Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi/Alappuzha (SHP)

New Delhi/Alappuzha, Aug 21: A company led by a Malayali has developed a video conferencing software which is all set to replace Google Meet and Zoom in the Central government offices.

After winning the Innovation Challenge held by the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT during the lockdown, V-consol software, developed by Techgentsia Software Technologies, won a three-year contract to set up video conferencing facilities in the Central government offices as a prize.

The company is led by a Keralite Joy Sebastian and is based at Infopark in Pallipuram. Along with the three-year contract, Techgentsia also won Rs 1 crore.

The agreement further stated that set up will be done by using V-consol software through the National Informatics Center (NIC). In addition to the contract and the prize money, an annual maintenance grant of Rs 10 lac will also be provided.

Joy Sebastian of Poonkavu, Alappuzha is the managing director and CEO of Techgentsia. Also, all except one of the five directors of the company are Malayalis.

V-consol software supports eight Indian vernacular languages including Malayalam.

“It needs a large investment infrastructure to take the software to the common man. There is currently no possibility for that. I hope this award will lead to that," said Joy Sebastian.

Announcing the winner on Thursday, Union Minister for Electronics & IT Ravishankar Prasad said India has come up with world-class video conferencing solutions in just four months. "We are committed to developing India's software product and mobile app economy in a big way and efforts like this will go a long way in that direction," he said.

The ministry had announced the competition to develop a video conferencing solution on April 12 under the Digital India initiative.

The competition was open for all industries, start-ups and individual experts. The ministry stated that there were over 1,983 submissions, which were trimmed to 12. Rs 10 lac was given to each of the 12 participants to develop the prototype. Once the developed, the prototypes were judged by senior government officers, academicians and members from the IT industry.

After deliberations, five applicants were shortlisted for developing a product that would ready for the market. Of the five, three applicants received Rs 20 lac and the rest were given Rs 15 lac.

In the end, V-consol software by Techgentsia emerged the winner. The jury decided to offer Rs 25 lac each to three companies - Sarv Wave (Jaipur), Insta VC (Hyderabad), HydraMeet (Chennai) so that they can further develop their products for three months.