Road safety app ThirdEar tops start-up contest VirtusaX2014
View(s):VirtusaX2014, a start-up competition organised jointly by IT company Virtusa and private sector IT body SLASSCOM, has awarded its grand prize winner, to road safety app ThirdEar.
According to the winners announcement by Virtusa, “Monitoring ambient noises for the sound of vehicle horns, ThirdEar alerts users by pausing the music that they are listening to every time it detects the presence of a vehicle advancing towards them usin a unique algorithm. Taking just a few milliseconds for the entire process, the app aims to prevent accidents and save lives lost on the road”.
“Seeing the unlimited possibilities ThirdEar brings with it, we’re in the process of securing patents in Sri Lanka and other markets as well”, said app creators Vimukthi Weerasiri and Dinal Kurukulasooriya, both students from the University of Moratuwa, commenting on the furture of their project.
Meanwhile, the announcement also added that “Virtusa and SLASSCOM will help them reach out to investors and mentors, facilitating the evolution of their app into a successful business venture”.
At the same time, the announcement also noted that VirtusaX2014 had “kicked off with a 24 hour coding marathon where 20 teams created innovative mobile applications, the event saw the teams fine tune their ideas with inputs from the panellists over the past few days before presenting them again to the panel for re-evaluation. The panellists included Amal Sanderatne – Founder and CEO, Frontier Research; Chamindra De Silva – Director and Head of Strategic Initiatives, Virtusa; Hariharan Padmanaban – Director Business Development, H-Connect (Pvt) Ltd; Madhawa Madawala – Executive Director / Chief Operating Officer, Derana TV; Madu Ratnayake, Head of Digital and Senior Vice President / General Manager, Virtusa; Rohan Jayaweera – Country Consultant – Sri Lanka & Maldives at Google Inc. and Thushera Kaudawatte – Senior Director of Technology and Chief Software Architect, Virtusa”.Further, it also quoted Virtusa Head of Digital and Senior Vice President / General Manager Madu Ratnayake as saying, “With the growing adoption of smartphones and emergence of extremely cost effective cloud, social and big data platforms, our ability to create and deliver services to a wider global audience is becoming increasingly democratised. I believe we are truly at an inflation point of a big new wave of technology driven wealth creation in the country. I was very excited to see the quality of the ideas and speed with which they got realised at VirtusaX 2014. Our vision is to help accelerate this process of innovation and entrepreneurship by creating the VitusaX open innovation platform”. (JH)