Moderator : Mr.Arjun Kaul, Senior programme Manager, Boku

Panelists :

Karthic Reddy, co-founder & Managing Partner, Blume Ventures
Archana Sahay, Corporate Responsibility – APJC at Cisco Systems
Sumana Sarkar, Head, Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson

Presentations :

• Piyush Paul, Co-Founder and CEO, Unlockar Apps private Limited, Unlockar
• Vijay, Sulekha.com Next Media Pvt Ltd, Sulekha.com Mobile App

Description:

Session Manager Chitra Chauhan welcomed the moderator and the panellists before starting the session. The session began with a small video of .boku, a pay by mobile application from the moderator Arjun Kaul, senior programme nanager, Boku. He introduced all panellists to the session. Unfortunately there were only two presentations.
The first presentation was from Piyush Paul, Co-Founder and CEO, Unlockar Apps Private Ltd. Unlockar is an app launched in November 2013 that turns the static and boring lock screen of an android phone into a source of unlimited entertainment and rewards users every time they unlock their phone. Users can subscribe to various channels and get exciting content directly on their phone’s lock screen, totally free of cost.

Every time users unlock their phone, they are rewarded with uCoins (Unlockar Virtual Currency) that gets credited into the users’ in-app wallets. This can then be used to buy various deals and product at the uShop (the lock screen that Unlockar app provides replacing the translucent default lock screen of the user’s android phones). Every time users swipe on the uScreen to unlock the phone, one uCoin gets credited to their Unlockar Wallet and one full lock screen impression of the content that was being displayed on the lock screen is registered on Unlockar’s end. After the presentation there was a question from the panellists on the advertisement part of the app to which Kaul said all advertisements were online.

After the first presentation, the moderator invited Vijay from Sulekha.com for the second presentation. Sulekha is one of India’s biggest and fastest-growing mobile/web platforms connecting millions of users and local businesses, focused on local services. The developers say that every 2 seconds Sulekha receives a user service need. And every 5 minutes a paid customer order is received by Sulekha. The aim of the app is to make life simple by helping to fulfil local service needs easily. The app significantly improved quality of need description and matching to right businesses.

There were a few questions from the panellists regarding service of the app from the user perspective. They asked whether Sulekha provided users a list of the service providers or directly connected them to one service provider. Vijay said that often they connected the service provider to the customer directly and sometimes they provided the customer with a list of service providers.

There was a question regarding the availability of the app in rural areas since it is now relevant only in and around 20 metro cities in the country. Vijay said that infrastructure, connectivity, affordability etc. are the main reasons for the non-reach of the app in the rural areas. There was an opinion from one of the panellists that we Indians are copying the ideas like Flipkart, Amazon etc. from countries like the US, China and so on. We should have creativity to innovate and start our own applications.

The session ended with presentation of certificates and mementos to the app developers and panellists respectively.
Report Made By Bijo P Abraham