Kochi tech firm wins four prizes in global app contest

Kochi: A Kochi-based tech company, Riafy Technologies, founded by a few engineering friends is making waves in a global contest. It has won four prizes in a global app contest conducted by Huawei, one of the biggest telecommunications equipment companies.

Riafy Technologies, which functions out of the KINFRA Hi-Tech Park at Kalamassery, is the only Indian company on the winners' list. The firm will get prizes worth 50,000 dollars (approximately Rs 37.5 lakh).

App developers from over 170 countries competed in the contest that was divided into four zones of Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and China.

Riafy's 'Learn Craft and DIY Arts' won the prize for the best app in the Asia-Pacific zone. This app offers do-it-yourself art and craft techniques to over five lakh consumers in over 150 countries in 26 languages.

Riafy's 'cake recipes' was selected as the most popular app at the contest. The selection was also based on voting.

Riafy employees said that votes by Keralites helped them to secure the win.

The cake recipes app got almost 10 times more the number of votes received by the app in the second spot. It also won a special praise.

The app that teaches to bake cakes easily has more than 10 lakh consumers spread across over 100 countries.

The cookbook recipes, one of the most popular cooking apps in India, also helped Riafy win a special praise in the contest. This app has over 60 lakh consumers in 157 countries.

The apps developed by Riafy have won accolades at Google's global conferences several times.

The apps available on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store were presented on Huawei's app gallery with the necessary technical changes.

Huawei is likely to make investments in the firm, claimed Riafy’s John Mathew, Joseph Babu, Neeraj Manoharan, Benny Xavier, Binoy Joseph, and K V Sreenath. These engineering friends had started Riafy in 2013. The firm has 65 employees now.