Do you remember the winners of the Idea Challenge 2014?
Last year Jovan Stevovic and Stefano Tranquillini, founders of Chino.io, participated at the Idea Challenge 2014 and were the best in the category "Cyber Security and Privacy". The first prize package included €40,000 in cash, working space at one of the EIT Digital Co-Location Centres and support from the Business Development Accelerator.
Here is a short update on Chino.io's activity.
Chino.io chose to reside at the Trento Co-Location Centre that, after expansion in the beginning of 2015, offers spacious and modern working space for startups. Cash prize was used for developers, graphic designers and legal support. Working together with EIT Digital Business Developers allowed Chino.io to come up with a revenue model and more quickly get in touch with potential partners, customers and investors.
In a nutshell, what is Chino.io doing?
Chino.io helps health app developers to comply with rigorous European data protection laws. That is, Chino.io provides secure APIs with full encryption and data storage for sensitive information. It is a very flexible solution targeted specifically for small and medium developers and enterprises in health app sector. "They can store their data in our secure storage", explains Jovan, "they can continue developing their applications while keeping some less sensitive data on their own platform and putting the more sensitive data on ours, or they can build the whole application on our backend, on our servers."
Why is it important?
Because health data is a value. As explains Jovan: "According to some recent studies, health data in the future is going to be the most valuable information collected by devices and apps. Hackers, attackers, thieves, marketing companies, they would all like to access health data and profile people." But the protection of such data is not only the question of law, it is also in interest of users of health apps and various devices that collect data related to our heartbeat, sleep patterns, exercise patterns and so on.
At the moment Chino.io is fully operational and has released its service to public in June. Chino.io is currently working on customer acquisition, partnerships and business development. Jovan said that they are concentrating on SMEs - which make up 64 percent of the mHealth market. After that Chino.io plans to grow in Europe - with the help of EIT Digital innovation network and private investments from venture capitalists.
Thanks to the access-to-market strategy, developed jointly with the EIT Digital BDA team, Chino.io has already presented their company to the potential customers at Cebit in Hannover, at Heureka in Berlin and at Garage48 Hub in Tallin.
Furthermore, this year Chino.io was selected also among the finalists of the eHealth Competition 2015 that rewards the best eHealth/ mHealth solutions produced by the SMEs in Europe. Chino.io is currently involved also in building the Trusted Cloud platform in collaboration with Telecom Italia, British Telecom and F-Secure, as part of the Future Cloud Action Line High Impact Initiative.
Thus, plenty of challenging projects ahead after this excellent start!
