Indian App Wins the Best App in Asia at Telenor Digital Winners Conference

Telenor Group, one of the world’s leading mobile operator with more than 179 million mobile subscriptions in 13 countries, selected Raghu Kanchustambham as the winner of ‘Best App in Asia’ at the Digital Winner Conference 2014 held at Oslo, Norway, earlier this month.

Raghu Kanchustambham’s mobile app Livelihood 360 (L360) was judged as the ‘Best App in Asia’ out of the six nominated Asia region contestants. He has been rewarded with a cash prize of NOK 100 000 (INR 9, 79,000 approx*) for further development of the app as a commercial venture. Raghu is the founder of the Hyderabad-based start-up Concept Waves.

The winning application Livelihood 360 is based on rural Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform and supports livelihoods associated with agriculture. It supports livelihoods associated with agriculture. It helps to estimate quantity of produce in the fields and sell the crop at fair prices as well as to get instant remittance from the buyers. It builds a holistic connection from demand to produce, right from procurement from the farmer to the material records of production to be able to quantify yield and determine the quality of the produce.. It has been adopted by over 12,000 farmers across 658 villages in the Araku Valley region in of Andhra Pradesh.

“Uninor extends the ‘Digital Winners Conference’ platform to developers in Asia to support budding entrepreneurship. This is another step towards driving Internet for All which an important ambition we have across all markets of the Telenor Group. I am very thrilled that the winner is from India and the winning solution addresses the biggest backbone of Asian economy – agriculture,” said Satish Kumar Kannan, Circle Business Head – Andhra Pradesh, Uninor.

Telenor Digital Winners Conference is a global platform where young entrepreneurs are invited to participate and present their application or start up ideas at Oslo Norway. As part of the selection process, each business unit of Telenor selected the best local app developer candidate from their region. The selected apps were present at this year’s Digital Winners conference. The conference offers a highly exclusive networking arena consisting of corporates, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and digital experts.

This year’s Digital Winners theme – “No guts, no glory” - presented successes and failures of corporate innovation, disruptive business models, and forefront news on digital media development.  This year brought thought leadership and networking opportunities to a cross-industry mix of 300 top executives and entrepreneurs in media, telecoms, IT and VC

“We are incredibly honoured to have won the digital winners prize for best app in Asia. Asia is an enormous market, and it is vital for start-ups such as ourselves to gain visibility. Through recognition from corporates such as Telenor, we can rapidly gain endorsement for our services, distribute our services on a larger scale and gain access to much needed funding”, says Raghu Kanchustambham, Founder & CEO, Concept Waves.

In August 2014, in order to drive Telenor Group’s ‘Internet For All’ agenda, Uninor, supported by Nasscom Foundation, identified budding entrepreneurs and digital experts to build relevant content and services that are tailored to local needs in the country. ‘Livelihood 360’ app developer team was shortlisted to represent India at this acclaimed global event – ‘Digital Winners conference’ 2014.

About Uninor:

Uninor is a fully owned subsidiary of the Telenor Group – one of the largest integrated communications company in the world with headquarters in Oslo, Norway. Uninor’s pre-paid GSM mobile services are commercially available in the six circles of UP (West), UP (East), Bihar (including Jharkhand), Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Together, these circles account for more than 50% of India’s population giving Uninor the ability to serve every second person in India.

Uninor's three-pillar strategy of being the best in basic services, mass market distribution and low cost operations has helped the company grow to the 3rd or 4th position in customer market share in its best circles and achieve the fastest break-even as a company in just 4 years of operations. The affordable tariffs of Uninor empowers 42 million subscribers to enjoy the benefits of wireless voice and data services through its simple proposition of – ‘Sabse Sasta’ (lowest) tariffs for all basic services. For more information, please visit www.uninor.in | www.twitter.com/UninorNews

About Telenor:

Telenor Group is an international provider of tele, data and media communication services. Telenor Group has mobile operations in 12 markets in the Nordic region, Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, as well as a voting stake of 42.95 per cent (economic stake 33 per cent) in VimpelCom Ltd., operating in 17 markets. Headquartered in Norway, Telenor Group is one of the world’s major mobile operators with 176 million mobile subscriptions in its consolidated operations & revenues of NOK 104 billion in 2013. Telenor group has a global workforce of nearly 34,000.

About Livelihoods360:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/paxNVJKCitY?list=PLVaWPHspW_5tuSw-EGR0IRq3iGp4d8ABO

* Amount subject to change basis currency fluctuation

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