Kerala Startup Wins Rs 1 cr For Developing Zoom Alternate

The government’s challenge of creating a video conferencing solution helped a Kerala based startup to win an amount of Rs. 1 crore. The results of the Grand Challenge for developing a Video Conference Solution was announced on Thursday by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Vconsol, a product of Techgentsia Software Technologies Private limited was declared as the winner of the challenge. The prize money for the same amount to Rs.1 crore with an additional ten lakh rupees for O&M for the next three years which will be adopted by the Government on a contract basis.

Other than this, the Jury also selected products which were developed by the other three applicants as potential products and is now deciding to offer them a contract of development which will be supported by Rs.25 Lakh each for further maturing within 3 months.

These three products will be then analyzed by a technical committee following which, the Ministry of Electronics and IT will recommend all the 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

An Innovation Challenge for the Development of a Video Conferencing Solution under the Digital India Initiative on April 12, 2020, was announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Applicants totaling 1983 was received by the government, which were later 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.”