EO Global Student Entrepreneur Award Winner’s Company Acquired by Cisco

Revolutionary voice-to-text AI note-taking platform transforms meetings into useful business data

Alexandria, Virginia, USA (15 October 2019) -- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), the world’s leading peer-to-peer network of successful business owners, commends the phenomenal business achievement of the 2017 EO Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (EO GSEA) competitor whose entrepreneurial journey epitomizes a best-case scenario for any startup.

Rishav Jalan, winner of the 2017 national EO GSEA competition in United Arab Emirates, is a co-founder of Wrappup, the Dubai-based voice-to-text, AI note-taking startup that was acquired by California-based Voicea in 2018. In September 2019, Wrappup (Voicea) announced that it was acquired by Cisco, which intends to enhance its Webex product with Wrappup’s robust meeting transcription capability.

“We are very thankful to Entrepreneurs’ Organization for its leadership of the GSEA program. It was a great experience being a part of this competition,” said Jalan, who competed in the 2017 EO GSEA Global Finals in Frankfurt, Germany. “We not only had the access to network and gain guidance from local and international entrepreneurs, but also had an opportunity to connect with fellow entrepreneurs. That served as a major milestone in carving a niche for our startup.”

EO actively encourages student entrepreneurs by holding its annual EO GSEA competition, which annually results in over 100 competitions in over 50 countries for students who own and operate a business while attending a university. The intense, international competition culminates with the Global Finals, where 50+ “studentpreneurs” represent their country, making connections with both fellow competitors and seasoned entrepreneurs who share knowledge, experience and a global network of contacts and mentors that can help drive startup success.

“We are delighted—but not surprised—that one of our hardworking, brilliant student entrepreneurs achieved a level of success that attracted Cisco as a buyer,” said Carrie Santos, Chief Executive Officer of EO. “The goal of EO GSEA is to inspire young entrepreneurs worldwide by bringing global visibility to their ethical, innovative products and solutions. And best of all, these businesses yield profits while enhancing social responsibility to make the world a better place.”

Jalan met his co-founders, Rami Salman and Ayush Chordia, during a 24-hour Hackathon where they prototyped their technology platform that was inspired by Salman’s hours spent organizing and indexing meeting notes. The three opted for stock in lieu of cash when Wrappup was acquired by Voicea, and are excited by the Cisco acquisition which will enable the technology to scale globally.

Wrappup’s (Voicea’s) real-time note-taking solution merges AI with speech recognition technology. It will soon help users worldwide turn talk into action with automatic, searchable note-taking technology, making a positive impact by creating more productive communications in the workplace, classroom, conference center and beyond.

“Our vision for the technology is to fully automate the experience of meeting minutes, like some sort of AI secretary,” Jalan stated. “It detects important moments in a conversation, recognizing clusters of keywords and suggesting highlights for the user, creating playable, bite-sized notes from the discussion. Over time, we will train our algorithms to fully automate discussion summaries, making any discussion accessible, searchable and useful.”

The 2019-2020 competition season for EO GSEA is now open. To know more, visit: http://gsea.org/apply/