METRO MART Metro Mart July 2013 | Page 48

Startup Village firms win NASSCOM award for women ’ s safety apps
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Startup Village firms win NASSCOM award for women ’ s safety apps
Two smartphone applications developed by firms at Kochi ’ s Startup Village have been named among the ten best apps designed for the security of women , by IT industry body NASS- COM . Sentinel developed by MindHelix
Technosol Pvt Ltd and iFollow from Aucupa Innovative Solutions were among the winners of NASSCOM ’ s first all-India App Fame Contest to search for mobile tools to aid personal safety of women and to help deal with emergencies
. Sentinel is a GPS-based application developed by MindHelix for Android devices and iPhone .
It can make SOS calls and send text alerts and emails with location information to pre-saved emergency numbers and IDs at the touch of a button . The application works even
in situations where the user is unable to trigger the alert manually or the phone is destroyed or there is no internet access . It can be downloaded for free from Google Play and the App store .
Aucupa ’ s iFollow is an Android app that automatically dials voice calls to emergency contacts pre-configured on the device .
It is activated if the phone is shaken continuously for five seconds , and on standby mode it works silently in the background to reduce power consumption and CPU usage .
iFollow is also a free application that can be downloaded from Google Play . MindHelix and Aucupa are both fledgling companies incubating at Startup Village . The latest award follows a series of honours and recognition for products and services developed by young innovators at India ’ s first telecom technology incubator .
NASSCOM ’ s App Fame Contest received entries from around the country and a shortlist was made by the competition jury consisting of Stanford University Director Gerard J Rego ; txtWeb India Business Head Srividhya Ramarathnam ; Mobidex360 ’ s Prakash Sayini ; and Pratap Reddy , IGP , Western Region , Mangalore .
The shortlisted firms demonstrated their apps before the jury . The awards were presented at a function in Delhi on Wednesday ( June 19 ).
NASSCOM will make the award-winning apps available to its member organisations .
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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
July 2013
METRO mart