Smart Accounts

I am the kind of person who will regularly check the his bank accounts to make sure they macth with his expense sheet (yes I have a Google spreadsheet that I use as my expense planner). Whenever I check my bank account I wonder if the expense sheet can be built into the account itself. When I sign my car EMI, Rent and Mobile bill cheques every month, I have to make sure that the sum (EMI, Rent and Bill) is there until the cheques are cleared, recalculating the amout left with me every time I check my account online.

Something as simple as a list built into the online account can make life much easier. The amount in his account will never be altered in any way but the data will be manageable and be used in different ways.

The bank can however use this personal data(with the consent of the user) to offer him different schemes. For e.g. A user spends Rs. 6500 on car EMI, this data can be used for different offers on financing a new/old car, replacing it with new ones etc. Same is the case with investment details.



There are a loads of services that can be offered to a user based on his account information.

THAT WAS MY IDEA

well well well, what a day that was, 20th october 2008, when my wife was in the kitchen packing my lunch box and I was reading the news paper. As I turned to page #3 in MailToday, I saw this headline that really caught my eye (CAR THAT ENSURES YOU ONLY FACE THE GO SIGNAL).

Way back in May 2006 (when I used to work for Beehive Systems, Noida), Me, Nitin and Neha were sitting in a Mall nearby waiting for the movie to start when this thought came to my mind. I got so excited that I took a paper napkin and started drawing the architecture of the system that I named "Always Mobile".

The idea was to keep a vehicle mobile and avoid waiting at the traffic signal just by calculating the speed at which the vehicle should be moving. I thought this is a brilliant idea and decided to send it to someone who can implement it. I searched Google for Traffic Management System and found out that Siemens make these systems worldwide. As it was a very well known company, I decided to send to to Siemens.

I Googled for sometime to find the right person and got Lothar Belger's email address. Quickly made a document with some description and an image and sent it to him crossing my fingers and hoping to get a reply (Here is my original document).

I got the reply (:-), and Lothar said that he has forwarded the request to the concerned department and they will analyze it and get back to me with details. But here my luck got stuck !! and this is what I got...

Dear Mr. Abhimanyu Sirohi,

thank you for your email.

Our expert have reviewed your idea and do not see a need to share further details at this point in time.

I thought to myself, maybe the idea was not so brilliant... but atleast I tried and the document got analyzed by a BIG company's department.

Now when I saw exactly the same thing being done by Audi, I was really surprised. I was feeling excited, surprised and sad at the same time...

Just wanted to let people know that !!! IT WAS MY IDEA !!!

Updated 8-July-2010
Added the original post from MailToday

UPDATED 19-Sept-2012
More from the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/SignalGuru-an-app-that-helps-drivers-avoid-red-lights/articleshow/16434110.cms