KOCHI: Techgentsia Software Technologies, a Kerala-based global IT service provider and the “Grand Innovation challenge” winner, will launch its innovative product Vconsol next month, with an initial target of securing one million users, the company CEO said here on Saturday. The company had won the Central government’s Grand Innovation Challenge” for developing a home-grown video- conferencing solution in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

The multilingual, superior-quality video-conferencing app, hailed as the first of its kind in India with better audio-video than Zoom or Google Meet, will aim at the B2B market with focus on telemedicine and education, Joy Sebastian, CEO of the company, said in a statement issued by Infopark.

“These are the two segments that are in top demand amid a new post-COVID world order, which has made health and learning increasingly e-centric,” Sebastian said.

“Vconsol, with its capacity to support as many as 80 active and 300 passive participants at a time, however, will not be free for the time being,” he said.

The cost involved in its making and marketing will make Vconsol chargeable after “a free trial of maybe a week,” said the team leader of the Kerala-based firm, which won the tough competition conducted by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

“The fees wont be very high. We are in the process of finding resources for sufficient investment that can broaden our clientele,” Sebastian said about TST, which functions under Infopark Cherthala in Alappuzha district.

He said the company hopes to get a million users across continents by March 2021.

Winning the marathon and highly competitive Grand Challenge under the Digital India Initiative earned TST Rs one crore, making the company eligible to provide its Vconsol to Union government offices across the country.

“Our role is as technical supporters. We will install the app for them. The government will run the show, owning the cloud,” he said.

The software is capable of functioning in leading eight Indian languages.

TSTs contract with the government is for three years, during which the firm will get an additional Rs 10 lakh annually towards the maintenance of the project.

“Having won the contest, we will start marketing the product globally,” Sebastian said.

Congratulating TST, that has a majority of its software clients in America and Europe, IT Parks Kerala CEO Sasi P M said the company’s achievement is a testimony to Kerala’s strong and vibrant IT ecosystem, backed by the government.

TST is located in Pallipuram village in Cherthala that houses the state government-owned Infopark with 60 acres of land notified as a sector-specific Special Economic Zone by the Union Ministry of Commerce.

On Thursday, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad,who holds the portfolios of Electronics and Information Technology and Communications, announced the results of the Grand Challenge conducted in three stages: ideation, prototype, and product.

The contest, as part of the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat call given by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, aims to “develop Indias software product and mobile app economy in a big way” and is also in tune with his clarion call for ‘Vocal for Local’.

The jury comprised senior government officers, reputed academicians and senior members from the IT industry.