Hug Smartwatch, when unveiled at the Microsoft Future Unleashed last year, created ripples in the growing world of smart watches as it boasted of some unique features and cost only a fraction of competing models.
This smart watch, capable of flying drones, navigating smart televisions, and controlling virtual reality-based applications through hand gestures, isn’t a product from any technology giant, but from a techie of Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, who turned entrepreneur for a social cause.
Raja Sekhar Neravati, known as Raj Neravati, quit his lucrative job in the United States as Chief Operating Officer at Cigniti Technologies after the 2012 Delhi gang rape and its aftermath.
“I was moved by the incident and decided to contribute to women’s safety in India. That was when I quit the job, moved to India and started Hug Innovations to build next-generation wearable device through which women can alert family, friends and police when in distress or danger,” Mr. Raj, told The Hindu .
SOS and email
“A smart phone does the same job but victims will not have the time to take it out of the bag and operate quickly. There is no platform designed today to support this. Hug Smartwatch combined with IoT platform delivers an SOS message and email to friends and family, police with live tracking of the victim. In addition to friends and family, Hug platform will send this message to other Hug Smartwatch users if they happen to be in the radius of 5 km,” says the CEO and founder of Hug Innovations.
“I faced many challenges but they did not deter me from achieving the target,” said Neravati, advising budding entrepreneurs that one should know the market, study it, be clear about it and gain experience before stepping into business.
“We are aiming to sell at least one lakh smart watches this year, and more later. The watch costs Rs. 9,999 and will be available on Flipkart from August,” he said.
