A bunch of wannabe entrepreneurs have chosen Start-Up weekend, a networking event held in Hyderabad, to prove what an SMS, missed call or a portal can do in day-to-day life.

For them, it took little over two days to ideate, co­de, test and evolve a business plan. Some even say their venture is up and running, well almost.

Sudeep D’Souza and three others in the team see a business opportunity in security gaurds registering vehicle numbers in the logbook.

“Once security personnel were taking time to record our vehicle details. We thought it would be easier if the process is automated. Th­ere we hit upon the idea of making a parking management sol­ution,” says D’S­ouza narrating his team’s experience at Indian School of Business, where the networking event was held.

The team instantly was on the job to write the code, test and validate the application. They took fee­dback from builders and mall administrators and all felt a need for such system.

And, now they have Park-e-mon, an application that the registered users will have to download to monitor vehicles coming into the building.

The vehicle number can be keyed in through mobile phones but cameras too can be used to upload the vehicle data over GPRS and wi-fi.

“We have decided this will be the company that we will start,” says D’Souza, who is into cloud computing, mobile computing and blogging.

His team has set a target of 120 parking management contracts in a year at a flat fee of Rs 25,000 from each.

Another wannabe entrepreneur Sundaram says sms or even a missed call can help feriwalas (street vendors) get more clients. An app is being developed on these lines.

A street vendor in a locality will give a missed call or send an sms to a designate number given by an agency. The agency then automatically sends sms or relays an IVR to the registered buyers in that colony.

“Hawkers can sell their products quickly without travelling large distances thus increasing his efficiency and resulting in higher profits,” said Sundaram.

A prototype platform, feriwala.in, is ready. “Support of NGO's would also be needed to educate hawkers and vendors on use of sms or missed call platform to increase efficiency,” he said.

Then there is Optirate, a mobile app that will suggest best available mobile tariff plans after studying customers’ voice, SMS and data usage. It will also provide a platform to recharge prepaid accounts or pay monthly bills.

Similar technologies can also be used for bringing smaller NGOs to one platform to pitch their services.

“We want people to give their time first. Funding will come when there are people,” said K Ramesh, who is building ‘Giving for Good’ portal for NGOs.

There are other ideas too. One team has come up with Desi Karaoke, where users can call a particular number and sing. These can be synced with social networking sites. One can rate friends’ recordings, prod them to sing or even send as testimonials, such as resumes.