Comments on: When will India have its own ‘Expert Labs’ ?

By: Sandy

Sandy — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:55:33 +0000

Hi Lakhlani,

The Microsoft contest looks cool. If you come across such competitions in future do share with larger communities like the trak.in community. It is a pity that the contest is over;sometimes many a good concepts do not flower to their full potential because of lack of right exposure at the right time.

By: Lakhlani Prashant

Lakhlani Prashant — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:57:33 +0000

Hi Sandy,
Some time ago, Microsoft launched a competition of web development, but the rule was, choose your non-profit organization, code to win for him, you will get a price and the organization will get the donation. When I saw that website, date for entries were gone! :( The concept of open company that servers non-profit and government sectors is an amazing idea! we hope to see something like that in india as well.

By: vivek

vivek — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:23:09 +0000

+! to the thought that we do need an umbrella organisation, but I am not sure that with the bureaucracy we see in the Govt structure ,how open would the PSU’s and govt Projects to the expertise from the industry.
And yes may be we could one day extend our platform to the Govt.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:07:48 +0000

Vivek,

The idea of Expert Labs, as I understand , is much more than just developing web2.0 applications themselves to connect experts – it is to jump start the entire ecosystem by providing grants and other non-financial help to start-up in the government space.

Definitely what Voicetap is doing is very valuable, but consider the benefits that Voiceatp may reap if there is an incubator that can help them financially and non-financially and connect them with other startupereneus working in the same govt technology space and enable learning from each other. That I believe is still a void when it comes o India.

We do need a professional umbrella organisation/ incubator that can tap into industry expertise and leverage it for government and public service projects.

By: vivek

vivek — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:43:31 +0000

Hey Sandip,
Thanks for this article. Seems like what we have been doing at Voicetap overlaps quite a bit with the idea of expert labs. Voicetap is a simple service that allows people to connect with expert knowledge over a phone call. While expert labs caters exclusively to Govt agencies, Voicetap as a service is for everybody – The basic thought being that everybody to start off has expertise at something or the other – and with little incentive experts would be willing to share it with people. We have started off with a Gtalk bot called Getafixx – that connects people to experts via Chat and would be launching over phone soon.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this.