As governments and regulated industries rethink their digital communication practices amid escalating cyber risks and stringent data-residency laws, Convay, a Bangladesh-built video collaboration platform, is positioning itself as the sovereign solution. With a security-first design, Convay ensures that organizations maintain control, compliance, and continuity in their video communications, providing a reliable platform for sensitive conversations.
The Sovereignty Challenge with “Default” Meeting Tools
Over the past decade, video meetings have transitioned from conference rooms to the cloud, becoming a critical tool for policy discussions, classrooms, and corporate meetings. However, this shift has raised essential concerns about data privacy and control. With most video conferencing tools hosted on foreign servers, key questions about the location of sensitive data, who has access to it, and the jurisdiction under which it falls, have become pressing issues.
For public institutions and regulated enterprises, these questions are more than theoretical. Tools that are hosted outside national borders can jeopardize data residency, complicate investigations, and expose organizations to risks such as vendor lock-in or abrupt policy changes. As a result, while these technologies accelerate communication, they can hinder governance and compliance efforts.
Convay: A Bangladesh-Built Alternative
Convay, developed in Dhaka, offers a solution crafted to address these concerns from the ground up. The platform is designed to prioritize security, compliance, and operational continuity. Unlike consumer software retrofitted for enterprise use, Convay was built specifically for government and regulated industries where sensitive data handling is crucial. Shaped by feedback from public-sector teams, regulated enterprises, and educational networks, Convay ensures modern video meeting capabilities without compromising data control.
According to Synesis IT PLC, the company behind Convay, the platform’s design was influenced by the unique needs of organizations that demand robust security and data sovereignty, without sacrificing ease of use and collaboration efficiency.
What Convay Offers
Convay is an all-in-one video collaboration platform that integrates secure video conferencing, encrypted chat, file sharing, meeting recordings, and administrative controls. The platform operates with three fundamental principles that distinguish it from consumer-focused applications.
Convay offers sovereign deployment options that allow organizations to run the platform on-premises, in a national cloud, or in a hybrid model. This ensures that meeting data stays within national jurisdiction and under organizational control, aligning with data-residency requirements.
With enterprise-grade security, Convay utilizes multiple layers of encryption and access control to secure all aspects of the platform, including media, chat, and stored data such as recordings and attachments.
Convay’s granular governance capabilities allow organizations to define policies for who can host, join, record, share, and export meeting content. These policies are tightly integrated with identity management systems and audit requirements, ensuring a secure and compliant environment for all users.
Convay’s Commitment to Digital Sovereignty
Convay goes further than typical video conferencing solutions by incorporating several key features designed to enhance digital sovereignty and security. Administrators can enforce country lock, which restricts access to participants from specific regions, and domain lock, which limits access to approved email domains. These features reduce the risk of unauthorized access and prevent foreign infrastructure from entering sensitive meetings.
Another notable feature is the watermarking of media and content. This includes live video, shared screens, and downloadable files, all of which can be watermarked with dynamic user information, session details, and timestamps. This added layer of protection helps deter unauthorized redistribution of sensitive content. Administrators also have the option to disable content forwarding, restrict downloads, and require approval for meeting recordings, further strengthening control over shared content.
Convay ensures robust encryption by using DTLS-SRTP for secure media transport and end-to-end encryption for chat messages. Recordings and transcripts are securely stored with encrypted storage, and encryption keys are always under the customer’s control, particularly in self-hosted deployments. This is crucial for aligning with data-residency laws and ensuring compliance with audit requirements.
The platform’s integration with identity providers supports single sign-on (SSO) and role-based access controls, ensuring that only authorized users can access, record, or share meeting content. Additionally, comprehensive audit logs track every activity, providing a transparent and secure trail for compliance purposes.
Optimized for Low-Bandwidth Environments
Not every strategic conversation happens over high-speed internet connections, especially in rural or remote areas. Convay’s media stack is optimized to handle variable and low-bandwidth networks, ensuring that video meetings remain uninterrupted even in challenging connectivity conditions. With adaptive bitrate streaming and resilient reconnection capabilities, Convay enables continuous collaboration, minimizing disruptions and reducing the need for frequent reconnection attempts.
Flexible Deployment Models
Convay offers flexible deployment models to accommodate the needs of a wide range of organizations. The on-premise model, or deployment within a national data center, ensures that all data, including logs, recordings, and transcripts, is kept under the organization’s full custody. This is ideal for high-security sectors like defense, justice, and critical infrastructure, where air-gapped options and strict network segmentation are required.
The sovereign cloud model provides a secure managed SaaS solution hosted within national borders, offering customers a fast rollout option. This model ensures that data remains within the country’s borders while also providing managed updates, service-level agreements (SLAs), and customer-managed encryption keys, making it well-suited for ministries, state enterprises, and large regulated organizations.
Finally, the hybrid model combines the benefits of on-prem and sovereign cloud deployments. Sensitive workloads, such as media processing and storage, can be handled on-premises, while non-sensitive services can be managed in the cloud. This model is ideal for multi-agency programs or phased migrations, where a balance of security and scalability is needed.
Convay AI Suite: Smarter Collaboration
Convay also integrates an AI suite designed to enhance productivity without compromising security. The AI tools include automatic transcription with speaker diarisation, live captions and translations (including English↔Bangla), and the ability to generate instant summaries, decision items, and action points. AI can also assist with drafting follow-up emails, checking for agenda adherence, and providing Q&A support for hosts during meetings.
The AI-driven semantic search feature enables users to quickly rediscover knowledge across past meetings, chat logs, and shared files, significantly improving the efficiency of knowledge management and retrieval. Additionally, AI noise cancellation improves audio quality in challenging environments, ensuring better comprehension and more accurate transcripts.
Cost Control Without Vendor Lock-In
Convay’s licensing model is tailored for public-sector organizations and regulated enterprises, offering both on-prem and sovereign cloud deployment options. Unlike traditional global SaaS providers, which rely on per-user, per-month pricing, Convay offers a licensing structure that supports long-term cost management. By avoiding cross-border data egress fees and reducing reliance on recurring cloud services, Convay provides a more sustainable, cost-effective alternative for large-scale, policy-bound deployments.
Real-World Use Cases
Convay has already been adopted by government agencies, education networks, and regulated enterprises in Bangladesh. Its primary use cases include policy-grade meetings that require jurisdictional control and auditable governance, operational coordination for field offices with variable connectivity, and education and training where strict recording, watermarking, and access policies must be adhered to.
Why Convay Matters Now
Three key forces are converging to make Convay an essential tool for today’s digital landscape:
- Data Localization and Privacy Laws – Governments are implementing stricter data-residency laws, making it essential for organizations to have control over where their data is stored and processed.
- Geopolitical and Supply Chain Risks – Organizations need to secure control over their communications infrastructure, especially when faced with the uncertainties of foreign-hosted platforms.
- Public Finance Scrutiny – As governments and enterprises face increasing scrutiny on their spending, Convay’s more cost-effective, flexible licensing model offers a practical solution to the rising costs of cloud services.
The Competitive Landscape
Global video conferencing platforms are increasingly offering regional hosting options and improved encryption, but they still rely on foreign infrastructure. True digital sovereignty, which involves complete control over data, encryption keys, and policies, requires local deployment options like Convay. By meeting these needs, Convay positions itself as a valuable solution for organizations prioritizing data sovereignty.
Roadmap and Future Partnerships
Convay’s roadmap includes expanding compliance tools, automating administrative policies, and integrating with external systems like learning platforms and identity providers. The company is also exploring international partnerships in regions where data-residency laws align with Bangladesh’s, which could help extend its reach into similar markets.
Conclusion
The era of “one-size-fits-all” video conferencing tools is over, especially for governments and regulated sectors. Convay represents a uniquely Bangladeshi solution to the challenges of secure, sovereign video collaboration. With its focus on security, compliance, and operational continuity, Convay provides a platform that empowers organizations to maintain jurisdictional control over their communications. In an age where digital sovereignty is more critical than ever, Convay offers a compelling alternative to foreign-hosted platforms, ensuring that critical conversations remain within local control.
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