Tech Moms in the interconnected world

Posted on September 28, 2012 by PixelMat Team

I am writing this for Intel Fleximoms Tech Moms Blogathon.

I am an engineer by qualification and I quit my full-time software job in 2006 after my child was born. Since 2006 and until 2011, I was freelancing as a software consultant. In early 2011, we purchased an iPad as a family entertainment device. My 7 year old son (who was 5 then) took an instant liking to it and was able to navigate his way without much help (unlike a regular PC/Laptop). When we purchased a few apps I realized that the iPad can be a wonderful teaching medium. With the backing of my software development background, I turned entrepreneur when I co-founded PixelMat Software. PixelMat Software has developed many best selling and critically well acclaimed mobile apps for children across all the popular mobile OS platforms.

I owe much of my contribution to PixelMat Software to motherhood. There are many similarities between growing a company and growing a baby. Every good idea that I had before turning a mom has only improved since becoming one. Motherhood has helped me improve as a manager. Techie moms know how to crunch code even with a toddler on their lap. Multi-tasking and time management is something that is ingrained in a mom’s DNA. Women (Mothers) know children and can help design kiddie apps in a way that the child can appreciate better. The same holds good for other categories such as lifestyle, home and garden etc. Moms are mostly the purchase decision makers for kids and family apps. They are in a better position to provide end-customer insights. When women bring such an insight into app development they make successful apps.

Being an entrepreneur mom gives me far more flexibility in when and where I work. Technology such as smart phones, Skype and videoconferencing help me balance work and family. Think about everything techie-moms have to do in one day — being a mother, wife, businesswoman and innovator. This leaves very little “me-time” for techie moms and this is something that I am working on consciously.

During the course of my experience I have learnt that techie-moms are more dedicated, open to revisions and very hardworking. Techie-Moms are a new generation of women leaders who are balancing, achieving and leading.

Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer garnered worldwide headlines last month as the first pregnant incoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company. To me, the message that techie-mom-to-be Mayer and Yahoo! sent out to the world was very encouraging – being a mom was not a deterrent to a corporate career. In fact, a mom can bring value-add to a role and business in more ways than one.

My 2 cents to techie-moms-in-doubt – Don’t constantly doubt and second guess yourself. You are a much better innovator and manager now that you are a mom than you were before. The #techmoms event organised by Intel & Fleximoms is a step towards ensuring that techie mom talent is not confined within homes.

-Srividya

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Be Back Soon

Posted on June 24, 2012 by PixelMat Team

We are re-focusing our thoughts and overall direction.

We’ll be back …

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We are 1!

Posted on April 21, 2012 by PixelMat Team

We turned 1 today!

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PixelMat in the mainstream media

Posted on April 3, 2012 by PixelMat Team

PixelMat Software has been profiled in The Hindu Business Line. We thank the media for recognizing small start-ups like ours! It is really helpful.

Article Link.

Among the more successful women developers is Srividya Vaidyanathan, co-founder of PixelMat. Her company initially made apps for iOS and Android, but she has now started working closely with Microsoft to design and build apps for Windows Marketplace.

Srividya has had 13 years of experience in the IT industry but the spurt in smartphone and tablet growth prompted her to explore app development as a potential career option. “After tablets became popular I felt that apps could be a great educational tool.” Most of the apps created by PixelMat were oriented towards children. Among them are ‘Yellow Pants’, ‘Pointy and Pokey’ and ‘Punshine’.

During her interview with eWorld, we asked her about opportunities for women in app development. “Globally there are many women developers but in India it is still a rarity. In order to build your own apps you need a software and technical background.” She says that it’s actually quite easy for a woman to work in the field because the process is systematic and hassle-free.

Srividya has developed two apps that are featured only on Windows Marketplace: Toddler ABC and Toddler Numbers. On Women’s Day, Srividya open-sourced Toddler ABCs, so fellow developers can have a chance to modify the app and subsequently learn how to build their own. “There is even an option to make the apps more regional, so you could change the background music and the language to Hindi, Kannada or Tamil if you wish,” she says.

The article can also be seen online at the website of the newspaper.

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Toddler ABCs Windows Phone app open-sourced ! Happy Women’s Day !

Posted on March 8, 2012 by PixelMat Team

Hail women power!

Microsoft Bangalore and YourStory.in took the lead and organized a 1 day women’s workshop on creating Windows Phone Apps in February. It was a good event!

We at PixelMat are now happy to give back to the community – On the occasion of Women’s Day, we are open-sourcing 1 of our 3 Windows Phone apps, “Toddler ABCs“. Everything including the source code, art, sounds.

Download Link for the project – 2 MB size.

Pre-Requisites:

  • Good knowledge of programming environments, should have worked with Microsoft Visual Studio.
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, pre-installed on your Windows PC / laptop. You can get it for free here.
  • Microsoft® Silverlight® Toolkit, should be installed. You can get it for free here.
  • Also recommended: Microsoft® Silverlight® 5 Tools for Visual Studio® 2010 SP1. You can get it for free here. You may need to install Visual Web Developer Express 2010.

Instructions:

  • Download and Extract the archive contents in a new folder directly under C:\. Locate in the sub-folders and then double-click the “Toddler ABCs.sln” file, let Visual Studio get invoked and check the project references and ensure that all needed references are resolved correctly.
  • Simply run the app! (F5)
Toddler ABCs

Toddler ABCs

Why are we doing this ? Gals (and perhaps the guys as well) can easily learn how to create a Silverlight app for Windows Phone that uses images, sounds, touch responses etc. Its a bright and colorful multi-media app that teaches the English alphabet and comes with touch activated sound effects, page swiping/flicking. Ideal for someone who is beginning work on the Windows Phone and needs a simple, real-world project to kick-start their efforts. Its a good “starter-app” template for creating multi-page apps.

The free app itself has significant downloads on the Windows Phone Marketplace.

We would really like to see remixes of the app – maybe someone will create apps in our native languages – a Kannada or Hindi alphabet app. Or replace the sound files with their own voice recordings to create a personalized alphabet tutorial. Or maybe swap out the artwork with their own creation.

Go ahead, let your imagination run wild and create apps that unleash your creativity! Images are sourced from OpenClipart and sounds from the FreeSound Project, so you do not have to worry about copyright related fine print. It’s all good. The existing sound files need attribution, which is taken care of in the last app page.

Of course, you can use this to make free or paid apps. A small email thanking us would be nice :)

And … watch this space. PixelMat is working on a rapid app creation tool. That will make pure native app creation even more fun!

This post first appeared on YourStory.in here.

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PixelMat in the media – thank you!

Posted on March 6, 2012 by PixelMat Team

We are thankful to the media and the journalist community for taking our inputs on the apps ecosystem and for including us in their coverage of topics related to mobile app development.

Apps are a tough industry, small encouragements like these help us a lot! It is genuinely appreciated!!

Recent coverage of PixelMat includes:

i) App Store Dynamics

“We used social media – Twitter, Facebook – to promote our app,” says Srividya Vaidyanathan of app developer PixelMat. “It also helps if you get positive reviews – and we were lucky to get good reviews from Kirkus Reviews for our app.”

The Times of India, Bangalore, Tuesday March 06, 2012, Page 20.

ii) Moms Make Apps

Srividya Vaidyanathan has a similar story. “I fell in love with my iPad,” she says as well. More importantly, so did Dhruv, her son. “He was fascinated by it.” Before she knew it, she and her husband had started a company called Pixelmat, making colourful stories for children, for use on tablets and mobiles. “We are both techies. He’s worked in SAP, I’ve worked in Oracle and other companies. Building apps wasn’t too difficult. Objective C, the language used for iOS development is unfamiliar, but then, if you know one object oriented language, it’s not difficult to learn another.”

Pixelmat has created a number of cheerful apps in bright colours, targeting them at young children. “My husband had this story called the ‘Giddy Ghost’ and we made an app out of it. It turned out to be very popular,” says Srividya. Encouraged by its success, they tried translating the story into Dutch. On October 29, 2011, Klunzig Spookje (the Dutch version of Giddy Ghost) was the top selling iPad book in the Netherlands. Why Dutch? “We did some research and found that iPad adoption was very high in the Netherlands,” says Srividya.

[...]

Srividya is looking at creating more original IP. She too has moved from iOS only apps to Android and now Windows Phone. She says that PixelMat is planning several exclusives for the Windows Phone marketplace.

The Times of India, Bangalore, Tuesday February 21, 2012. Page 18.

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PixelMat’s entry in the Windows Phone Marketplace

Posted on March 6, 2012 by PixelMat Team

Earlier we had mentioned that we will work on releasing apps for the Windows Phone Marketplace. This was also covered in yourstory.in. (A big thanks to the team at YourStory for helping start-ups like ours to spread the word in the ecosystem.)

The update is that PixelMat has now released 3 apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Enjoy these free apps …

  1. Toddler ABCs.  Help your child learn about letters, letter sounds and object sounds with this colorful and engaging first word and picture book.
    Toddler ABCs for Windows Phone
    Toddler ABCs brings the English alphabet to life like never before and offers interactive features, including:- Easy to use back and forth swipe feature that is perfect for young children to navigate
    - Bright, colorful, and familiar objects to illustrate each word
    - Touch activated sounds for each letter of the alphabet.
    - Touch activated sounds for each object representing the letter.
  2. Punshine. This makes use of the revolutionary concept of Live Tiles, as introduced by Microsoft, as part of the Metro UI.
    Punshine on Windows Phone
    Punshine is an interactive word play game based on puns. With more than 80 original and witty puns, it is sure to bring a smile on your face during the “pun flay” … err … fun play.Key features of Punshine HD are:
    - Original and witty puns
    - Beautiful colors across the app. In addition to the above display, pinning the application to the start screen allows an hourly Live Tile update with a new pun.
  3. Toddler Numbers. Help your child learn about numbers and number sounds with this colorful and engaging first number book with amazing illustrations.
    Toddler Numbers for Windows Phone
    Toddler Numbers brings the numbers to life like never before and offers interactive features, including:- Easy to use back and forth swipe feature that is perfect for young children to navigate
    - Bright and colorful illustrations for each animal
    - Touch activated sounds for each number

More apps coming soon …

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My perspectives from the women only mobile apps workshop of Microsoft India

Posted on February 13, 2012 by PixelMat Team

I had the pleasure of attending the “Workshop for Women Developers waiting to Explore Mobile App Business” on Saturday (11/Feb/12) at Microsoft’s Bangalore Campus. Organized by Microsoft and YourStory.in, it was a wonderful experience to meet and talk with a lot of enthusiastic women who had turned up for the event.

It was encouraging to see Mr. Girish Joshi from Microsoft express his belief that women bring a unique perspective to the mobile apps business. He says that Microsoft encourages the startup culture in India and has programs such as Microsoft BizSpark primarily intended for startups.

Rashmi Sachan of Fliplog was the lead speaker at the event and she talked about women entrepreneurs and provided key insights into the mobile apps business and marketing strategies involved. Rashmi willingly shared her knowledge and experience in a very informal way with all. The Fliplog team also provided attendees with a walkthrough of Windows Phone app development.

For us at PixelMat, when we interact with the stakeholders of mobile devices and the apps ecosystems, we usually deal with websites of large companies or automated emails from their employees. It was a refreshing change to meet actual people in a company (Microsoft) and to understand first-hand their perspectives on the market.

We already have an app on the Windows Phone marketplace. We will now be doubling our efforts to port our successful apps on iOS and Android to Windows Phone. We are also planning exclusive Windows Phone Apps. With Microsoft’s legendary success in any market they enter, I am sure they will succeed in Windows Phone, especially when Windows 8 tablets enter the market.

A huge Kudos to Shradha Sharma, Varsha Adusumilli, Chandan et al from YourStory.in for organizing the event and making it a huge success. I believe this is the first time that an event on Mobile Apps exclusively targeted towards women has been held in India.

Look forward to many more such “firsts”! Hail women-power!!

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Awesome Apps Creation as a service from PixelMat

Posted on January 10, 2012 by PixelMat Team

PixelMat has created critically well acclaimed and best selling apps. We now humbly offer the same capabilities of Awesome App Creation as a service.

If you are a book publisher with books in paper format, we can help create highly interactive, magical apps out of them. If you are an aspiring author with a book idea in mind, we can help transform that idea into a wonderful app.

For both iOS and Android platforms!

More details …

PixelMat's Services of Creating Awesome Apps

PixelMat's Services of Creating Awesome Apps

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Pointy and Pokey are now poking the app store

Posted on January 4, 2012 by PixelMat Team

Pointy and Pokey are now poking the app store!

Pointy Pokey App

Pointy! Pokey! Your child gets to decide who is the hero in this heart warming adventure about acceptance, friendship and courage. The story adapts itself to your child’s interactions!

Pointy, the shy and adorable hedgehog is the best friend of a naughty porcupine, Pokey. Other animals are wary of their sharp quills and stay away from them. So Pointy and Pokey decide to blend in a little more. What do they do to gain acceptance ? Who helps them ?

What happens later when two mean and hungry wolves come into the picture ?

The unique features of Pointy and Pokey include:
– An interactive, heart warming adventure.
- A story that is controlled by your child: your child’s interactions decide the hero!
– Beautiful, hand-drawn, original art.
– Child friendly narration with a soothing background music.
- Read along text highlighting.
– Amazing, interactive effects on each story page.
– Devised by parents and happily enjoyed by children, several times over.
– A fun story-telling experience for the entire family.
- A perfect good night story app, tried and tested!

Story & Software: PixelMat
Art: Studio 203
Narration: Brooke Pierce
Music: Kevin MacLeod

Pointy and Pokey HD, iPad
Apple App Store Link for Pointy Pokey HD App

Pointy and Pokey, iPhone and iPod Touch
Apple App Store Link for Pointy Pokey App for iPhone and iPod Touch

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