Volume 3.

0 | Nov 2014

Newsletter
Inside this Issue
Past Events ...2
Developer Achievements...12

Editors note
Greetings from Ideamart team! We proudly present you our
3rd successful publication of Ideamart newsletter, which

Upcoming Events13
IdeaMart team column...15

primarily focuses on enlightening you a full and varied insight

into many activities that occurred in and around of Ideamart.
In addition to our updates of preceding and upcoming events,
we have made this version of the feature interactive and
entertaining. We hope that this newsletter will not only
educate you but also will help you to enhance creativity for
your forthcoming developments. Hope you enjoy reading our

Ideamarts performance for

the past few months (JuneOctober) in 2014 had been
tremendously successful. As a
result, its growth can be
measured by the number of
API hits obtained and the
average revenue generated
per month. The following stats

demonstrate Ideamarts immense

success incurred during the past
aforementioned months:
API hits in October 2014:
34,180, 661.
Average revenue generated by
an app per month is aprox. is
Rs. 20, 000/=
Active apps: 3173

Visit our website: http://www.ideamart.lk

newsletter

Pg 1

Past
PastEvents
Events

24th
May
Idea Bash
Idea Bash is the annual gathering of Ideamart developers, tech
enthusiasts, speakers and the general public sharing innovative
ideas to produce new apps. This interactive session brought
together

their

exciting

insights

on

idea

creation

and

user

experience of Ideamart services. As a result, this event was

immensely successful than expected.

Ideamart Outreach Sabaragamuwa University

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Past Events

6th-7th
June
TAD HACK
This is the first ever international satellite Hackathon event held in
Sri Lanka which was hosted by HSenid Mobile. This exclusive global
event was sponsored by Ideamart and was also the core platform for
this prestigious occasion. At this Hackathon, 14 enthusiastic teams
competed; in which DIY was declared as the winner of TAD HACK
Sri Lanka, while Offer Hut and M-Pay secured the third and second
place respectively. However, M- PAYs application outstandingly
emerged as the international winner of SMS, and USSD category of
TAD HACK 2014.

Pg 3

Past Events
July

Firefox and Ideamart Session

Ideamart conducted a training program in collaboration with Morzilla
Firefox community, encouraging the developers to create Firefox web
apps and mobile apps mashing up with Dialog Ideamart APIs.

Session for 99X Interns

Ideamart Outreach at Uva Wellassa University

Pg 4

Past Events

This is a campaign run by

Dialog

APIs

developer

to

collect

feedbacks

and

seek what the next API

release they require from
Dialog Axiata Plc.

Ideamart Outreach at Kelaniya University

Dialog All Staff
Ideamart has been training people all across
Sri Lanka. On the other hand, understanding
the importance of our key human resource
assets

(employees),

Ideamart

approached

Dialog staff and trained them to create cool

apps.

As

result,

this

training

session

empowered the staff and uplifted the societys

wellbeing.

Colombo API Meetup

Pg 5

Past Events

MORA HACK
This is an annual Hackathon at University of Moratuwa organized by
Dialog

Ideamart

with

the

intention

of

generating

creative

and

innovative applications using Ideamart platform. The Winner of the

MoraHack 2014 was team EI developed IMTraffic API to monitor
traffics and used those details as business analytical tool.

Pg 6

Past Events
Events
Past

Ideamart Outreach at Rajarata University

Ideamart Outreach at NIBM Galle

Yarl Geek IT Intro session

For the first time, Ideamart reached out to Jaffna and empowered
the talent pool in Universities and Schools. This event was made
possible through Yarl IT Hub community parallel to Yarl Geek
Challenge Season 3.
Pg 7

Past Events

Yarl Geek Challenge Hackathon 2014

Yarl geek Challenge is a tech start up competition which extended for
over four days in its beautiful serene city Jaffna. Ideamart was one
of the sponsors for this venerable event. Highlights are: 7 out of 23
projects used Ideamart APIs where the winners and runners up
received exclusive Ideamart prizes. In the senior category; Team
RedKites emerged as the winner for creating a bus reservation ticket
application,

meanwhile,

Balasubramniyum

in

emerged

as

the
the

junior

category;

winner

who

made

Gnanakeethan
a

complete

timetable management for institutes using Ideamart API services.

Outstandingly, Tracklers was the 3rd runners up and the winner for
using the Best Ideamart API Usage, this team created an impressive
M2M

platform

drives

automated

sprinkler

system

and

received

Ideamart elite prizes.

Pg 8

Past
Past Events
Events

Kandy App Challenge 2014

This was an introductory session organized by Dialog regional branch in
collaboration with Dialog Ideamart. This was an event organized to
educate schooling students and university students on how to create
apps using Dialog Ideamart and Android platform. As a result, this was
a preparatory session for students to participate in the upcoming Kandy
App Challenge which will be held on 22nd of December, 2014.

We conducted Ideamart Outreach

awareness sessions at some of the
prominent institutes of Colombo
such as; NIBM, ANC, NSBM, IIT and
E-SOFT during the month of
November. These sessions gave
participants the opportunity to
understand more about Ideamart
services and discuss their doubts on
creating applications. We hope to
extend and cover our reach to all
the schools and universities in Sri
Lanka.
If you wish Ideamart to conduct a
session at your university or school,
Please mail us to info@ideamart.lk
Pg 9

Past Events
Nov

YARL GEEK CHALLENGE- Finals

As you know, the previous seasons of Yarl Geek Challenge Hackathons were
conducted in Jaffna producing astounding entrepreneurs. However, the Yarl
Geek Challenge Finale (season 3) was held in Colombo. At the finale: team Red
Kites (creators of bus booking system) emerged the winner, team Spacey won
the second place (office space rental start-ups) and team Trackers secured the
third place (who built product monitoring platform for agriculture sector.
Ideamart team is pleased to see that the contestants made good use of the
Ideamart APIs, especially team Tracklers. More important at this event, the
winning teams received fabulous prizes from the sponsors and also were funded
by Blue Ocean Ventures and Lankan Angel Network: the team Red Kites were
funded and mentored by Blue Ocean Ventures, whereas the teams Strikers and
TunaLabz were funded and will be mentored by Lankan Angel Network

Pg 10

Past Events
Nov

Ideamart Hackathon Code Ultimatum 2014

Hackathon Code Ultimatum is the annual signature

event organized by Ideamart. It was held on the 28th
and 29th of November 2014, at Premier Pacific
Pinnacle Building from 6pm to 9am.
For the second time, Ideamart gave the opportunity
for the public to come up with brilliant innovative
ideas such as game apps, music apps, social
networks, and many more exciting apps solely
focused on entertainment and were created using
Ideamart platform. This event was not only about
coding but was also about having fun, excitement,
meeting new people, developing skills and winning.

Winners- RomanKaarayo

1st runner up- Mutex

Hackathon Code Ultimatum 2014 came up with cash

prizes for the winners and another follow up
competitions which include more prizes from Dialog.

2nd runner up- Cardboard

Pg 11

Developer's Achievement
Here are some highlights of our talented
developers who have proved that ideas can come
to life.

Seventeen Year old Gnanakeethan Balasubramaniam

Certificate of Appreciation was awarded to

from Hindu College - Jaffna, won the 1st place in Junior

category which was recently held at YARL Geek
challenge 2014. His app INQT was built on Ideamart
platform and it helps the students to know about their
latest time table.

Sajith Udayanga for the FindMyKid app,

which was built on Ideamart platform at
recently held e-Swabhimani National Best Econnect Awards 2014. This was organized by
ICTA, Presidential Secretariat and the
Ministry
of
Telecommunication
&
Information Technology. This application can
find the location of children & track them
anytime and anywhere using the Dialog
Mobile.

Team WEET won the Silver award in Tertiary

Student Business Category at the recently held
16th National Best Quality Software Awards.
The winning application, Way Express E
Ticketing (WEET) was based on Ideamart
platform which enable users to book highway
tickets through USSD menu, bus owners can
view the reports and perform business
forecasting and analytics. These products
solve a direct need in the market.

Winners of YARL GEEK Challenge 2014- Junior Category

Blood SMS app was awarded the prestigious Gold

award and recognized as the countrys best e-content
application in the Health & Environment category at
this years e-Swabhimani Awards. Blood SMS is
based on Ideamart platform. This app connects the
head office of the Blood bank with 18 regional blood
collection centers island wide, with blood stock
management and donor management features.

DialogHP

was

Charity

application, which was built on

Ideamart platform for the
charity drive for the child victims
of Koslanda Landslide disaster.
Pg 12
Team WEET receiving the silver award.

Upcoming Events

MAKE A WISH-

Its Christmas season and Ideamart is hoping to bring the true meaning of celebrating
this festivity in a distinctive way. Anticipating this season, Ideamart will launch Make
a Wish where Ideamart will indulge its Dialog customers to
donate via anything.lk/wow.lk using Ideamart platforms: the
items displayed on the sites will be based on the
requirements (wishes) collected anonymously from the kids,
hence every item as requested will be donated by Dialog
customers and there onwards will be gifted to Orphanages
through Ideamart team. The concept of Make a Wish was initiated to spread love,
sentiment and happiness to both heartfelt customers and kids during this month.

Christmas with Ideamart Last year, Ideamart celebrated

Christmas where anyone could send a sms (free of charge) and

light up the Christmas tree which was setup at Ideamart office;
the sms senders could see the message and the tree lighting up
via live streaming.
This year, Ideamart will couple up with charity organisations and
will be providing interactive system using Christmas trees at
public places.

Pg 13

DIALOG CONNECT ACCOUNT

In order to create applications in Ideamart, a Dialog Connect account must be created.
It is very simple and theres no hassle involved to sign up for this account. To sign up
for dialog connect account, please visit http://connect.dialog.lk or you can read our
tutorials uploaded on http://www.ideamart.lk/how-to-create-a-dialog-connect-account ;
for step by step instructions.

5 ESENTIAL MARKETING TIPS Take your Idea to 7.5 million customers!

1. Understand your target market- It is very important to know your target customers very well.
Learn your customer behaviour, interests and requirements to sharpen your marketing decisions.
The more information and knowledge you gather, the more successful and effective you will be in
marketing your app.
2. Observe your marketing environment-There maybe be a change in the lifestyle, taste and
preferences due to the market environment like the emerging of new technologies. It is very
important to observe why the customer preferences have changed and what possibilities does
your app have as a result of changing circumstances. Also, scan your opportunities and threats
that may encounter during the process which may help you to create a marketing plan
3. Design and promote your product/service around the customer- Make sure your app and service
is tailored around your customers needs. Therefore, use affordable and effective promotional
approaches such as the use of free and paid social media such as; Facebook, Youtube, Twitter,
pay per click ads, blogs or any viral marketing would also do.
4. Create Value for your customer - Create value to the customers and gain their trust through your
customer service. You will see an immense growth of your revenue if you are determined to
spend your time, money and energy for promotions.
5. Be innovative- Try something new! Be creative and innovative when marketing your product or
service. Even the most creative marketing strategy can attract a large market.

It is important to adhere to our Marketing Guidelines while promoting on social media, paper media or
any other terms of marketing. Do not to use Dialog logo for publicity and you should stick to the
marketing terms and conditions. Sadly we had to suspend some applications due to the violation of
our marketing terms & conditions.

Visit: http://www.ideamart.lk/marketing-terms-conditions
http://www.ideamart.lk/app-promo-tips

Pg 14

TEAM COLUMN
Hi everybody!
I am very pleased to see an array of innovative apps coming out from last
year.
We are very grateful for your enthusiasm and dedication delivering some
outstanding services. I would also like to specially mention here that the
synergy and team spirit shown by the community is tremendously
wonderful, not only helping each other but also doing it continuously.
I will be echoing the same comments from my colleagues. Be mindful, always
think about building a good service for your customers and do not focus
only on a just a quick buck but also know to create value to your customers.
Irresponsible behaviour not only makes your services and revenue

Venura

unsustainable, but it disheartens the other developers who are making an

honest living.
I am extremely overwhelmed to see many of you crossing the 50K revenue
mark but make sure to expand your horizons by exceeding 500K mark by
next year! Wish you all good luck with your forthcoming endeavours.

Hi Friends!
Weve grown tremendously for the past few years; grown from last
year to this year even on monthly basis. Weve done extremely well
and thanks to the Ideamart community to whom this platform is
built! We are also proud that weve reached out to most of the
universities of all parts of the country including Jaffna and Ruhuna.
We have done more than 40 events this year, including the
Hackathons which showcased Sri Lankan talents internationally and
even won prizes to Sri Lanka.
However, we are also worried about the few bad apples in our basket.
We will be very strict on those of the developer community who do not
stick to our guidelines and also use the platform for unethical activities.
We will take sever action with regard to such violations starting from 2015.

Roshanth

Thank you!

Pg 15

TEAM COLUMN
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Charith

KEEP CODING AND HAVE FUN- Good Luck Guys!

Hi guys!!
Ive joined 6 months ago to the Ideamart team. The team helped me a
lot to get used to the system and really privilege to work under such
a fantastic team. Its an awesome experience to work with such a
wonderful team. The recently held Code Ultimatum 2014 was a classic
example of the tremendous team work of Ideamart.
However as admins of Ideamart, I would kindly like to ask all the
developers to strictly adhere to the terms & conditions of Ideamart

Kasun

which will help us to maintain the Ideamart system running. Also

would like to ask everyone to join our Eco system and make our Eco
system much bigger!

"Hi Developers / Content Providers / Service Providers,

Thank you for being with us and providing great services for our customers.
Past couple of months we have been doing a lot of events all across Sri
Lanka, teaching students, lecturers, parents, general public how to use
Ideamart for the benefit of self and society. While we were trying to
empower we also started to highly monitor the services which our content
providers are providing to make sure you all provide a great service for the
customers since its a critical factor.
Its been always wonderful to be a part of the Ideamart Team because it
gives a way to live for many people around Sri Lanka"

Shafraz
Pg 16

TEAM COLUMN

Pg 17

Follow us on

Ideamart LK
ID: Ideamart_lk

Ideamartlk
CONTACT US
Developer support: Phone- 0773054056 Email- devsupport@ideamart.lk
Idea apps support: info@ideamart.lk
SMS support request: Send a message as; myidea<space>[your_requset] to 77002.
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ideamartlk/

Visit our website: https://www.ideamart.lk

The End

Pg 18