An Indian Startup Is Providing Israel Technology To Make Travel Easier
Two Indian entrepreneur siblings are using their innovation to ease travel to the “startup nation”.
Israel is one of the ten most innovative countries in the world, according to the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index. India doesn’t even feature in the top 50. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks military-to-agricultural technologies from Israel during his landmark visit, two Indian entrepreneur siblings are using their innovation to ease travel to the “startup nation”.
The Tharakan brothers from Kochi offer a digital locker service to the Israeli Chamber of Commerce. The Chennai-based startup, myeasydocs, is an online document verification and storage platform which lets you e-share important files in a secure way. To apply for a visa to Israel, Indians need an invitation letter which the Israeli chamber of commerce or its companies can now send directly to the embassy or consulate using myeasydocs.
“With the new Digital Locker system, Indians can have their documents pre-certified and/or issued directly to the locker, removing the need for paper and verification,” said Avira Tharakan, chief executive officer at myeasydocs. The result is faster and easier movement for people, he said.
Starting with Israel, the concept will be extended to other countries. “For the moment, this is an Indo-Israel first collaboration waiting to be adopted by the rest of the world,” he said.
And it’s the “first time in the world that the digital locker concept is being used in the travel industry,” Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor tweeted last week.
Earlier this year, India released rules to let private companies procure licences to set up digital lockers. This came a couple of years after the launch of the Indian government’s own DigiLocker initiative. The Tharakan brothers are also planning to apply.
myeasydocs was launched six years ago. Asked if the government’s initiative would eat into the company’s business, Avira said, “Since DigiLocker came up, it is complementing our services. Now, when I go to a government institution, I don’t have to sell it. The government has already sold the concept for me.”
myeasydocs is not just an e-wallet to store important documents but the platform also ensures the documents are certified and verified by the issuing authority, said Thomas Tharakan, chief financial officer at the startup. “Our primary clientele has been universities because the education market requires verification of documents.”
Say, a doctor joining a hospital needs to have his documents certified, he said. Using myeasydocs, the doctor could apply for online certification and the university sends the document directly to his digital locker account, which can then be submitted electronically to the final authority. The whole process takes a few minutes instead of months and saves the applicant a few visits to the university, Thomas said.