Programmable Communications Innovator Interview: Manjeet Singh, CEO & Co-founder at Buddy4Study

I first met Manjeet in person at TADSummit 2015. He presented in the Telestax slot, in an illustrious morning plenary of the first day of TADSummit with:

• Tropo (who had recently been bought by Cisco);
• Nexmo (who were soon to be bought by Vonage);
• Apidaze (who would in bought by VoIP Innovation in a few years); and
• hSenid Mobile an Asian innovator who has achieved many world firsts including the most successful telco CPaaS (IdeaMart).

Manjeet Singh was then the CEO Elucit Software / Pinig. His presentation was an important evolution of TADSummit, where the customer representation is more important than the platform presentation. We’re moving from a technology bias, to a business bias. This approach has been replicated since many times.

His presentation was on “Using Real Time Communications to get the most from Tablets.” Pinig are manufacturing and selling fully managed Android tablets, meeting the specific needs of groups such as children, executives, elderly, and more. Pinig are in the process of launching embedded real-time communications to better support customers. Manjeet’s ultimate goal is to achieve an Amazon Mayday experience on Pinig tablets so everyone gets the most from pervasive personal computing (tablets). I was impressed, and have been following Manjeet ever since.

Today Manjeet is the CEO & Co-founder at Buddy4study. Giving-up is not an option and continuous learning is the key mantra for Manjeet Singh. An Engineer from MERI by parent’s choice and a serial entrepreneur by his own choice, he creates financial plans and technology architectures with equal precision.

With technology-led solutions at the core of his problem-solving approach, he has been relentlessly working with corporates in designing and managing their education-related CSR schemes, especially scholarship and skill development programmes, focused on the holistic development of students from the economically weaker sections of society.

A fitness freak, an avid reader, and a motivational speaker; he enjoys traveling and speaking to young students.

We covered in this interview:

• Manjeet’s history, how his experiences resulted in what he’s doing today with Buddy4study;
• In particular we’ll focused on Pinig and Elucit. What he learned in programmable communications, through all his successes and failures; and
• Then we’ll focus on Buddy4study, what motivated him to create it, and where he wants to take the initiative in the future. And of course, the role programmable communications will play.

Some of the highlights from the interview for me are:

• Manjeet highlighted the COVID-19 situation has leveled the playing field for new services given the world has changed, so now is the time to start a new venture.
• The impressive impact Buddy4study has already had helping 85k students with $12M in disbursements.
• Challenges are greater than ever for students from EWS (Economically Weaker Segments) to continue their studies. Manjeet and his team are building programmable communication apps to help keep student committed to their courses.
• From his Pinig experiences, the challenge of keeping the app up to date given the variety of tablet devices was a major cost. We still see that challenge today, even with WebRTC. We’ll be reviewing this challenge the the approaches businesses can take in the Status of WebRTC across Asia session.
• Manjeet shows how the democratization of telecoms is enabling people to have a massive social impact. In just 3 years Buddy4Study has helped 85,000 students. Well done Manjeet!

You can contact Manjeet here, and Buddy4Study here.