Microsoft declares winners of “Code for Honor”

After six months of hectic coding and developing by 2,000 ISVs and tech start-ups, two rounds of shortlisting, the six winners of the Code for Honor competition were announced. A one-of-its-kind initiative that was launched last December, Code for Honor garnered a lot of interest amongst the ISVs and tech start-ups across India. Over the next month, more than 100 apps and solutions enabling better management of businesses, society and governments will find a place in the Windows Store.

The following have been judged as winners in the specified award categories: Large Enterprise Solution (2 winners) – Medium-sized company: Mystifly Consulting India Pvt. Ltd and Small-sized company: Asteor Software Pvt. Ltd, MSME Solution – Systsoft Technologies LLP, Government-enablement Solution – Reverie Language Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Citizen Services Solution – Avon Mobility Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Best Solution for Social Good using Open Government Data – Appface Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Code for Honor has been created in order to recognize excellence in the development of commercial apps and solutions on the Windows platform. The pan-India initiative was split into three stages – project evaluations, zonal finals and national finals; which started from December 2013 culminating with the winners being announced today. Organizations like NIC, NASSCOM, TiE, Intel, Nokia, ICertis, Barrier Break and Microsoft’s own entity, Microsoft Ventures, have supported this contest.

Joseph Landes, General Manager - Developer Experience & Evangelism, Microsoft India, said, “The Code for Honor initiative addresses the needs of businesses and governments with the creation of commercial apps across multiple form-factors that help them interact with their customers, partners and other stakeholders more conveniently and in a secure manner. We see development of commercial apps as the next big trend in the app development ecosystem in India as it is lucrative and in high demand. During the competition, we have seen electrifying energy and enthusiasm from the participants with capabilities to build solutions that have large-scale impact both for India and the world. I congratulate the winning teams today, as well as all the ISVs and tech start-ups who participated in Code for Honor.”

The winning teams receive cash awards of INR2,00,000 (Rupees Two Lakh each and will now have the opportunity to connect with potential investors and customers to promote their commercial apps. In the last six months of the competition, there have been 2,098 registrations by ISVs and tech start-ups from over 170 cities, 1,002 solution concepts from over 80 cities developed for Enterprises, MSMEs, Government, Citizen Services and Social Good and 25 ISVs and tech start-ups were part of the national finals. Out of the 25 finalists, 22 of them are ISVs with 50 employees or less and 40% of the finalists are leveraging the cloud for their solutions. There has been significant participation from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, NCR, Pune and Mumbai.