Customising The News

Carlos Fernandes has invented the 'Blaze', an application, where consumers can get the news they like to read or see. Thereafter, the user can editorialise it to their liking

By Shevlin Sebastian

One day, Carlos Fernandes, the CEO of the Singapore-based Blaze Company read an article which talked about Comedy Central as being one of the most trusted sources of news. “I was surprised to read it because the anchors are actually giving their version of the news,” says Carlos.

That was when Carlos got an idea. And now, he has come up with a bot called Blaze. A bot is a cloud-based application that automates the tasks that you do.

This is how it works. Blaze gets to know what users like and then it will scan the web for content that the user would like to read or see. You can access it on Facebook Messenger.

“After that, a user can editorialise it,” says Carlos. “In other words, you can add filters, image, text or video and make the news story your own.”

He gives an example. During the Vijay Mallya extradition saga from the UK to India by the Indian government, there was a photo of the Indian tycoon with a caption which stated that he is fighting extradition. “Someone quickly added a crown on his head, to signify 'the king of good times', and added a tag line which said, 'I am too sexy for the Indian jail',” says Carlos.

The excited entrepreneur says, “It's just four or five words, but it tells you so much about the story, and about the world that we are living in. So, imagine a scenario where people will start reading your take on the news that comes from different sources.”

This is one of the many achievements of Carlos. In 2006, he patented the world’s first Internet-based Digital Video Recorder called Record TV. Following its success, Carlos brought out the InstantTV app, which soon became a top-selling service in Singapore. It basically offers a slew of TV channels on your iOS and Android devices.

Apart from that, the Mumbai-born Carlos Fernandes has been identified as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Geneva, and was in Businessweek's Top 25 Entrepreneurs in Asia. He has also served as an adviser to many governments on youth development, technology and entrepreneurship. Apart from that, he is a member of numerous international organisations.

Meanwhile, when asked about life in Singapore, Carlos says, “Singapore is an easy place to live. You don't have to focus on things like traffic jams, slow Internet speed and poor infrastructure like I had to when I was growing up in Mumbai.”

When he would go to college, Carlos would spend a minimum of four hours travelling to and fro on buses. “But at the end of the day, you become resilient and capable of surmounting difficulties,” he says.

However, the disadvantage of living in Singapore is that you tend to become soft. “Sometimes, you hear people say, 'I don't want to work in this job because it is too far from my house',” he says. “But in Singapore, wherever you want to go, you will reach it in less than an hour and that too, you are travelling in an air conditioned train.”

Carlos is also worried about the impact of this smooth life on his children [daughter Chamoni, 7 ½ and son Leon, 5]. “I am not sure how they will face it when problems arise,” says Carlos. “It is easy to move from a problem-city to a no-problem city. But it is very hard to move from a no-problem one to a problem city.”

Carlos pauses and then says, “But then, that is life. There are pros and cons to everything.”

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)