The onset of technological advancements has filled many voids in our society. While the advancements has its band and banes and boons, but it has indeed made lot many things for real in our lives. Mobile phones have been the biggest advancement in connection to bringing people near to each other, though the belief seems to be very true that, ‘when telephones were chained, humans were free!’
Well, gone are the days when family businesses meant only father-son duo starting a business and carrying its legacies ahead for generations. Today the genre is such that your spouse lives the same dream as yours and this lifelong unbreakable bond of the two leads to starting up of their own venture. Similar was the case with Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwini Asokan, who call themselves as the ‘the crazy twosome.’ And this craziness led them to start MindAbled Devices(MAD) Street Den Services.
What Went Inside
Both the partners had known each other for over 17 years. They had also worked together in Intel in the US and had spent hours together in discussing the applications of artificial intelligence. They got married and came back to India to develop a visual search solution for online portals. The couple set up Mad Street Den in August 2013 with an underlying capital of $50,000. Ashwini was all the while working with Intel in their Bangalore area and setting up a mobile business for Intel India.Ashwini quit her place of employment at Intel just in May 2014 to work all day with Mad Street Den.
Ashwini says, “It all started with a pair of shoes. I was shopping at this neighborhood in San Jose and saw a pair of grey shoes that I wanted to buy. An urgent call from home had me rushing back before I could buy them. I took a picture of the pair thankfully, making it my mission to hunt for them online. After hours of searching on a ton of apps and sites I regularly shopped at, I gave up frustrated and angry. I remember asking Anand, “What’s the point of you trying to build intelligence if my phone can’t find me a damn shoe?” The search was particularly frustrating because I had no way of describing those shoes beyond grey & size 7. There was no way to just show the shoes to the app and have it automatically find them.
“Our devices are not just stupid, they’re blind! Teach them to see, not just look!” I remember raging. And the idea of Mad Street Den was born!
Ashwini and Anand are extremely driven to make a change. Having achieved a lot in their respective fields they believe its time to transform how we do things, and what better way than to use their skills to bring about an ‘emotive’ change. It additionally offers gaze tracking, emotion- expression detection, head and facial gestures and 3D facial reconstruction capability. This smart app can be used in applications in fashion, gaming, internet robotics, automotive and analytics domain.
