Thinking out-of-the-box: Praveen Rajpal

In the era of ‘dotcom bubble burst' of 2000, Praveen Rajpal dreamt of breaking into the big league via internet and mobile technology. Fired by this vision, the dynamic entrepreneur established Handygo Technologies in June 2000, even before formally completing his MBA from the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.

Today, Rajpal is a name reckoned in the industry as an example of perseverance and determination. This qualified MBA and seasoned entrepreneur, oversees the operations as the CEO of Handygo Technologies, which is now a leading wireless solutions provider of mobile entertainment and value-added services in India.

Inception to Glory
At the time when Handygo Technologies was established, people were skeptical about the prospects of the internet. Rajpal stated, "It was a time when the IT and telecom industry were in need of dedicated professionals who could bring innovative ideas and new technologies to revolutionize the industry." Despite widespread skepticism about the prospects in telecom, the company stuck by its vision and dreams and pioneered the concept of mobile value-added services (MVAS) in India. In the initial days, the biggest hurdle was to convince established telecom operators about the company's potential and credibility, and also because it was a new concept. Adding to this, Rajpal shared, "I had problems convincing telecom operators about our credibility, since the concept of MVAS was new to India, besides the fact that I was a first-generation entrepreneur." However, diligence and perseverance paid, as the company managed to strike a strategic alliance with Mukta Arts, a company run by renowned Bollywood producer Subhash Ghai. The alliance enabled Handygo to secure the copyrights of movies, songs, and wallpapers. This helped the company to offer full-fledged products and solutions, such as hello tunes, wallpapers, and so on. Post this, riding on this success, the company managed to strike partnerships with telecom leaders. Rajpal states, "We pioneered the concept of MVAS in India and within a year managed to forge alliances with industry leaders such as Bharti Airtel, Nokia, and the like. Since then we have never looked back."

Furthermore, Handygo was the first to introduce a secure and robust DRM-enabled multi-purpose mobile content delivery platform (MCDP) for MTN Nigeria. It is the first and the only company with content offered in Arabic, targeting the mobile subscribers in the Gulf.

Differentiating Factor
Today, Handygo Technologies has grown manifolds. It has emerged as India's leading provider of software and VAS system, enabling MVAS for video, messaging, and interactive voice response. The company has over 250 specialists working towards developing products and solutions.
Currently, the company works with more than 12 telecom operators and is in a process of deploying various other services. Rajpal said, "We consistently work towards developing new services, which aspire to fulfill the requirements of Indian people. We have a pan-India presence with customized content and apt technology for our telecom partners."
As of today, the mobile VAS major offers a range of entertainment and infotainment based applications and content. To improve the usage and retention of telecom companies' subscribers, it also provides subscription services, community based portals and solutions that are on multi-platform, multi-carrier, and of multilingual capability.

Handygo's services can be classified into segments such as entertainment, rural, education, and healthcare. It has now also expanded into the field of mobile commerce as India entered the 3G space. The company is well positioned to provide a range of solutions and services for converging technologies like telecommunications and mobile phones. In the entertainment segment, the mobile VAS major provides downloads, songs, games, wallpapers, videos, as well as innovative products such as ‘Zindagi Rocks', ‘Ping Me!' and ‘Zing', ‘Fame on Game', ‘Ehsaas', ‘Rockasap', ‘Health and You', ‘Mobi Shiksha', ‘Soochna Shakti', and ‘Behtar Zindagi'.
Rajpal has developed numerous enterprise technology products, including ‘Behtar Zindagi'-an award-winning initiative praised even by the Government of India. Behtar Zindagi is an IVR based information service especially designed to cater to the needs of the rural section of India. It has a pan-India presence, as the service is provided in 29 languages along with English and Hindi. It educates the rural society on the eight broad verticals, which are agriculture, commodity prices, weather forecast, information on coastal and inland fisheries, livestock, health, rural finance, and education. Under Rajpal's leadership, Behtar Zindagi has achieved various awards and accolades including FIEO Telecom Technology Awards for amazing new mobile service in M-inclusion category, first runner-up in All India Agro Industrial Exhibition and Farmer Fair, and many more.

Latest Initiative
The company recently launched a website rockasap.com, India's first mobile commerce application, which empowers users to search and buy products from more than 5,000 options in various categories, including lifestyle, gadgets, books, music, and clothing. The application is available not only on smartphones and tablets but also on all GPRS-enabled handsets, so that users can shop on the move. Under this initiative, it has also introduced ‘Digital books on Mobile' feature. It gives a ‘shopping mall in pocket' experience as mobile users can enjoy shopping, anytime and anywhere as per their convenience.
Also, the company has tied up with CABI to provide mobile based agriculture solutions to the rural population of India. CABI is a not-for-profit international organization that improves people's lives by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment.