The first company to present its app was city-based NFN Labs that builds consumer-friendly mobile applications
Chandu Nair initiating the panel discussion along with Nancy J Anabel of MSSRF, Gokul Visweswaran of NFN labs and Dinesh Kumar S of Contus. (Photo: DC)
Chennai: Thought the ongoing Madras week festival is just about celebrating the history of the city? Those who had been following the events were up for a surprise Sunday evening when organisers of the gala chose to salute the entrepreneurial spirit of the city by holding a panel discussion on 'Metro Utility Apps' at Westin hotel Velachery.
City-based entrepreneur and advisor to startups, Chandu Nair chaired the discussion with three organisations from Chennai that build mobile applications for various sections of the society. Initiating the discussion, Nair said India has one of the fastest growing mobile app markets. Some categories like personalisation app segment are growing about 553 per cent in the country. "Chennai has a great set of entrepreneurs and organisations working on different types of apps that benefit different people and organisations across the world," he said.
The first company to present its app was city-based NFN Labs that builds consumer-friendly mobile applications. NFN, a company founded by four friends from Chennai -- Narayanan Hariharan, Sonaal Bangera and Rajesh Padmanabhan -- is venturing into spaces like location-based services apps like iPanchangam that can calculate the day and time for auspicious ceremonies based on geographic locations, app for checking
PNR status in iOS and Android platforms etc. Gokul Visweswaran, the director of the company said,"We founded the company in 2011 and started by making solutions for our own problems like apps for PNR status. People started liking it."
The second app that was presented to the audience was a social impact mobile app called Fisher Friend Mobile Application- build by MS Swaminathan Research foundation for the fisherman community. The app that was launched in 2013, provides fishermen immediate access to real-time information on weather, potential fishing zones, ocean state forecasts, and market related information."Built in android platform, the app is available in Tamil, English and Telugu as of now. We are also planning to launch it in Malayalam, Kannada and Odiya," said Nancy J Anabel, Director Information Education and Communication at MSSRF. The foundation is planning to partner with various state governments and NGOs for the wider reach of the app among the fisherman community. " Tamil Nadu government has shown interest in this app and we have got positive signals from other state governments as well," said Ms. Anabel.
Contus, a B2B app making company that makes business centric apps for companies across the country as well as aboard also presented their solution. The company that makes dashboard apps for auto companies like Mahindra and Mahindra and M commerce solutions for many companies in US, UK and Canada was started in 2007 with a six member team and an initial investment of about Rs 25 Lakhs has now about Rs 32 crore turnover. The team size has grown up to 250 now.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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