Intraix collaborates with Gametize to create mobile app that makes saving electricity fun

Singapore startups Intraix and Gametize have joined forces to develop a mobile app for the South West Community Development Council’s (SWCDC) ECo Challenge initiative. It is available for download on the iOS App Store. SWCDC is a government organization that promotes cohesion within communities.

The ECo Challenge program, aimed at helping Singapore residents monitor their household energy consumption, uses the app to engage users in a series of challenges. Once they completed these mini-games, they will earn points which can be redeemed for real-world rewards.

The app, created using the GameMaki API, is a natural fit for Gametize since the company specializes in creating white label gamification platforms for events, marketing activities, and contests. Intraix has paid GameMaki a fee to used the API.

What I find curious though is the fact that Intraix has chosen to create a consumer-facing app even though it has pivoted from a household energy efficiency outfit into a B2B startup targeting data servers. It turns out that it’s sort of a one-off that doesn’t signify a change in the startup’s focus.

Rather, it was a pro bono effort spearheaded by a volunteer, explained Bryan Lee, co-founder of Intraix. While sharing about what Intraix does at a computing class at National University of Singapore, a guy named Chris Cai expressed interest in turning one of Intraix’s old products into a mobile app.

“Another week later, Chris came back with a team. We chatted even more, we laughed and fell in love. We decided to go ahead with the mobile app, knowing that no one will be willing to pay for such a service,”  Bryan told SGE via email.

“Chris’s team consists of builders. They want to build something fun and something people will find useful. So they are pretty cool  about the fact that no revenue would come from the app.”

They sought their contacts out to promote the app, and eventually SWCDC agreed to help.

Partnerships like the one between Intraix and GameMaki seem to have become more common in Asia lately, and that is setting a good precedence for the ecosystem.

Last year, four Singapore companies — LoveByte, TaskAmigo, HelpYouMarry, and HungryGoWhere — teamed up on a marketing campaign that targeted couples. We also witnessed a partnership between Burpple and Chope to create a restaurant reservation app.

In the region, Memebox and Between, two companies from South Korea, struck a partnership that saw a limited amount of beauty boxes being marketed to Between users.

And we must not forget the fact that OokBee and SCOOP, the leading e-publishing platforms from Thailand and Indonesia respectively, announced a tie-up to facilitate knowledge sharing, securing publisher deals, and cross-marketing.

“Startups should be working together at least at the initial stage… decisions are made sometimes within hours so it is much easier for startups to work together,” Bryan wrote in a blog post announcing the partnership.