To deal with accurate mapping of COVID19 containment zones Transerve –created an interactive digital map of all the districts in India, color-coded according to the above guideline, by publishing a Web Feature Service (WFS) using this information.
Talking exclusively to Express Computer, Ashwani Rawat, Director, and Co-founder Transerve Technologies Pvt. Ltd gives us more details.
How do you think is the Geospatial sector going to upsurge in the near future?
COVID19 crisis has posed a threat to the economy and has proved that without spatial intelligence it is difficult to contain any widespread crisis. Spatial technology helps in planning for future and monitoring the trends over geography. Spatial technology has found utility in almost every sphere and has become a common part of the economic ecosystem. The digitalization process is the key to the inclusion of spatial technology in various sectors like e-governance in urban space, smart cities, local governments, etc. Transerve has demonstrated huge success in areas like Fecal Sludge Management, Utilities, Forestry, and Municipal GIS in a big way in India. As per a study conducted by Geospatial Media and Communications, GIS adoption is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 13%. Data creation and updation on a real-time basis along with spatial information has gathered great demand with automated spatial analysis especially for the urban sector in India as the need for digitalization is increasing to provide better citizen service. Change detection for monitoring the changes will be a factor to quickly estimate the impact of policy on ground for example monitoring of afforestation or estimate the economic growth using night satellite imagery etc.
What is the exclusiveness of Transerve Technologies, that’s unique from other gigantic players in the market?
Transerve has developed Transerve Online Stack (TOS) spatial web platform on open stack from scratch for users who do not have any formal training in GIS technology with the aim that anyone can use the spatial analytics without much of training and analyse data for their businesses. The platform will be available for both SaaS subscription and for on-premise installation.
Our team has implemented machine learning on data categorization on TOS platform in order to help users to analyse media files captured from field using mobile devices. Machine learning will help users in analyzing large volume of data within hours which on platform available in market will take lot of time since media files are being collected on this platform for ground truthing purposes only.
What is the latest mode of technology that you are catering to? Please throw light on GIS Maps you are working on to trace COVID19 zones?
Our team is consistently working on Predictive Analysis using spatial tools to track geographical patterns, and analyzing the spread of COVID-19.
Transerve Online Stack (TOS) is our flagship geospatial software that helps in analyzing spatial data to find patterns and predict future events over geographies. Transerve’s data team is maintaining a Corona timeline and its spread on TOS. Current cases of COVID-19 when mapped on TOS will help in predicting the rate of infection and understanding the trend. Mapping the disease data can help policymakers and concerned authorities to take appropriate action in identifying COVID-19 containment zones, by overlaying existing health infrastructure to effectively plan the required response and use census and survey datasets to optimally mobilize resources. This platform allows users to perform their analysis on the web on real-time through intuitive processes and save the results for later use. The platform provides the functionality to collect data using mobile devices, manage, analyse, and publish the geospatial data on the web in real-time.
How important do you think is it for people to rely on Geospatial technology? Are there any major follies per se?
In the past few years, the world has experienced a wide array of disasters. One can analyse through the example of the prevailing COVID19 pandemic which has jolted economies worldwide. In all aspects of emergency management, geospatial data and tools possess great potentials in saving lives, limit damage, and reduce the costs of dealing with emergencies. Great strides have been made in the past decades in the development of geospatial data and tools that describe locations of objects on the Earth’s surface and make it possible for everyone and anyone with access to the Internet to witness the magnitude of a disaster. However, the effectiveness of any technology is as much about the human systems in which it is embedded as about the technology itself. Successful Response Starts with a Map assesses the status of the use of geospatial data, tools, and infrastructure in disaster management, and recommends the various ways how we can increase and improve their use.
Coming to the financial perspective, are you a bootstrapped venture? If not, kindly elucidate the nature and amount of funding raised.
We started as a bootstrapped venture but later in 2017, we raised USD 1.6 million from IL&FS Investment Managers and Omidyar Network in a Series A round of funding. The investment was facilitated by Tribe Impact (previously known as Intellecap Impact Investment Network or I3N), an impact-focused angel network facilitating investments into early-stage enterprises.
Transerve was seed-funded by CIIE-IIM Ahmedabad and CIBA, Goa in its nascent stage; currently, it has Omidyar Network and Tara India Fund as its marquee social impact early-stage investors.
What are your immediate and long term milestones like?
We have been conferred with Microsoft Excellence Award in 2014. Since then we have been seeing an upward journey every day. We have recently been acknowledged as a top emerging and innovative company by NASSCOM and Deloitte. Our spatial platform Transerve Online Stack is now being leveraged for large scale social impact by various government departments.
Transerve is aggressive in taking web-based spatial technology to various industries like health, education, logistics, manufacturing, smart cities etc. Today most of the data produced in the world has location as attribute which means that Transerve product will find its utility in managing and analyzing the spatial attribute of such data.
Lastly, any word of advice for the wannapreneurs?
“My advice to all the wannapreneurs is to leverage their ideas in such a way that it helps in the overall development of the society”
Businesses are made by perseverance and the journey will have failures and successes as milestones. It’s not the hard work that costs; it’s the idea that deals. The advancement in the technological sector always makes a mark on the growth of the economy of nations. Every small attempt will create opportunities for talent to thrive and people to benefit.