Microsoft honors Two Indian Startups with $30,000 Date:   Sunday , July 01, 2012 Information in books, websites and classrooms is taking a backseat as virtual classrooms have earned accolades with two startup firms, Aurus Network and NowFloats Technologies by the giant company- Microsoft. Microsoft has awarded $30,000 each to both the companies post their contribution to mobile learning. Aurus Networks was founded by a group of individuals having high educational expertise with an objective to provide education to the masses with accessibility and affordable price range for them. It offers cloud based practical classroom with two ways, (audio/ video) with HD quality at a speed of 200 kbps. They are known for their satellite classrooms and online education. The content is especially for IIT, AIEEE, IAS, electrical engineering and other higher programs like MBA. "Many educational and training institutes today are looking to getting into the distance/online education space and offer their classes live to remotely located students and centres," says Piyush Aggarwal, CEO & Founder, Aurus Network. NowFloats Technologies founded by Ex-Microsoft employees, Jasminder Singh Gulati, Ronak Kumar Samantray, Nitin Jain, and Neeraj Sabharwal; is a Location Based Service provider. The company is focused on providing cutting edge mobile solutions for businesses and consumers across the country. The service allows users to add thoughts and pictures about a specific location, read other thoughts for that location and browse through events and deals happening around their current location. The developer of NowFloat says that "Information to consumers is cluttered and their challenge lies in reaching out to as many people without geographical barriers, in the vicinity they can reach to and being economical at the same time." NowFloats allows businesses to add information about their place through the mobile app or through SMS. Businesses can also send offers and updates to users around their location provided the user has subscribed to their updates.