Custom Software Built on Assembly Line - Engineer AI

Sachin Dev Duggal and his college mate Saurav Dhoot. Duggal, a serial entrepreneur, holds an engineering degree from Imperial College, London, and a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from MIT. The duo set up their first company Nivio in 2004. They cashed out in 2012 and started SD Squared that finally evolved into Engineer.ai.

The Idea

“A decade ago, ‘tech’ was just a tag, but now, it is a must-have,” says Duggal. “However, for millions of SMBs in India and elsewhere, buying expensive software or hiring in-house IT teams is not a viable option. So, we have built tech solutions to turn ideas into products at double the speed and tailored pricing.”

How It Works

Customers can specify their concepts with the help of a drag-and-drop features menu on a human-assisted and AI-powered cloud platform called Builder. Here applications are developed in an assembly line manner to ensure speed, scale and cost efficiency. Simply put, each project is broken down into building blocks, and up to 60 per cent of the work is done by AI tools and automated processes.

Also Read : Engineer.ai launches Builder app for customized digital products

As most of the applications have standard features and repeat codes, these are automatically assembled in projects as per requirements and customers only pay for unique coding. The ‘custom’ part of the work is allocated to domain experts from a network of 50 software firms and 10,000 developers. Support and maintenance are provided for a monthly fee.

The start-up is also into cloud arbitrage and offers CloudOps, an AI-based cloud management platform for businesses to ensure smart usage and cost benefits. Plus, there is a prepaid card for buying cloud storage capacity.

Read Full Article @ https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/the-buzz/custom-software-built-on-assembly-line/story/278877.html

Sachin Dev Duggal, Co-Founder of Shoto, Talks About a Career-Shaping Accomplishment

Sachin Dev Duggal is Co-founder of Shoto and SD Squared Labs. I enjoy speaking with entrepreneurs like Duggal. Why? Because Sachin has a macro-view of the world, an important skill to develop when you are trying to solve world problems.

Solving world problems not only requires a unique reframing of the issue, but it also needs support from individuals that are working on macro-issues. Finding a platform where Sachin could research solutions and consult magnets became the next stage of his development. 

Duggal was fortunate to find what he needed at the World Economic Forum. At WEF Sachin took full advantage as he met with Bill Gates, and discussed ideas with Paul Jacobs.

As a result, of his experience at the World Economic Forum Duggal donates to various charities including Keep a Child Alive by Alicia Keys.

What problem are you looking to solve? How are you reframing that problem? How are you connecting with others that can help you?

Let’s read on how Sachin Dev Duggal tackles these challenges.

CEO and Founder of Engineer.ai, Sachin Dev Duggal's Story

I (Sachin Dev Duggal) was born in London back in the day before broadband and studied in London. When I was 14 I managed to break my mother’s computer (T86 I think or 1x86) and under the nervousness of her wrath I read all day all week to get it fixed.

Eventually through early DOS programming I managed to get this back up and actually, got my first “fix”, something that would later become the key to anything tech I did.

The next year I wanted my own computer and built my own after much persuasion (I managed to narrowly avoid blowing it up), realizing that my PC cost was about 400 pounds less and so this was a great idea.

Long story short, I ended up building a PC business with my friends for the next couple of years, made more than enough money to pay for tennis lessons and candy and then went onwards to hosting.

Fast forward to December 2014, my final year of college, I rang up my best friend at 5am with an “I have an idea moment”, and went on to tell him how we would never have PCs again and that everything would be in the datacenter; and this began the start of Nivio, the world’s first desktop as a service company, one of the first providers of the cloud (in fact we owned the trademark for Cloud in some countries!). This was my best friend and I’s first “startup” and so much of the journey I felt like a learner driver in a formula one car; just because we were designing the track.

We spent the first 3 years trying to get license from Microsoft, Adobe and others, we built hardware that brought the cost of the CPE down to 50% and a mini netbook (we called the “Cloudbook”) that ran linux (do you remember Meego?) and connected to Windows in the cloud.

9 years in, and just over $21m in investment we exited the company in 2012; to a larger extent not out of our free will but in hindsight; a decision that has set us up to the times to come.
I took 3 months off after we exited, did the 10 days silent meditation and I was ready to get back on the track.

In 2012 I went on a road trip to Yosemite with one of my dearest friends on his Birthday (Ken) and throughout the trip I noticed so many people taking photos and asking the question of how we would share them, it got me thinking, we can send man to the moon but we still can’t “see the photos” our friends take.

From then till then I have spent most of my time building product and understanding user behavior only to realize no-one wants to share photos, there is no dopamine in private sharing. The key however is delivering the “seeing” of photos your friends take, and the new version of Shoto is based just on this.

Read Full Story @ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sachin-dev-duggal-co-foun_b_8917202

Photosharing App "SHOTO" Launched By Sachin Dev Duggal

The investments of Indian American “The Big Bang Theory” actor Kunal Nayyar and Real Ventures helped launch a new photo-sharing app, “Shoto,” from Indian-origin entrepreneur Sachin Dev Duggal, based in San Francisco, here Sept. 25.

“A trillion pictures were taken on a smartphone in the last one year which goes to show the engagement by users. Users are now more interested in photos which were clicked by others, but curation always has been a problem. ‘Shoto’ makes getting photos clicked by friends on various occasions easier,” Duggal told IANS.

 “‘Shoto’ tells you how many photos were taken with friends or family members from times spent together and easily lets users share photos and create private or public albums.
“It collects metadata from the phone and asks the user if he or she wants to share the photos, so the privacy issue is also taken care of,” he explained.

The app, which is available on the App Store and Google Play Store, can be downloaded in over 120 countries with local language support. Among the languages available are Hindi, Spanish, French and Mandarin.

Read More @ https://www.indiawest.com/entertainment/global/big-bang-theory-s-kunal-nayyar-invests-in-photo-sharing/article_312df26a-63c7-11e5-b432-6f0b4f14dc46.html