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29.04.2016 Feature Article

Enter The Projector-Phone

Enter The Projector-Phone
29.04.2016 LISTEN

Smart-phone just got smarter. It now has a projector. Aasim Saied, inventor of the Akyumen projector-phones and Chief Executive Officer of Akyumen Technologies Corporation, the United States, tells MARTIN-LUTHER C. KING in this chat in Accra-Ghana, at the phones’ Africa launch, that the projector-phone is the new one-click business hub in the palm of anyone's hand.

Excerpts:
Tell us about your products?
We have three devices here. One is a cell phone with a built-in projector technology. We also have a phablet, which is a 7-inch phone tailor-made for people that want to use it for education and at the same time need a luxury device. And then, a tablet, also with a built-in projector which is for schools, colleges, universities as well as for use in business. Along with these three devices, we also have a whole range of accessories. And each and every one of the devices and accessories are made by our company, and customised for the best use and for your full experience with the devices.

What are their specifics?
Let me show you what our devices do. Our devices are built with the technology of the future. These devices are not only about communicating, but also about presenting and sharing information. In our devices, with one click of a button you can project content. Now, let me explain to you each and every one of the devices: The cell phones are made for the general public. People want to buy phones to make calls; but at the same time, they can use the devices for entertainment. Our devices are for the mobile entertainment market; people can watch movies, television shows and do business presentations with their cell phones using the projector and the flash; it’s very easy to use the devices; with one click of a button, you can project your presentation to your customer. The cell phone is called the Hawk, which is a very thin device. And when it projects, it projects at 35 blurays, and at the same time it produces lesser heat because we built this device with nano technology, technology of the future. The devices come with different specifications that are very powerful compared to any other company’s devices. And the phablet, which is a 7-inch phone, also has a built-in projector technology, and runs on a Windows 10 operating system. So because of this, holding these devices is like holding a computer in the palm of your hand and at the same time holding an entertainment theatre in the palm of your hands. With one click of a button you can project the full Windows 10 pc (personal computer). With our tablet technology, one can also project Windows 10 operating system with one click of a button. The best part of our devices is that the Windows 10 versions of them are so powerful that you can actually project and work on pdf applications. We know you have seen a lot of devices in the past, but I can bet you have not seen a device like these.

What inspired these?
Well, there are a lot of things that happened in my life that inspired these. Originally I came up with the idea when I was still in college in 2004 (in the United States) when there were still smart-phones burnt-out areas. My college professor was tinkering with a big projector in the classroom. And at that time there were no smart-phones available that easily. So I was thinking, How about putting a projector in a smart-phone, so you’ll be able to make presentations anywhere you are? So at that time, I announced in the class what I was thinking and everybody laughed because at that time they thought such a technology was impossible. But what happened? A few years later, I was able to make a projector-phone. At that time, and it was around 2008 when that happened, we decided that we can form a company based on this, and then we can literally go to the market with it. But once we went to the CES show, we realised that in launching this device, the timing must be right; because we realised that people needed a lot of data, to watch movies, watch educational content and do other stuff. So what we did was we had to wait until other content providers were able to make the components that will help our devices more powerful; we were waiting for 4G. Meanwhile, we also solved the problem of heat which projector devices used to have in the past. We achieved that feat by replacing fans with nano technology in our projectors; we spent four years on nano-tech research, and came out with a game-changing device. So several things, I will say, inspired us, like talking to great people in the telecom industry inspired us; watching a lot of futuristic movies on technology like Star Wars inspired us. And a lot of other creative people out there in the world inspired us. So inspiration was all around us.

Before coming to Ghana and Africa, where else have you been and for how long?

We are from Silicon Valley which is in California, the United States. From there we went to Las Vegas for the last CES show, and there we met people from all over the world. Thereafter, we decided to go to Barcelona, Spain for Mobile World Congress, there we met a lot people from Europe; and, decided to launch in Europe. We had successful meetings in Barcelona which encouraged us to go to Germany, which is close by to Spain. So, in Germany we met a lot of people coming from Asia and from Africa who reminded us that, Hey, there’s a whole continent out there that needs devices as every company out there presently are simply dumping low quality devices on Africa. Why don’t you make a difference?’ So, I thought it was not right for other companies, which are multi-billion dollar companies, to be dumping refurbished products on Africa. I thought we should make a difference and launch the game-changing devices here as well and at the same that we are launching in the rest of the world. So, we decided to set our company up on a path to launching in Africa at the same time. And we met with certain people in Silicon Valley who were from Ghana and other parts of Africa, and we all collaborated together; and, a couple of days was my first time of stepping into Ghana.

Electricity and power supply is a major problem in most African countries, including Ghana. What is the battery life-span of these devices, and can the devices be solar-powered?

Yes, battery and energy is the most important thing in any device. In fact, unfortunately, the batteries have not progressed that much for any devices across the planet. And so, what we have done is to put up a higher maH battery, which means a higher-capacity battery in our devices. And of course, we do not manufacture the battery our self. We are licensing and buying it from existing battery companies.

Which ones?
I don’t want to name one specific company, because we are using three of them right now. And I don’t want to be seen to be partial toward any. They happen to be from Japan, Korea and China. And these are batteries used by companies in I-phone, Samsung and Apple products. When it comes to batteries, it’s a very tricky subject right now. Still when it comes to our devices, our talk-time is longer than other brands because our capacity is larger; it’s a high-capacity battery.

Specifically, how much of talk-time are we talking about?

I will say it depends on how many applications are on at the same time. I’ll say you can talk on our device for five hours; but, however, it depends on how many apps are on. And if you look at the calculations, it’s a little higher than other devices. For me, it could be five hours; for you, it could be seven, because, may be, you are not using the same apps that I am using. But, however, what we did to solve the battle issue is that we created a stand which provides an additional five to seven hours of battery life; and, you get the stand free with every device. Why? Because we want you to have a full experience. This means you can project from your device for literally the whole of a business day, two and half to three hours on your device plus five to seven hours from the stand. You can charge your stand at home or office over-night and next day you are ready for the business day.

Projectors normally have a life-span. What’s the life-span of your devices?

The big projectors have a shorter life-span. And that’s because their technology is different from ours. Because of our unique technology, the projector in our devices has a 20,000 hours life-span; so it’s a very long-term technology.

What’s the price range for the devices?

Let me also ask you a question: How much did you pay for your Samsung Note? My point is that our price ranges are the same as those of other premium devices, even though the specifications of our devices are better than those of the Samsung and Apple devices out there.

Why did you choose to come to Africa now?
We in Akyumen Technologies are very excited to be in Accra, Ghana. Ghana will be our stepping stone into the African market. But we’re here not just to push our products into the African market, but we’re actually here to make a difference. We are here to bring devices that can begin changing not only how you do business and how you entertain, but also how you learn and educate. We have a whole range of devices, and a couple of them are made for the purpose of educating students of schools and universities in the entire continent.

Why did you choose Ghana for your Africa launch?

One of the reasons is that some of the people who work with our company happen to come from Ghana; and they are very nice people. And, they mentioned that Ghana will be a very good starting-point, because it’s a beachfront country, the people are very smart, and people want to educate their kids. However, there are citizens of so many other countries here too; and, Ghana happens to be one of the countries that a lot of people travel to. And of course, as you know also, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa. But going into Africa’s most populated country without first getting an experience of Africa is not good. So, we want to get a good experience by launching in Ghana first.

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