This Kerala startup creates Zoom alternate, wins Rs 1 cr government’s challenge

A Keraal based startup has won government’s challenge of creating a video conference solution and takes home a whopping Rs 1 crore. Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday (August 20) announced the results of the Grand Challenge for Developing Video Conference Solution.  

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 Rs 1 crore with an additional Rs 10 Lakhs towards O&M for the next three years and will be adopted for use by Government through a contract. 

Apart from this, the Jury also selected the products developed by three applicants as potential products and decided to offer a developmental contract to be supported by Rs 25 Lakh each for further maturing their product within a period of three months. 

These three products will be further analyzed by a technical committee and subsequently, the Ministry of Electronics and IT will recommend onboard all selected four products on GeM. 

Details of these three products are:  

1. Sarv Webs Pvt. Ltd. (Sarv Wave), Jaipur 

2. PeopleLink Unified Communications Pvt Ltd (Insta VC), Hyderabad 

3. InstriveSoftlabsPvt Ltd (HydraMeet), Chennai 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had announced an Innovation Challenge for Development of a Video Conferencing Solution under the Digital India Initiative on April 12, 2020.  

The government had received a total of 1983 applications, which were evaluated and subsequently supported through a three-stage process- Ideation, Prototype, and Product Stage, according to an official statement.  

Announcing the winners of the Grand Challenge, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “I am delighted that Indian entrepreneurs and innovators have responded to the clarion call for AatmaNirbhar Bharat given by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India and have come up with some world-class video conferencing solutions in a short span of four months.”