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Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

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Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#11

Post by DowagerDave »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #8
simonw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they using APIs? It's not clear from the article, which mentions that many international cloud services are unavailable in Bhutan (presumably due to those companies not accepting payments from Bhutan residents). > “One of the main challenges we face is the inability to access international payment platforms such as Stripe and PayPal. Additionally, we do not have access to cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google…

I think this section of their website shows some examples of their work: https://www.nomindbhutan.com/#featuredbot It seems to be mostly chatbot integrations and development. I think it is difficult to judge for anyone in a western country, what challenges they are facing regarding services not being offered in their country.

it's probably not unlike what it was like to say "let's build a chatbot company" in the west 20+ years ago. Way less compute power & lego-component services to utilize, higher prices for everything, and much more build evrything yourself.

Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#15

Post by polotics »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #10

Bhutan looks so cosy. Would love to travel there.

Been there.

When you land in Paro airport be sure to look out to the right, this is one of if not the most challenging landings in the world. Check out the approach https://community.infiniteflight.com/t/a-guide-to-the-paro-a...

Be sure you are aware of the tourist fee, aka. sustainable development fee, $100 per day I believe right now. If Barcelona implemented the same I don't think the locals would have to resort to water pistols on the Ramblas.

Do visit the Tiger's Nest, be ready for long walks, if the weather is rainy be very careful about some of the trecks, torrents are dangerous.

Apart from this, if you like spicy food and the feeling that somehow all the other tourists forgot to come, go for it!

Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#16

Post by [deleted] »

polotics wrote: post #15
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #10

Bhutan looks so cosy. Would love to travel there.

Been there. When you land in Paro airport be sure to look out to the right, this is one of if not the most challenging landings in the world. Check out the approach https://community.infiniteflight.com/t/a-guide-to-the-paro-a... Be sure you are aware of the tourist fee, aka. sustainable development fee, $100 per day I believe right now. If Barcelona implemented the same I don't think the locals would have to resort t…

[deleted]

Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#17

Post by Ugyen_Tech »

simonw wrote: post #4
thaithrowawayy wrote: post #3

So fascinating, we have 7 college kids "struggling" to build an webapp using AI apis......

Are they using APIs? It's not clear from the article, which mentions that many international cloud services are unavailable in Bhutan (presumably due to those companies not accepting payments from Bhutan residents). > “One of the main challenges we face is the inability to access international payment platforms such as Stripe and PayPal. Additionally, we do not have access to cloud servers like AWS, Azure, and Google…

https://www.sherigai.com/

Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#18

Post by Ugyen_Tech »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #2

> As of June, NoMindBhutan had 150,000 ngultrum ($1,799 [USD]) in the bank For context, google search puts the average monthly Bhutan salary at ~200 USD.

Yeah, it's a bit more compared to our average monthly salary, but I'm not sure how much you understand our work and sacrifices to save up this $1,799. We've been running our startup without paying ourselves a single penny for 13 months straight, using our own pocket money for traveling and covering expenses the entire time. We've earned extra funds by developing websites for local people, and every bit of money we get from this goes straight into our bank account. That's how we've managed to save this amount. We have our goals, and getting external funds is like finding a unicorn here, so we want to reinvest in ourselves.

Re: Bhutan's first AI startup is seven college kids in a dorm

#20

Post by Ugyen_Tech »

thaithrowawayy wrote: post #3

So fascinating, we have 7 college kids "struggling" to build an webapp using AI apis......

Honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s API or running your own LLMs—users don’t care, bro. What matters most is the user experience and the quality of the output. We wish we could also host our fine-tuned LLMs on the cloud, running all our products like this. Unfortunately, that’s just not possible where we are. So we’re left with using APIs.
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