As promised earlier, this is my personal opinion on some of the start-ups that presented at Proto, July 2008, IIT Delhi.

This is a list of companies that look promising and held my interest with their idea and innovation.  I’ll break down what I liked about each company and why I consider them part of the list.

The Top Five Start-ups at Proto.in, July 2008:

5) Ferox Foods

Entrepreneurs from Bihar, who have a dream of providing jobs to a state that requires it. Got to hand it to the guys for coming to an IT event, and discussing a Non-IT topic. I enjoyed reading the market share and stats, but felt alienated when VC specific slides showed up.

The concept, is about a healthy substitute for breakfast cereals and snacks, than wheat and corn. I did not get a chance to taste the lab made product so cant judge if the idea will work or not. but applaud them for their passion and belief in the idea.

4) NextBit Computing

OOH is one of the upcoming markets, and definitely nice to see their wireless manager on display. Its amazing how many companies fail to help their customers, by providing numbers, stats, graphs and figures on if the marketing is working or not. What got my interest, was the fact that they collect data on people viewing the ad.

I hope the technology uses facial recognition & eyeball tracking to generate authenticate and accurate numbers else the stats aren’t as effective.

3) Lipikaar

I understand the plight of rural public and the discomfort that arises from not being fluent in English therefore I love the concept, but am not sure of the execution.

I get the usage of this technology for showing signs, billboards, ads and as a teaching tool but my argument is that the creator needs to know the English language anyways.

I guess the idea that people now can think in the native language is definitely a boon, but it doesn’t solve the main plight of the issue. The creator is thinking in his native language, associating his thoughts with an English keyboard and typing it again in his native language. It doesn’t inherently remove the dependency on the English language.

Anyways, I appreciate the idea and the thought of breaking down the language barrier to connect people. Translation hasn’t reached the stage where it can seamlessly morph from one language to another so I see the hole that this product fills. I used the demo available on their home page and was impressed how fast I could type in Hindi.

2) BlinkMedia

The Intelligent shopping cart. When the cart was wheeled out on to the stage, and the Touch Screen UI was displayed, a collective Ooh Aah was heard all around. The User Interface is simply amazing. Its resemblance to the Coverflow in Apple and the touchscreen interface on a normal shopping trolley is an amazing demonstration of technology improving a prehistoric tedious process. Cant wait for games to be added for small kids and henpecked husbands.

The company proudly lists Mr. Venkat Rajaraman, as their advisor. He is an ex-VP at Portal Player, and was in charge of developing core technologies for the Apple iPod and iPhone. I assume that his feedback was instrumental in the amazing UI of the system.

Personally, I love the concept of the product, but have my doubts on its usefulness. The overhead costs that come with implementing this are huge. Your talking about billions of bytes being transferred in real time. ERPs, CRM,s SCMs, solutions all communicating with each other across different locations and platforms. How accurate are RF Signals in tracking movements within a shopping area? And then comes the question of privacy and how much tracking is a customer comfortable with? Nonetheless a beautiful idea and well executed.

They have started in the right direction, with pitching this idea to shopping malls in USA, UK etc as they have the required target markets to use the iShopping cart.

The guys at Blink Media are on the right track with their approach, ideas, and execution but they are little ahead of the curve. Few more years down the line, technology gets cheaper, software gets standardized, then they will be the company to look out for.

1) Eko

My personal favourite. Whoever decided to make a video as a means for their idea presentation deserves a pat on his/her back. Their approach was different, precise and simple. They explained in 5 minutes, their target market, their approach to solving a problem, and their goal to make life easier for the rural / migrant community. All you need is a mobile phone and you can associate yourself with HDFC bank accounts. The Money transfer example was also brilliantly executed. The comic book feeler was innovative, though considering target audience were IT professionals, I feel the usage of English would have connected better.

I liked them cause they were out there to make life better, and equal across all classes. The usage of ready made technology, cheap operating costs means their business model is intelligent. Though, I really hope they do something about the amount of numbers and symbols that need to be typed to operate such an account.

Also liked,

LordsofOdds

I like this idea because I can see myself playing with it. Its amazing how social games have become the next step in online games.

What I liked is that the founders have a fixed business plan in mind. Their approach to spreading the idea virally through Facebook, Orkut, Mobile phones etc ensures the idea has a fixed direction.

Had a nice chat with them, and it was great to share stories about start-up pains and teething problems.

Lifeblob

Pictures represented on a time line. I have already seen similar flavours across the Internet with Youtube videos on a time-line etc but they have added a few tweaks. The website looks good and the UI looks friendly.

Overall, a lot of interesting and wonderful ideas. I really liked the Out-Of-Box segment, therefore no suprise that most of the top five are from that category. The list is strictly my personal opinion.

Cheers,

Darshan.

Aurus IT Solutions