Pakistani healthcare startup 'Marham' selected for Google’s Demo Day Asia

KARACHI: Pakistan's Marham - a healthcare platform that helps people find, book appointments, and consult with doctors online - has been selected to participate in Google's Demo Day Asia competition, scheduled to take place in Shanghai in September.

The selection, from hundreds of submissions from founders in different countries across Asia-Pacific, in industries as diverse as agriculture, entertainment and healthcare, was a difficult task, Google said in a statement issued Thursday.

It was hard to narrow down this impressive field, but after much painstaking deliberation, out of 305 qualifying applications, 10 enteries were selected for the final, it said.

The finalists are:

● Marham from Pakistan is a healthcare platform that helps people find, book appointments, and consult with doctors online.

● DycodeX from Indonesia develops Internet of Things solutions for livestock farming.

● FreightExchange from Australia is an online platform for freight carriers to sell their unused space to shippers.

● GITAI from Japan specializes in building robots that can help humans conduct scientific experiments in space.

● Miotech from China is a fintech startup developing artificial intelligence-based software for financial services firms.

● OneStockHome from Thailand offers an e-commerce platform for construction materials.

● Origami Labs from Hong Kong makes smart rings that let people hear and send text messages without taking out their phones.

● SigTuple from India creates AI-based solutions to automate healthcare screening.

● SkyMagic from Singapore produces drone swarming technology for live entertainment and traffic management systems.

● Swingvy from Korea provides human resources solutions for businesses.

At the event, the founders will have an opportunity to pitch to a distinguished panel of leaders from Google for Entrepreneurs, Sequoia Capital and Venturra Capital.

The startups that impress could come home with funding from investors and up to US$100,000 in Google Cloud Platform credits.