Meet Karthik Subramanian and Madhumita Viswanathan. Just out of college, they work at an IT company writing code all day. And, they also write code in their free time, and this has helped the Chennai duo win the first place at the Google Apps Developer Challenge 2012 in the Not For Profit category.
They got interested in coding applications last year when they conducted an event In 32 Hours in their college, where students had to develop a software product within a specific duration. Madhumitha and Karthik, who have conducted several events as part of the Entrepreneur cell (E cell), recall, “When the event was over, we realised that if the badges for the event attendees were automated, then managing our events will be more efficient. So for the fun of it, we started to develop BadgeIt, a software that makes badges.”
During In 32 Hours , they met technology entrepreneurs who mentored them on the trends of technology entrepreneurship and that’s where the saga of the Google challenge began.
The challenge turned out to be a great practical learning experience for the duo who had previously participated in Google Summer of Code. “While working on the product, we realised that another software had a similar concept, but this gave us the confidence that there was a need for the product. We took the help of technology experts to learn a new computer language. Just before submitting the entry, BadgeIt was used by few individuals in their events and their feedback really helped a great deal in developing and designing it. It was a thrilling moment when we won the Google Apps Challenge out of 262 entries across the country.”
Apart from a whopping cash prize from Google, their application is available for free in the Google App Store. Ask them of their plans of becoming entrepreneurs, they sign of, “We need more technical and work experience. Starting up involves a lot more than just having a ready product in hand.”
