Cel­e­brat­ing Inno­va­tion: Jen­do Wins the John Keells Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge 2016

The John Keells Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge

• Overview: The John Keells Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge is one of Sri Lanka’s pre­mier plat­forms for fos­ter­ing inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship. It aims to rec­og­nize and reward projects that offer nov­el solu­tions to press­ing chal­lenges in var­i­ous sec­tors, includ­ing health­care, tech­nol­o­gy, and social impact.
• Sig­nif­i­cance of Win­ning: Win­ning this chal­lenge places Jen­do among the top inno­va­tors in the region. It demon­strates the company’s abil­i­ty to devel­op prac­ti­cal solu­tions with far-reach­ing impacts on health­care and well­ness.

About Jen­do and Their Mis­sion

• Com­pa­ny Vision: Jen­do focus­es on har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate health­care solu­tions that are acces­si­ble, effec­tive, and impact­ful. They aim to address key health chal­lenges through inno­va­tions that ben­e­fit both med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and patients.
• The Win­ning Project: Details about the project or prod­uct that helped Jen­do secure this award. For exam­ple, if it was a diag­nos­tic tool or health man­age­ment app, describe how it works and the prob­lem it solves.

Impacts and Future Prospects for Jen­do

• Indus­try Recog­ni­tion: Win­ning the John Keells Chal­lenge has pro­vid­ed Jen­do with not only recog­ni­tion but also oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow and col­lab­o­rate with­in the indus­try.
• Look­ing Ahead: How this win has helped Jen­do set new goals, attract investors, or devel­op future projects. This sec­tion can dis­cuss the company’s future plans and how it aims to fur­ther impact the health­care sec­tor.

Inspir­ing Inno­va­tion in Health­care

Role in Region­al Inno­va­tion: Jen­do’s achieve­ment con­tributes to the growth of the tech and health­care sec­tors in Sri Lan­ka and beyond. It sets a bench­mark for inno­va­tion and encour­ages oth­ers to pur­sue solu­tions that can make a tan­gi­ble dif­fer­ence.

Mes­sage for Inno­va­tors: The John Keells Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge and Jendo’s suc­cess serve as inspi­ra­tion for bud­ding entre­pre­neurs. Their jour­ney empha­sizes the impor­tance of deter­mi­na­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and a solu­tion-dri­ven approach in over­com­ing health­care chal­lenges.

Final­ists with the Exec­u­tive Board mem­bers of John Keells Hold­ings PLC.

The JKX Chal­lenge is the first iter­a­tion of an ini­tia­tive by John Keells Hold­ings to cre­ate a con­ducive ecosys­tem for young entre­pre­neurs to cre­ate and build bold new ideas. The con­cept head­ed by Chair­man Susan­tha Rat­nayake is aimed at both help­ing grow entre­pre­neur­ship, but also to encour­age busi­ness­es at JKH itself to inno­vate. As a dual-pronged approach, it’s effec­tive. The JKX Chal­lenge part­nered with SLASSCOM, ICTA, Cey­lon Cham­ber of Com­merce and Roar.lk as their dig­i­tal media part­ner.

Mr. Susan­tha Rat­nayake com­ment­ing on the Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge said, “I would like to con­grat­u­late the win­ners and final­ists of the inau­gur­al John Keells X Open Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge, and I thank all 148 teams that applied from Sri Lan­ka and over­seas, for their enthu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gramme.” Mr. Rat­nayake fur­ther com­ment­ed, “The JKH lead­er­ship is also encour­aged by the pool of young entre­pre­neur­ial tal­ent we wit­nessed dur­ing the four-month engage­ment with John Keells X, and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to sup­port the Sri Lankan start­up ecosys­tem, by incen­tivis­ing and invest­ing in the tal­ent­ed young entre­pre­neurs in the coun­try.”

From left: Mala­ka Rathu­vithana (Mark­i­fy), Gihan Cooray (Pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Finance & Retail Sec­tor, JKH), Susan­tha Rat­nayake (Chair­man, JKH), Ron­nie Peiris (Group Finance Direc­tor), Sohan Dhar­mara­ja (Mark­i­fy), Ajit Gunewar­dene (Deputy Chair­man, JKH), Dr Hans Wijesuriya (Group CEO – Dia­log Axi­a­ta PLC), Kris­han Bal­en­dra (Pres­i­dent of Leisure Sec­tor, JKH) and Vinoth Kan­na (Mark­i­fy)

Team Mark­i­fy came in as the run­ner-up, win­ning Rs. 1 mil­lion for their voice con­trolled SaaS ana­lyt­ics plat­form.

Choos­ing the win­ners must not have been easy for the judges since each team per­formed admirably well.