PICKME
Q: How has PickMe evolved as a technology platform?
A: We began with two rides a day – which has increased exponentially – and have ventured into many avenues and the journey continues. As we progressed, technological advancements became a necessity. Conventional technology no longer worked so we needed to think beyond traditional methods and innovate.
So we took initiatives such as using Go – a statically typed and compiled programming language. We also invested in data science and gained insights from the collected data. Essentially, we know our cities better than anyone else.
Digital Mobility Solution Lanka is a technology company that connects the online and offline worlds. We’re thinking out of the box to try to solve current and new mobility inefficiencies, and thus enhance the system.
Q: What is the role of the company’s IT force in enhancing mobility?
A: Our technological capacity and how we use it to solve real life mobility problems play a key role in the company’s success. As we look to the future, we must gather data, and build our knowledge and capacity to facilitate millions of rides every day.
Mobility issues are global and Sri Lanka is a great canvas to identify solutions. We’re tackling these problems successfully with locally gathered data and understanding, using data science and AI to gain insights and find solutions. Therefore, we built a robust IT force not only to manage clients’ ongoing requirements but also effectively shape the next generation of mobility ecosystems.
Our team consists of over 100 IT engineers and we hope to double or triple this in the next two years by recruiting the best talent in the country.
Q: Will the company share its insights with the tech community?
A: We plan to share some of our codes with open-source communities. As we were early adopters of certain emerging technologies, we’ve built libraries and classes that may not be available elsewhere on the internet. This will improve the code base and knowledge will be crowdsourced – shared technologies usually lead to more adaptations.
Initially, we will contribute to Apache Kafka and expand later. As we innovate, we’ll continue sharing our frameworks with the larger tech community. We hope to contribute to the fusion of technologies that will mark the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
As a nation, we should play a meaningful role in shaping the world’s technologically empowered future. We have the necessary talent and knowledge so it’s a matter of using them.
Q: How does the company look to improve its service?
A: Where there is demand, providing supply is always a challenge. We run many programmes, and use technology and operations to cater to demand.
For example, we have a ‘real- time heat map’ so that drivers can identify high demand areas. This gives rise to expanded opportunities.
Similarly, we continue to identify inventive means to keep our supply flowing, and enable clients to avail themselves of reliable, convenient and speedy transport solutions.
Technology plays the most significant role in our efforts as it enables us to find effective ways to solve real life problems. As mobility challenges are global, ours is one of the first Sri Lankan companies to actively engage in a worldwide problem.
Q: What is the role of user experience (UX), AI and data science in your endeavours?
A: UX is extremely important and we want to ensure that users consistently enjoy a hassle free and reliable service.
Global transportation inefficiencies exist as the challenges are quite diverse. Mobility is strongly linked to human behaviour, which by nature is unpredictable. It’s one the most difficult areas
to automate as you have to tackle traffic and predict how long it will take to complete a journey. Linear algorithms will not capture the complexity of the problem and these dynamic challenges require inference.
Our business relies on AI and data science, which offer insights that straight logic will not yield. The larger part of PickMe is ‘plumbing’ – i.e. moving messages around. Learning algorithms decide which messages reach where and who should receive them. Meanwhile, data science enables us to build adaptive systems, which can make more informed and smarter decisions.
Q: What are you offering the tech community?
A: Soon we will be releasing a calendar to the tech community to conduct meetups, and discuss frameworks, data and insights.
We would like to share certain growth practices, open-source projects and UX exercises that we’ve conducted internally. In fact, we’ve already done this with some universities – we supply data so that they can crunch it and decipher evolving patterns.
The next phase of our journey will have a more defined focus on technology and using it to solve social challenges. We plan to reach out to the larger tech community and share our knowledge – specifically frameworks and data – to forge ahead not only as a company but as a nation too.
In terms of contributions, we will use data science and AI to solve real-time problems to be at the forefront of shaping the future of mobility.
Jiffry Zulfer
CEO
Mithila Somasiri
Chief Technology Officer
Telephone 7433433
Email support@pickme.lk
Website www.pickme.lk
