Ten amazing startup teams took the stage of OpenWebAsia 2012 conference held in Hainan, China this Monday as this year’s winners of OpenWebAsia Awards to articulate their ideas of making people’s life better with innovative products. The Awards is part of the OpenWebAsia conference organized by TechNode which includes sessions like panel discussion on China and Asian mobile Internet developments and keynotes on status quo of Internet across Asia. It’s also the very first time that local startup community leaders from 10 Asia markets including China, HongKong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam stood on the same stage to share their knowledges and insight on local market.
This year’s OWA awards has received around 100 nomination from OpenWebAsia members and partners including TechNode (China), DailySocial (Indonesia), e27 (Singapore), SGEntrepreneur (Singapore), Entrepreneurs.my (Malaysia), Startup-Dating (Japan), BeSuccess (Korea), Action.vn (Vietnam), WaveNet (Taiwan), StartupHK (HongKong), shortlisted and voted by the leaders of local startups communities.
And here’s the Top 10 of this year’s OWA Awards:
Shakr Media (Korea) | http://www.shakr.com/
Shakr turns photos and video clips into high production quality video with lovingly crafted storytelling to beautifully express precious life events such as weddings and first birthdays. By connecting to your Facebook account or uploading photos and video clips from your computer, the service can smartly create stories for you to record memorable life moments. Shakr will continue releasing new video storytelling wizards for other life events, such as dating, proposals, major holidays and birthdays. And now through a partnership with Snapshock, Shakr transforms Snapshock albums into vivid video to record the memorable bits of life. (Details)
Divide (HongKong) | http://www.divide.com/
Mobile proliferation gave rise to the BYOD trend as more and more choose to work from their own devices. Hence companies and employees are challenged with a trade-off of data security and personal freedom. Divide solves this problem elegantly by creating a dedicated work space on mobile phone. It also baked some common office apps into its platform including Divide Mail, Calendar and Contacts, all of which are well-designed to fully replicate the native device experience so you don’t have to learn a new app all over again. (Details)
Moglue (Korea) | http://moglue.com/
Moglue is a simple way to create your own interactive ebooks. It’s desktop platform enables publishers, amateur authors as well as artists to hands down create interactive ebooks and distribute them on iOS and Android devices. By using MoglueBuilder, you don’t have to be a master of any kind of programming language to become a e-book guru. Everyone could produce high-quality and interactive in few minutes just by adding text, importing art/sounds and adding interactive elements. It’s as easy as making ppt with a drag-and-drop interface. (Details)
Piktochart (Malaysia) | http://www.piktochart.com
Piktochart aspires to “magically turn data into something more alive and understandable”. It provides an easy solution to transform boring and scaring datas into infographics by using its drag-and-drop intuitive tool. As of now the service claims about 100,000 users and has pocketed a revenue of about US$ 200,000 ever since its monetization efforts began in this March. The company is also looking to overseas expansion with European and Latin American market as first stop. (Details)
Hoiio (Singapore) | http://www.hoiio.com/
Unified communication is a billion dollar industry that based mainly on costly and complicated hardware. Hoiio came up with the concept of Simplify Communications which is powered by a strong combination of business communications apps instead of expensive hardwares to bring down the operating cost for small and medium-sized companies. Hoiio partners with carriers to offer up Hoiio Main Line that could automatically answer and direct incoming calls to desirable extensions. It can also email alert you on missed calls or block cold calls. (Details)
Between (Korea) | http://appbetween.us/
Between provides instant messaging and photo sharing features in a private mobile space dedicated for couples. It creates a space just for two to chat, share photos/memos and plan dates. Ever since its launch in November launch 2011, Between has attracted more than 1.8M downloads. It’s available on both iOS and Android platform in more than 13 languages. (Details)
PanoPlaza (Japan) | http://www.panoplaza.com/
PanoPlaza gives B2C sites a more real look that resembles brick-and-mortar store while help offline stores move to Internet by creating panorama virtual shops with their panorama photos and merchandise info. You can virtually walk around in online stores created by PanoPlaza. Click on the clickable tags in the stores you’ll see the product detail, just like how you check out product information in offline stores. (Details)
Burpple (Singapore) | http://www.burpple.com
Burpple is a smart and beautiful way to remember, organize and explore food moments with your friends- from dinner dates to homemade meals. Not only will you be able to explore the food journals of your friends, but also the journals of users from all around the world. Finding a great place to eat has never been easier, no matter what city you’re in. It just received $500K in seed funding that will be used to beef up its product team. (Details)
TaxiMonger (Malaysia) | http://www.taximonger.com
Waiting for cab in oversized and overcrowded big cities could be devastating experience. TaxiMonger aims to solve the problem by facilitating more timely and transparent info flow among cab drivers and passengers. Launched this February in Malaysia, TaxiMonger is a cab booking app that aims to bridge the information gap between cabs and passengers. Booking a cab from it is easy. Cab drivers nearby who see your order could take the order. A deal will be reached once the passenger confirms the order. Then all the passenger need to do is to wait for the cab at an appointed time. (Details)
Nana (Japan) | http://nana-music.com
Nana is a musical collaboration app designed to ”sing with the world.” You can record vocals and instruments with the mic on your iPhone, then upload them for sharing. With the function to overdub on uploaded sounds, collaborative work with other users is easier than ever. Through nana, you can partake in harmonization, choral singing and band sessions with anyone on the planet, making global communication with music as the common language a reality. You can make music with anyone in the world even without expensive audio equipment, necessary skills. Picking up your smartphone and sing to Nana would turn your smartphone into a mini recording studio. (Details)
