Trend: App-solutely creative

With something for everyone, the inaugural DEMO Asia impresses Rozana Sani no end

WHAT do you get when you put 76 tech start-ups from 14 countries together in a room?

An explosion of apps — social, health-related, kitchen-related, music and gaming, you name it. Participants at the recent inaugural DEMO Asia in Singapore were out in force.

Singapore’s T.Ware Pte Ltd, which was headed by Malaysian James Teh, featured its T.Jacket, an integrated therapy system that provides controlled deep pressure stimulation for autistic children.

Teh, who aims to make T.Ware a notable “emotional haptics” provider, says the jacket allows a single caregiver to provide deep touch stimulation to multiple children.

“Currently caregivers (teachers, therapists) cannot treat more than one child at a time with manual touch. With the T.Jacket, they can be more effective in performing their tasks because therapy can be provided in a one-to-many basis. For example, a teacher can record and send deep pressure stimulation to several children at the same time. Each child receives customised deep pressure stimulation according to his needs,” says Teh.

A child wears the fashionable T.Jacket just like any normal jacket. T.Jacket will sense the child’s motions, giving therapists information of the child’s activity level. Through a smartphone user interface, the caregiver can set and activate deep pressure touch to the child. T.Jacket receives data from the network and actuates the corresponding pressure points.

“This process happens in real time, with data exchange through the Internet.”

Meanwhile Urbancook Pte Ltd’s application, Urbancook, is a platform where users find recipes, stay connected with other cooks and also get informed on nutritional values of food products.
“ Urbancook strives to constantly re-invent the cooking experience for urbanites through innovative use of technology. By signing up with urbancook, not only can you get recipes by fellow members but you can also download a QR code of the recipe onto the iPhone and go grocery shopping for the ingredients,” says co-founder Ong Tze Wei.

Urbancook is an ideal platform for food producers to reach out to the market and this is a targeted revenue earner for the app.

Organising and updating contacts is what Hong Kong-based startup noddon’s app is all about.

On Apple Store, noddon is a mobile application designed to improve ease of networking with family, friends and business associates.
Co-founder Jackie Lam says exchanging of contact information is simplified and your mobile address book will always be updated automatically with the latest information.

“The idea came about when we found that many had problems locating faceless contacts on the mobile phone. Upon signing up, you create your own unique social card, a form of your profile which you can share with your contacts. Prior to your meeting, you can set yourself to be “discoverable” and you can easily “discover” new friends. You can restrict information to your contacts. Noddon enables you to coordinate events and send encrypted messages, in real-time.”

Malaysian company Rofarez Solutions showcased Dappleworks, an on-demand, modular, Web-based business software.

Targeted at companies with 10 to 100 employees, director Reza Ismail says Dappleworks is an integrated system that covers employee self-service to project tracking tools.

“Running on Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud platform, it is delivered via a software-as-a-service model. Users pick and choose software packages to scale their usage as business grow.”

Co-organised by Sphere Exhibits, a subsidiary of Singapore Press Holdings Ltd and International Data Group, DEMO Asia is the latest addition to the US-based DEMO family of conferences where promising tech companies get to unveil their products and pitch their ideas for funding to get the chance and make inroads into Asia.

Sphere Exhibits general manager Benjamin Ng said it hopes to make Demo Asia a regional event with showcases in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Adriana Gascoigne, the founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, a US-based non-profit organisation, who moderated DEMO Asia 2012, commented that while there are exciting products and services at the event, there is still a lack of female representation.

Now relocated to Singapore, Gascoigne hopes to encourage the development of female technopreneurs.

Teh shows how the T.Jacket works

Gascoinne wants to encourage more female start-ups

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