The start-up group: From left, Nitya, U.M.K Dikshit and John
Instead of looking for jobs, a growing trend in the city is that many fresh-graduates are turning entrepreneurs. They are turning down campus offers and are concentrating on building the apps that they had worked on during their college days. Ravneet Singh Kathuria and his IIIT-Hyderabad batchmate Vennela Miryela founded the start-up Brthe, which ensures that when you order food online, you get the best price by applying discount coupons.
Ravneet and Vennela, by the end of their fourth-year, decided to not sit for placements. “We were four founders, but two decided to back out, as this could be a risky. But Vennela and I wanted to go ahead with the app and invest at least the next three years of our lives in Brthe,” says Ravneet. Building an app while they are in college is seen as a minimal risk investment. “We started the app in the second-year of college. Starting an app in college means you have time to evolve as well,” says Ravneet.
John Benedict, a fourth-year student at Vignana Bharathi Institute of Technology, his batchmate Nitya Lakkaraju and U.M.K Dikshit from Satyam Learning Campus Institute of Engineering and Technology, too invested their time in making apps and will continue to work for start-ups.
Their app Space Smiles won at the Nasa international space apps 2015. Talking about it, John says, “Astronauts always have a communication device with them when they go to space. Our app can be integrated into it and will let them send photos, videos or text messages directly to their family. It will also ensure that the information goes only to them and nobody else. The best part is that the app has minimum usage of data.” The team will be representing India at the global forum in June.
Meanwhile, Aarshad Devani, chairperson of Computer Science India, MJCET chapter, is busy organising workshops in his college. “From iOS and Android-based app workshops to technology-based Angular JS workshops, we have lined up many events. We want the students to know more about the real world of start-ups,” says Aarshad, who’s in the fourth-year and has a start-up that helps people build websites or apps.
