Named by MIT's Technology Review magazine as one of the 7 hottest academic start-ups of 2001, PicoPeta is a company founded by the co-inventors of the Simputer. They share a common vision to make computing affordable and accessible to the people of developing countries who face barriers of price, language, and literacy.
PicoPeta's vision of a connected world is built around the Simputer as the building block. The Simputer provides affordable computing power (up to 10 times the processing power of a regular handheld computer) to build large mobile IT solutions at a fraction of the cost normally associated with such projects.
Apart from supplying the hardware for the Simputer, PicoPeta provides developer tools and all technical information needed to develop Simputer applications. PicoPeta also has the resources and expertise to build software solutions on the Simputer platform, and provides project management, consulting, and system integration services to help industry in this goal. PicoPeta has already implemented several Simputer solutions, including an education project in rural schools and a microfinance project in Karnataka.
Picopeta's focus in building the Simputer and Simputer-based applications has been to keep everything simple and extremely user-friendly so even illiterate people can use it. The Picopeta team includes experts on human-computer interaction (HCI), who have years of experience in making easy-to-use applications and devices. The Simputer's innovations include a touch screen interface that does away with input devices like a mouse or keyboard, and the development of a standardised interface language called IML (Information Markup Language). Thanks to these and an icon-driven interface, a high level of computer literacy is not essential for using the Simputer. All it takes is the ability to point and touch an icon on screen with a stylus.
PicoPeta is currently focussing on the following business domains for the initial deployment of Simputer solutions:
- Education
- Banking
- E-governance
- Sales Force Automation
- Healthcare
- Agriculture & Rural co-operatives
The latest from PicoPeta are two developments that are sure to excite developers, business and users worldwide: