L.N. Revathy,
The Hindu Business Line

Situation one: You are attending a lecture… The speaker goes on and on...You are either bored or wish the speaker would give a break; make the presentation more interesting, lively.

Situation two: The speaker keeps his audience spell-bound. So involved are you that you would like to make a valid point, right at that moment in the presentation.

In either case, how will you convey the message without embarrassing the speaker, without disclosing your identity or disturbing the decorum of the meeting?

Technology is at hand: To give lecture/meeting attendees a chance to share their comments with the speaker and others in the room, albeit anonymously, by sending messages that scroll on the screen in real time. This makes the session interactive and also puts the speaker on guard.

Though the idea is not entirely new (one would have noticed commentaries scrolling on the television screen during fun shows), its usefulness cannot be overstated.

And that is why Impetus Labs or iLabs has developed a product for such a context, although it is yet to commercialize it.

Learning from mistakes
"It is a simple but effective idea," says Vineet Tyagi, Associate Director of Engineering at Impetus. This product (idea) was tested at one of the technical community camps hosted by Impetus.

"This happened at the Mobile Monday (MoMo) Camp. Some of the comments were hilarious," Vineet recalls.

Does this system distract the speaker? "Actually not! In fact, every successive speaker learnt from the earlier ones’ mistakes and the event got off to a good start from the beginning."

One will not need a PC or laptop to send such messages. A mobile would do, Vineet says. iLabs has developed the software as an interface between the PC and the mobile.

"As soon as the participant punches the message and presses the ‘send’ command, the comment scrolls on the screen, either at the bottom or on the side, as per the settings," he says. The iLabs team that’s on the project works in an unstructured way. They have no deadlines or targets, but consider themselves as ‘radars’ of the company.

"We explore new technology domains such as wireless, mobile, new media, speech, IPTV, and VoIP, among others. Engineers from different project teams track developments in the technology space. They provide inputs to the R&D team. The findings are shared with the engineering teams through newsletters, seminars, and open house discussion," says Vineet. Such initiatives, he says, shorten the development time by creating reusable components and IP. "It minimizes the reinvention of the wheel."

At the user end of the development too, what a difference it would be to not have to send across written chits to convey ones’ ideas during a talk or lecture, or fill up feedback forms much after the event is over, when only one thought is fresh in the mind: lunch.