting the
prototype only 12 companies shortlisted for the next stage and were given Rs 5
lakh to develop the prototype. In the third stage, five companies were selected
and Rs 20 lakh each was given to three companies and Rs 15 lakh each for two
companies to develop the final product in one month. Jury comprising eminent
experts from industry, academia and government screened the finalists. The jury
also selected three products namely Sarv Wave by Jaipur based Sarv Webs Pvt.
Ltd., Insta VC by Hyderabad based PeopleLink Unified Communications Pvt Ltd and
HydraMeet by Instrive Softlabs Pvt Ltd of Chennai.
India’ Innovation
Challenge has become a threat to Chinese app TikTok, which is already banned in
India. The homegrown video app ‘Chingari’ is an answer to TikTok which won
first prize in the ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’, in the
social category and will receive Rs 20 lakh. The second and third winners are
YourQuote, India's largest writing app and Koo news app winning Rs 15 lakh and
10 lakh respectively. The Jury identified 24 apps for prizes across all
categories and another 20 apps for special mention. The App Innovation
challenge sought entries for nine different categories such as Business,
eLearning, Entertainment, Games, Health, News, Office and Work from Home,
Others and Social. The App Challenge received 6,940 entries. As minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad puts in, “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.”
Call for India to boycott
Chinese products in the wake of Galwan Valley skirmish on 15 June 2020 claiming
lives of 40 Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers, created an anti China
sentiments even at the local level. However, promoting
desi solutions in
short term are practically difficult due to India’s high dependency on China
for parts, hardware and many other items. India owns $75 billion worth imports
from China every year. Hence, making India Aatma Nirbhar Bharat is an emotional
goal which cannot be achieved without engaging youngistan in boosting small
scale local production in all walks. However, as per Government of China's
customs data Chinese exports to India had fallen by 25% in August this year as
compared to that in August 2019, which could be a resultant of Covid
impact.
A self-reliant India does
not mean to cutting off from rest of the world. Many Startups and young IT
companies have silently made entry in the global market. As Joy Sebastian puts
in: “We have clients world wide. Europe based Easy Meeting, U.S based Kaipura
Inc. Corp., Brand Commerce, Ireland based I-Connect are some of our clients. We
give solutions to Mumbai based Global One, C-dac in Trivandrum and ITI Ltd.
Indian Startups are getting a momentum in the global market.”
Apparently, India has
shifted her focus to many other fields to enhance self-reliance during the
pandemic. The personal protective equipment (PPE) sector of India has grown
from zero to 1,50,000 pieces a day in two months by the beginning of the month
of May. It has a capacity to produce more than two lakh kits a day. The PPE
industry in India is worth Rs 7,000 crore (US$980 million) and in two months it
grew second only to China. In another venture, India re-purposed her various
automobile sector industries to collaborate in ventilator-making. Announcement
of a ‘Made in India’ 5G network by Reliance Jio using 100 percent homegrown
technologies and solutions is another important shift. Many such announcements
have come up in the Defence sector too by imposing an “import embargo on 101
items” over a period of five years.
Among many of such shifts
in the recent past, the relevance of success of Techgentsia is to be analysed
for its vision to bring in a revolutionary change in the space of formal IT
education. As Joy Sebastian reveals, “My company gives importance only to
talent pool than any reputation of an engineering institute. We are even not
bothered to know whether the aspirant is an engineering graduate or not. Our
team has employees who did not complete an engineering degree and some others
have joined engineering college to get a degree after availing their expertise
from Techgentsia.” Adding more to its vision, he says, “Our company has a
vision to rebuild the society around us. It is our social responsibility to
engage in developing people around us to
hi tech locals by providing
human resource and IT solutions for better community life. We are still active
with free online solutions during Covid pandemic. My preference is to give job
to more people in my locality. When I was failed to clear interviews of world
companies due to my local flavour, I have decided to bring the world into my
locality.”
Efforts of Techgentsia
could be re-read in a post Covid world order as a company that makes a
difference with its vision at par with the concept Atma Nirbhar Bharat. Its
product, Vconsole, is the best example of ‘local’ becomes ‘vocal.’ In a country
like ours where being elite means western educated and being local is inferior,
a vernacular school trained village man from a coastal hamlet sets his goal in
the world market, posing challenges to multi nationals, using local human
resource in the IT sector and showing a way forward to tame the dragon.
