The project was probably the first of its kind seen in Engineering colleges, atleast in Gujarat. The entire work was carried out by undergraduate students majoring in Electronics, Computer and Information Technology under the aegis of Center for Excellence in Information and Computer Technology (Nirma Education and Research Foundation) with mentoring by the leading entrepreneurs, Dr. Madhu Mehta (Anjaleem Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.) and Mr. Parag Amin (Radiqal). The goal from the onset was to have the students apply the theoretical knowledge towards the development of a live product while going through the actual design and test cycle.

Started in 2001, with the government of India legally allowing for VoIP (Voice over IP), the original aim of the project was to develop a suite of VoIP products - phones, gateways, etc. I was a member of the team which originally carried out a business feasibility analysis and performed market research to identify the key technological issues like which protocols to support (SIP vs. H.323), the possible hardware components (ex. the processor - Atmel vs. Motorola vs. TI), which Operating Systems to use (uCLinux vs. VxWorks), etc. This was performed from both an economic point of view in order to keep the product sellable in the Indian Market and from the import viability for the components, etc.

From this initial analysis evolved a set of decisions with guidance from the mentors. The collective decision was that we would go in for a VoIP phone for the time being. In the next stage, the team was divided into that working to design a hardware layout and a software design for it. I was now leading the Hardware Design team. The goal was to come up with a design which allowed for future extensibility if we needed it while at the same time avoiding feature bloats. We made significant progress - but unfortunately I had to leave for my MS before we were completely done. The task, however, was passed on successfully to the next batch which finished developing a working prototype.