Civic Tech Connect 2018 marked the official launch of the Civic Tech India 2018 Accelerator and brought together entrepreneurs and investors to build the civic technology ecosystem in India
Global philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, in partnership with venture development firm Village Capital, hosted India’s first-ever civic technology event – the Civic Tech Connect 2018 – focused on bringing together investors and entrepreneurs to build India’s civic tech ecosystem. The event, held in Bengaluru on June 14, saw more than 100 entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropic funders, industry experts, and civic tech opinion leaders from across the country come together on a single platform for the first time.
The event connected aspiring civic tech entrepreneurs with potential investors, mentors, and potential customers to drive conversations around the development of the civic tech industry in India and further boost its adoption. While the industry is still at a nascent stage in India, its development has accelerated across the globe in the past couple of years.
With 337 million Indians slated to use a smartphone in 2018 and an increasing number of technology-led initiatives by the government such as Digital India, BharatNet, and the Smart Cities program, the Indian civic tech ecosystem is poised for growth. Omidyar Network, which has invested more than $132M across 75 civic tech organizations around the globe to date, with more than $9M+ investments in India, is keen to further nurture and develop this budding ecosystem in the country through the Civic Tech India 2018 Accelerator program, in collaboration with Village Capital.
Speaking at the event, Roopa Kudva, Partner and managing director at Omidyar Network India Advisors, commented, “India needs more entrepreneurs driving the growth of the civic tech industry. With important technology enablers in place, the sector has the potential to develop rapidly. As the ‘next half billion’ Indians come online for the first time through their mobile phones over the next five years, there is a huge opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs to create innovative civic tech solutions to enable central, state, and local governments to be more responsive and efficient in the delivery of critical services, while empowering citizens to engage more effectively with governments.”
The event also saw discussions with experts such as Viraj Tyagi, CEO, eGovernments Foundation; political economist and former IAS officer, Santhosh Mathew, and Kartik Desai, executive director, Asha Impact; as they shared their insights and experiences in developing technological initiatives that will scale and create long term impact. Poor infrastructure, lack of waste management and traffic issues were identified as some of the key civic issues that can be tackled though civic tech, and the discussion highlighted the opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs looking to build scalable and impactful solutions in this space in India.
“Awareness around the application of civic tech remains low among potential end-users, even with increasing smartphone and internet usage,” said Deepak Menon, regional director, Emerging Markets, Village Capital. “It is important to not only create business opportunities and provide mentorship for entrepreneurs to ideate and innovate within this space, but also proactively initiate conversations around civic technology among citizens as a viable solution to their everyday civic and social issues,” he added.
Civic Tech Connect 2018 was the official launch of Omidyar Network and Village Capital’s Civic Tech India 2018 Accelerator program. The three-month accelerator program will train early-stage civic engagement ventures by bringing together entrepreneurs, influencers, the government, and potential funders from across the country, through a series of forums and workshops. The program is designed to help the ventures scale, grow their revenue, and become more investment ready, while building a community of diverse ventures and stakeholders working to solve India’s most pressing civic engagement problems.
Boeing has inaugurated the newest phase of the Boeing India Engineering and Technology Center (BIETC) in Bengaluru. Spread across 150,000 sq. ft. and eight floors, the new facility will double Boeing’s existing footprint of 160,000 sq. ft. and will accommodate another 1,000 new employees, who will work on cutting-edge technologies that will drive aerospace innovation from India, for India and the world.
While the new facility will incorporate software technologies into design, manufacturing and service offerings, Boeing will continue to scale up its aerospace, R&D and engineering activities in its existing facilities, which are also pursuing a journey of growth.
BIETC is recruiting and scaling up exponentially. The center has increased its employee count from just 100 when it was inaugurated in early 2017, to over 1,000. And, as the center grows over the next few years, it will develop into a team of over 2,500 employees in specialized fields of IT, engineering and R&D. From an IT perspective, key focus would be on cutting-edge areas such as Product Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Data Analytics and Software Design for aerospace.
BIETC is also continuing to grow teams focused on advanced aerospace research in materials and manufacturing, aircraft structures and airplane health management. Boeing’s engineering teams continue to excel and innovate in Digital Aviation, electrical, mechanical and systems design and providing support for lab and flight testing for aircrafts.
“We see India as a hotbed for path-breaking software solutions that can redefine the way the world designs, operates and manages airplanes,” said Ted Colbert, Boeing’s chief information officer and senior vice president of Information Technology & Data Analytics, while inaugurating the new facility. “The IT talent and capabilities available in India will be an enabler for Boeing’s success across the world.”
The facility will contain an integrated lab for Internet of Things (IoT), Analytics and Mobility, a 3DX lab to develop 3D experiences, a Systems Integration Lab and a Proof of Concepts Lab. Over 25 Collaboration Areas in the facility will further enable teams to work together to develop, scale and deliver aerospace innovations with agility. The new facility will also enable driving strategic initiatives like Digital Transformation.
“We are excited about Boeing’s ever expanding footprint in India. The new engineering facility at BIETC reflects an agile and driven Boeing in India, one that inspires people to collaborate and accelerate step-change innovation,” said Pratyush Kumar, president, Boeing India. “This center brings together engineers from the fields of aerospace, computer science and mathematics, who will collaborate to achieve next-gen breakthroughs for aircraft design, manufacturing and maintenance.”
In addition to developing engineering capabilities, Boeing is also actively involved in developing skills across the aviation sector by partnering with leading Indian vocational training institutes, industrial training institutes and Indian partners, to train workers for the aerospace industry.
YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank launched its in-house multi-sector start-up accelerator YES SCALE (Smart City, Clean Tech, Agritech, Lifesciences Tech, Edu Tech). The 15-week program is aimed at creating financial innovations by Sourcing, Scaling, and Sustaining Emerging Technology Solutions in Sunrise Sectors of the Indian economy.
YES SCALE aims to address the 3 biggest scale-up challenges faced by technology startups-
ü Commercialization: Each of the 5 accelerators under YES SCALE will have dedicated industry partners who will support the development of a Proof of Concept (PoC) and go-to- market/commercialization of the developed solution
ü Funding Support: YES SCALE will provide a PoC grant of upto INR 20 lakhs (to ensure startups remain cost neutral during PoC development) and also access to funding of upto USD 1 mn through Investment/Fund partners
ü Mentorship/Guidance: Over 100 mentors will be guiding startups during the 15 week programs. Each startup will be supported by 1 sector expert, 1 technology expert and 1 investment partner
Additionally, for start-ups that have ready solutions, YES SCALE will provide access to a technology sandbox to help them test their solutions in a risk-free environment and give them support worth over USD 1 mn through cloud credits (Google, AWS, Microsoft based on startup preference), cloud telephony, SaaS invoice discounting etc. Through YES SCALE, startups looking to take their solutions global will be able to do so with YES BANK’s partnerships with 20+ start-up ecosystems around the world across USA, Europe, Middle East and South-East Asia.
YES FINTECH – YES BANK’s Fintech accelerator program which was launched a year ago received an overwhelming response from the global startup & investment ecosystem, and helped the bank establish that fintechs or tech-fins have the potential to create disruptive impact on multiple sectors like agriculture, heath, smart cities, education and clean energy.
Commenting on the development, Rana Kapoor, MD & CEO, YES BANK, said, “The success of 2 cohorts of YES Fintech have demonstrated our Bank's strengths in partnering fintechs to co-create industry changing Banking solutions. Now, with YES SCALE, we will replicate this model across YES BANK's focus sectors like Smart Cities, Agriculture, Clean Energy, Education and Healthcare, to build deep interventions jointly with our corporate clients. This is fully in line with the Bank's vision since inception - which was to cater to the 'sunrise sectors of India's economy' using knowledge banking to deliver impactful ecosystem solutions.
Recently, YES BANK operationalized its Agritech start-up acceleration programme under YES SCALE, with sectoral organizations like ITC, Nestle, MTR and Amul committing to adopt solutions scaled up in the program and commercializing them either through integration in their systems or further distributing the solution with their supply chain partners. YES BANK has also partnered with Omnivore Partners, Anthill Ventures and Artha Venture Partners who will support the program as Investment Partners while Villgro will provide support to YES SCALE as the official Program Partner.
Commenting on the partnership Jinesh Shah, Founding Partner, Omnivore Partners said “When banks like YES BANK launch Accelerators like YES SCALE, it is a clear indication of the overarching positive vibrancy in agribusiness sector where everyone wants to be a part of. Initiatives such as these are in sync with our philosophy of digitizing farm level technology solutions and scaling up the startup ecosystem.”
Speaking about the digitization process, Sanjay Sharma, CEO, MTR Foods said, “We are happy to partner YES SCALE -the agribusiness accelerator of YES BANK. Initiatives such as these align with our vision of digitizing technology solutions to address key challenges in our business model and also help scaling up the startup ecosystem.”
YES SCALE will bring together over fifty organizations, funds, ecosystems as well as Government partners for advisory support. Through YES SCALE, YES BANK is also offering its clients and partners in sunrise sectors, the opportunity to accelerate their digitization processes.
‘Conversational Banking’ has turned a new leaf with the launch of ‘Axis Aha!’, an efficient virtual assistant powered by cutting-edge technology which includes proprietary Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms. This unique chatbot provides relevant and contextual responses to customer queries and even helps make transactions on the chat window itself. Customers can initiate transactions either through voice or chat. This transactional innovation is a ground-breaking way to enable customers to execute transactions, explore products and avail banking services using simple words used in our daily conversations.
Currently hosted on the home page of the Bank website, www.axisbank.com, ‘Axis Aha!’ is capable of performing diverse actions like fund transfer, bill payments, recharges and also manage card limits, block credit and debit cards, besides others. The voice and chat interface also provides customers an opportunity to query on any of his banking needs. Axis Aha is a part of the Bank’s continuous endeavor to simplify banking by through the extensive use of technology. This interface will gradually be extended to the Mobile banking app and the Internet Banking application.
Sharing his thoughts on the launch of ‘Axis Aha!’, Praveen Bhatt, Head - Digital Banking & Customer Experience, Axis Bank, said, “The launch of ‘Axis Aha!’ takes the customer-centricity approach of the bank to an entirely different level as it lays a very strong foundation for artificial intelligence based voice and chat enabled ‘conversational banking’. In a time starved world, Axis Aha with its unique action orientation offers customers the benefit of completing simple transactions either through voice or chat in the very moment without having to navigate through any other channel.
Some unique features of ‘Axis Aha!’ are as follows:
State of the art technology:
o ‘Axis Aha!’ is powered by cutting-edge algorithms leveraging concepts of artificial intelligence and machine learning
o It is capable of crafting intelligent micro-conversations to guide, execute, suggest, remind and simplify basic banking for the customers.
o The chatbot resides on a comprehensive banking knowledge base along with self-learning algorithms continuously improve the experience.
Rich Features:
o ‘Axis Aha!’ currently provides the following capabilities – funds transfer, bill payment, recharge, block card, manage debit card.
o Upcoming features include ordering cheque book, card pin set /reset, card limit change, download e-statement / loan statement, apply for loans , cards, etc.
o The chatbot is fast; customers can straight away state their needs and it will be serviced without getting lost in the sea of navigation panels.
o It also can answer and guide customers with their queries regarding Axis Bank products and services, address grievances, apart from tracking application status as well as reporting fraud.
The newest entrant in the taxi business in Mumbai – S3 cabs is finding indigenous ways to benefit the cab drivers and reduce their operational costs. While rival taxi companies are slowing down on the EV plans, due to lack of charging points; S3 has got the approval for a mobile bio-diesel distribution pump. The pump will be used to fill bio-diesel for its cabs across Mumbai.
Speaking on the development Sohel Kazani said “I am very excited that we have received a fantabulous response from the drivers and riders both. As a company, Sahyadri Smart Safe Private Limited was a late entrant in the business, but we always wanted to be the path leaders. Going forward with our vision, we have procured the equipment and supply for bio-diesel distribution. The mobile bio-diesel distribution van will travel all over the Mumbai and have fixed timings at South Mumbai and near all Mumbai entry points. In the first stage we only want to supply the fuel to our taxis, if we are surplus, we will distribute it to other vehicles too.”
Bio-diesel blend has been made a mandate in many countries. The government had recommended a blend in 2017 but the same has not been made compulsory. Biofuels also reduce the emissions making the environment cleaner. It would help the economy by reducing crude import; India imports approximately 8 lakh crores of crude oil annually. Also, it is priced lower than convention diesel, resulting in savings for the drivers. Shifting to biofuels is also a long-term solution to the problem of rising fuel prices.
At the commercial inception of the cab services, S3 had provided a patented technology registered as 'Oxy Power' to all its drivers. This technology requires an external fitment in the car and helps in the better utilization of the fuel resulting in 20% and 30% reduction in fuel consumption. Reduced fuel consumption helped the taxis to operate at flat fares all the times. Now with BioDiesel, there will be further 5% to 10% reduction in fuel costs resulting in Net overall 40% reduction in fuel bill to be paid by the taxi owners.
“The average consumption of fuel by the cab owners based on 300km per day traveling amounts to 30 liters of diesel, and that equals to INR 2200 per day. A 40% reduction would mean INR 880 saving per day on fuel account or as much as INR 26,000 approx a month by using bio-diesel and the oxy-power unit. A pilot study made us understand that it keeps the fuel systems and fuel injector cleaner thus reducing the vehicle maintenance cost and increasing the mileage. It will also help in additional employment generation. We would like to work closely with the government to make the shift to biofuels happen and we hope that they lower the GST on bio-diesel to 5%” mentioned Sohel.
Biodiesel can be used in any diesel car without any additional modification as in the case of CNG. It is cleaner and more efficient than regular diesel. Biodiesel can be used alone or blended with regular diesel in any proportions.
Muthoot Housing Finance Company Limted , subsidiary of Muthoot Fincorp Ltd. and the affordable housing finance arm of Muthoot Pappachan Group today announced the opening of its Regional Office at Banshankari 2nd Stage in Bangalore to make affordable housing a reality for the common man, in Karnataka. Presently MHFCL is present at 59 locations across 9 states and one UT. This move comes as a part of its national expansion plan to establish additional 15 new branches across the southern and northern regions. The company is focussed on making housing finance available to the common man at attractive terms and conditions . Customers can now avail affordable loan options/schemes like home loans, self construction, home extension, home improvement loan and loan against property.
Muthoot Housing Finance Company Limited will be offering a range of home loans starting from purchase from builder, resale purchase, self-construction loans, home extension, home improvement and loan against property through these branches.
Guided by the GoI’s vision of universal housing for the urban poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna with a target of building 20 million affordable houses by 31 March 2022, the company has plans to penetrate further in this Karnataka region through its wide spread distribution network and disburse Rs 750 Crs of loan in the next 3 years. Aligning to the Group’s legacy, MHFCL’s long term vision is to enable every family in India to be able to live their aspiration of owning their own home.
Pavan K. Gupta, CEO, Muthoot Housing Finance Company Limited said, “The affordable housing market in the state of Karnataka has been on an upswing owing to increased commercial activity, positive buyer sentiments, infrastructure upgrades and improved job opportunities and this is the right time for us to further strengthen our presence in this market. We are also using technology to quicken the process of approving these loans. Our team today has access to mobility solutions which help them provide a better experience to the customers and deliver solutions at their doorsteps. A ‘dream home’ is an aspiration for many, but majority of the urban poor population are not able to make this reality because of the unavaiablity of home loans facility in this segment. Muthoot Pappachan Group’s core credo is to Empower Human Ambitions and Muthoot Housing plans & efforts are all in fulfiing the Group’s vision in letter and in spirit. We aim to reach out to this segment and enable them to get faster and hassle free acccess to their dream abode”.
Talking about expansion plans, Pavan K. Gupta highlighted, “We have set ourselves an ambitious target. In Karnataka itself, we will be opening new branches at Mysore, Hubli, Gulbarga, Davangere and Shimoga in the next 6 months. We also plan to open 10 branches across northern and western states of India.”
Genpact, a global professional services firm focused on delivering digital transformation, today announced new customer experience enhancements to Genpact Cora, its modular, artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform that helps enterprises accelerate digital transformation at scale.
The new features visualize and streamline workflows from the customer’s point-of-view to enable journey-driven transformation that connects the front, middle, and back-offices. The platform also is integrating patented Cora Journey360 software from TandemSeven, which Genpact acquired in September 2017.
“As customer journeys become the defining road map for process automation, understand this: Customers do not care about arbitrary distinctions – they only care about outcomes,” wrote Rob Koplowitz, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, in a recent report.* “The strategy of focusing on front-office applications only addresses the tip of the iceberg; true automation means back-end operational experience in support of front-end user experience.”
With these new capabilities, Genpact Cora provides a single view of customer journeys and personas, data-driven dashboards to track and monitor journey effectiveness, and connectivity to underlying operations. Genpact also is incorporating TandemSeven’s expertise in customer and user experience, design thinking, and agile methodologies.
“Superior customer experience defines success in the digital world,” said Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital officer, Genpact. “Our continued investments in Genpact Cora – combined with our deep process and domain expertise from running thousands of operations for Fortune 500 companies – give our clients a competitive edge. We speed their transformation, and drive seamless customer experiences to grow their business.”
Digital transformation for greater return on investment and growth
Genpact has implemented Genpact Cora more than a thousand times, and runs billions of transactions through the platform. The new enhancements expand on existing capabilities in natural language understanding, conversational AI, computer vision, deep learning, big data, data science, data engineering, machine learning, robotic process automation, ambient computing, dynamic workflow, and software-as-a-service. The modular platform allows clients to easily integrate advanced technologies, all delivered through a mature application program interface and open, flexible architecture.
Genpact’s ongoing strategy to drive digital-led innovation and digitally-enabled intelligent operations helps clients deliver better customer experiences, and achieve greater return on investment and business impact. For example, Genpact worked with a global nutritional supplements company to automate the client’s customer relationship management and reporting processes. The transformation enhances service and allows the company to assist more customers faster, improving response time for order inquiries by 40 percent. In addition, a North American food giant deployed Genpact Cora to reimagine its trade promotion operations for competitive growth, driving significant improvements in payment accuracy, revenue leakage, and other efficiencies. Benefits over the next five years are expected to increase revenue by $105 million and improve productivity 60 percent.
LIKE App, a short video platform and mobile app with body recognition special effects, has introduced globally the first augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) feature called ‘Shaping Magic’. Expanding its reach to more LIKE users, the new feature is available for free enabling video creators to effortlessly modify the shape and form of body features from head to toe.
In India, various entertainment mobile apps offer multiple face modification features and these apps are very popular among the youth who keep experimenting with their photos/videos. LIKE’s Shaping Magic is designed to not only leverage this trend but to also offer a much more advanced feature for youth to experiment with.Based on AI Technology, Shaping Magic feature is an innovation in video application field.
The effect is entirely customizable by the end users because it enables users to adjust the degree to which their body outline/parts are modified and also re-shape individual body elements. In other words, the LIKE users can adjust their body silhouette individually. Hence, it helps in creating the perfect video by their own definition of beauty – which they control.
LIKE’s Shaping Magic feature was introduced a few days back, and today it has become one of the top features on LIKE being used by more than 25 million users in India, and 50 million users globally. The app has also witnessed significant growth in number of downloads post launch of Shaping Magic.
Aaron Wei, Global Vice President, LIKE App said, “LIKE and parent company, Bigo Technology are dedicated to being the first to ensure that everyone can experience free AI and AR technology with utmost ease. With hundreds of unique special effects, LIKE is empowering video creators to effortlessly turn their imagination into reality.”He further added that“To give our usersaunique experience, we introduced Shaping Magic effect and we have received an overwhelming response for same. We look forward to introduce more such features allowing our users to enjoy the benefits of AI technology”
Such video platform and special effects app with cutting-edge technology including AI, AR and independently innovated body recognition enhances users to create videosof their favorite heroic / fiction characters comparable to movies.
Some of the unique special effects in LIKE app includes:
1. Super Power– Augmented reality effectbased on skeleton tracking and classification technology, empowering creators to add supernatural effects that match body movement
2. 4D Magic–AI-poweredbody movement tracking paired with image editing and special effects processing that allows for interchangeable, dynamic backgrounds that can accommodate multiple people in a video
3. Music Magic– Identifies background music while accurately matching special effects to any sound,enabling users toexpress emotions freely by choosing different themes
4. Dynamic Stickers – Applies face-detection and tracking technology to enable dozens of unique and active overlays in users’ videos, such as costumes, masks and more
Jaguar Land Rover India has begun taking bookings of its fastest production car ever, the Jaguar F-TYPE SVR. Developed by the Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) team at Jaguar Land Rover, the engineers and aerodynamic experts have scrutinised every possible component to maximize the F-TYPE SVR’s performance.
Powered by a 5.0 l Supercharged V8 engine that produces 423 kW and 700 Nm of torque, the Jaguar F-TYPE SVR can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just 3.7 s and hit a top speed of 322 km/h. The Jaguar F-TYPE SVR is available in Coupe and Convertible form.
Rohit Suri, President & Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover India Ltd. (JLRIL), said, “The new F-TYPE SVR is the first Jaguar car to have been developed by the Special Vehicle Operations. Their ideas of precision engineering reflect brilliantly in each aspect of the car. Be it design, performance or comfort; sports car enthusiasts will experience all these features when behind the wheel of the new F-TYPE SVR.”
The interiors of the car feature SVR performance seats that offer lateral support during dynamic driving. This attribute is coupled with an option of cooling, thus enhancing the overall driving experience by an impressive notch. Moreover, the lightweight Magnesium construction of the seats saves an incredible 8 kg of weight when compared with the previous generation models.
Further lightweighting has been achieved by the use of Titanium and Inconel exhaust system that saves 16 kg, while adding muscle to the roar of the F-TYPE. Forged 50.8 cm (20) alloy wheels save a further 13.8 kg, while the use of a new, larger rear bearing enables an increased stiffness of up to 37 % higher than the conventional F-TYPE rear knuckles.
Complementing the aerodynamic feasibility, the F-TYPE SVR’s V-MAX mode allows you to achieve astonishing speeds with minimum drag delivering pure driving pleasure and re-defining the art of performance. Wider Pirelli P-Zero tyres – 10 mm wider than standard F-TYPE tyres – offers improved grip and handling. Collectively, these incredible features truly highlight the F-TYPE SVR’s reputation as a powerful, agile and utterly distinctive sports car.
Lighter, faster and draped in a sleek blanket of stunning design, the new Jaguar F-TYPE SVR provides luxurious aesthetics and driver-focused performance, while retaining the comfort and daily utility provisions, atypical of all Jaguar cars.
More information on the Jaguar F-TYPE can be found on www.jaguar.in
Jaguar Product Portfolio in India
The Jaguar range in India includes XE (starting at ₹ 37.31 Lakh), XF (starting at ₹ 48.14 Lakh), F-PACE (starting at ₹ 61.91 Lakh), XJ (starting at ₹ 100.80 Lakh) and F-TYPE (starting at ₹ 134.33 Lakh). All prices mentioned are ex-showroom prices in India.
Jaguar Retailer Network in India
Jaguar vehicles are available in India through 27 authorised outlets in Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Kochi, Karnal, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mangalore, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Pune, Raipur, Vijayawada and Surat.
To mark the completion of one year and the magnificent response received by the TIGOR – a car that re-defined the compact sedan category, Tata Motors today announced the launch of its limited edition TIGOR BUZZ. Featuring an enhanced, revolutionary, stunning and luxurious design, this new edition is priced at Rs 5.68 lakhs for the petrol version and Rs 6.57 lakhs for the diesel version (ex – showroom Delhi), inclusive of the accessory kit. The TIGOR Buzz will be equipped with Manual Transmission (MT) and is based on the XT trim. It will be available across all dealerships in India starting today.
Speaking at the launch S. N. Barman – Head – Marketing, Sales and Customer Care, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors mentioned, “At Tata Motors we have always focused on catering to the evolving customer demands by introducing new products and variants at regular intervals. The TIGOR BUZZ limited edition is a true reflection of our legacy of creating something unexpected and setting new trends."
He adds that the TIGOR comes with a youthful mixture of design, style and attitude. Marking a successful year today, with robust demand since its launch, it has helped us post a month on month growth. We look forward to the TIGOR BUZZ to be a step ahead towards extending this growth and customer satisfaction.
The TIGOR marked its entry as India’s 1st StyleBack and took the compact sedan category by storm post its launch. It is the 3rd largest player in its category and has won numerous awards under the compact sedan category. With class-leading driving dynamics, both engines will be available with multi-drive modes – Eco and City. Besides, it also has an efficiently designed boot with wide and clear opening using innovative 4 bar mechanism and 419 litres of space.
The TIGOR also comes equipped with complete safety with dual airbags, ABS & EBD with CSC (Corner stability control) and reverse park assist with camera. Entertainment and great sound quality are assured by Tata Motors’ renowned ConnectNext touchscreen infotainment system by from HarmanTM, with phone-based apps including navigation, thereby addressing the ever-evolving connectivity needs of customers.
Siemens’ Process Industries and Drives and Digital Factories divisions are teaming up with Bentley Systems’ Bentley Institute to establish a Process Industries Academy that will support the companies’ joint vision for cloud services and digital workflows in engineering and operations. The Process Industries Academy will help organizations to better understand and develop an effective digital strategy across all aspects of the asset lifecycle, based on the practical experience and knowledge of the industry’s leading experts.
With recent fluctuations in the oil, gas, and global energy markets, and the subsequent impact on related process manufacturing sectors, established ways of working in the process industries are now being challenged across the entire project lifecycle. Fewer capital investments in greenfield projects, and an increased focus on optimizing productivity, performance and utilization of existing assets, have prompted the process industries to examine new ways to increase competitiveness and operating revenues.
An optimal approach to project delivery and asset performance addresses the interactions and balance between an organization’s capabilities, its people, the underlying business processes and methods, all coupled with the latest technology, to consistently improve its business outcomes.
Based on the experience and knowledge of the industry’s leading experts, the Process Industries Academy will provide sessions focusing on real-world examples of the key aspects of a digital approach to capital project delivery and asset operations. Participants will discover how developing a clear digital strategy for improved collaboration, communication, and coordination between project teams creates an ideal environment to optimize information creation and digital workflows.
Eckard Eberle, CEO, Process Automation, Process Industries and Drives Division, Siemens AG, said, “The Process Industries Academy supports the development of industry best-practice approaches, while respecting the culture and traditions within today’s process industries. Our shared vision for the academy is to offer a practical, effective means for asset owners, decision makers, and program and project managers to understand the interactions and balance between teams, processes, and technologies so they can see improved project delivery and asset performance.”
Alan Lamont, vice president of Digital Advancement Academies for Bentley Systems, said, “The Process Industries Academy will offer industry professionals an environment to learn and share practical insights about business process improvements enabled by technology, so they can educate and equip their teams to be more productive and achieve the best outcomes. With academy sessions, we hope to help participants to develop a better understanding of their role and the benefits across the asset lifecycle, with practical, real-world examples of “Going Digital” to advance capital project delivery and asset operations.”
Process Industries Academies will be situated in the following locations to support the global process industry:
· Karlsruhe, Germany at Siemens’ Process Automation World
· Houston, Texas, U.S. in Bentley’s Digital Advancement Academy
· Shanghai, China at Siemens’ Process Industry Center of Excellence
The first academy session is scheduled for November 14, 2018 in Karlsruhe at Siemens Process Automation World. A half-day preview of the Process Industries Academy will be featured during Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference in London on Monday, October 15.
Ness Digital Engineering, a global provider of digital transformation and custom software engineering services, has appointed Anshul Verma to Chief Sales Officer for North America, a new role for the company created to facilitate sales synergies and knowledge sharing across Ness’ go-to-market teams in North America and Europe. Verma will also help scale Ness’ sales team to support the company’s growth.
“Ness has always believed that it’s important to bring new viewpoints and ideas to our clients in their drive to be the innovators in their markets,” said Paul Lombardo, CEO of Ness. “This role helps us further cultivate the exchange of market perspectives and collaboration among our growing, go-to-market teams, and Anshul has a strong track record in helping organizations bring together the best combination of solutions and capabilities to create long-term value for existing and new clients.”
I’m excited to join a company with such a strong product engineering heritage and commitment to using that expertise to help clients disrupt markets and grow their businesses,” said Verma. “I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues at Ness who support our clients worldwide, including from multiple locations in India, to build upon our trajectory of global growth and reputation for innovation.”
Verma, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, was formerly the Executive Vice President and Global Head of Services at Persistent Systems. Prior to that, he held various leadership roles at HCL, where he managed two of its key vertical business segments and large, enterprise accounts. Anshul has also held sales and marketing roles at Citicorp Overseas Software Ltd., Sony Electronics, and Lowe. He is based in Seattle, Washington and will report to Lombardo.
“We are very glad to have Anshul on our team,” said Vinay Rajadhyaksha, President & Global Chief Delivery Officer of Ness. “He has an excellent background in leveraging the great software engineering talent in India and worldwide to deliver solutions that expand business for clients and the teams that support them.”
The Weather Company, an IBM business, the leader in accurate weather forecasting and insights, hosted a first-of-its kind event, ‘The AgriTech Challenge 2018’ with the Agripreneurs Group, Smart Agripost and Graype.in.
Attended by ~200 agripreneurs, researchers, corporates and financiers, this event provided a unique platform to discuss and crowd-produce solutions to resolve issues affecting agripreneurs and farmers in India.
“This is The Weather Company’s humble attempt to involve the stakeholders, innovators and technologists to come together and address some of the challenges in the agritech ecosystem and contribute towards improving crop yield and output. We see ourselves as a facilitator providing hyper-local accurate weather insights to help deliver what farmers and others involved benefit from - to make the best decisions for their business.”, Himanshu Goyal, Sales & Alliances Leader, The Weather Company.
During the event, Himanshu Goyal addressed the audience on how crop production is becoming increasingly complex and the key role agronomists will continue to play in understanding the latest technology and interpreting those insights on the farm. Durjoy Mazumdar, Global Head of Enterprise Sales, IBM Watson Content & IoT, The Weather Company, also provided a bird’s eye view on why weather is such a difficult data-set to predict. Sriram Raghavan, Vice President, IBM Research & CTO, IBM India spoke about the steady progress the IBM company is making in transforming the agritech sector with new-age technologies including AI & Blockchain.
The panel discussions included various tracks of ideation jams to build a roadmap to a sustainable agritech economy. Dushyant Tyagi – Chief Business Officer, iKisan, Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited; Sagar Kaushik – COO, United Phosphorus Ltd; Ramesh Ramachandran, SVP, Strategy and Precision Farming, Mahindra and Mahindra; Rajesh Srivastava – Chairman & Managing Director, Rabo Equity Advisors (a subsidiary of Rabobank) were also present at the event and provided their expert views on crowd producing solutions to jointly set in motion a roadmap for a sustainable agritech economy in India.
Even as the country’s second largest IT services exporter Infosys celebrates 25 years of its listing on Indian exchanges, its shareholders, who bought shares in 1993 and still holding have turned crorepatis.
Anyone who invested Rs 100 in Infosys shares way back in 1993 when it was listed on bourses are now owning Rs 6,80,000 as on date, according to an analysis by DH.
When stock splits and the bonus issues are taken into consideration, for every share that the stockholder has bought in 1993, he would end up having 512 shares right now, according to the analysis.
Its shares were listed in stock exchanges in June 1993 with trading opening at ₹145 per share.
As per the calculations by various analysts, for every 100 shares in the company back in 1993, it would be worth over Rs 6.44 crore as on June 12, translating to an annual growth of 42.3%.
Undersubscribed IPO
Incidentally, the public offer of Infosys was undersubscribed at the time of initial public offering (IPO) and had to be bailed out by US investment bank Morgan Stanley which picked up 13% of equity at the offer price. The stock was split in 2000 to maintain liquidity. The company has offered 1:1 bonus shares in 10 out of 11 years when it declared a bonus issue. In 2005, it announced a 3:1 bonus issue.
From being a Rs 10,000 company, that NR Narayana Murthy started, Infosys has gone on to redefine India’s corporate culture.
The company has shown strong growth since its listing. From $5.1 million revenues in 1993, the company has seen its revenues compound annually by 36% to $10.94 billion by 2018. The net income on other hand has been compounded by equal numbers, from $1.23 million in 1993 to $2.49 billion by 2018.
In Rupee terms, revenues over last 25 years have grown at a CAGR of 40.5%, while net profits have grown by 40.1%, according to the internal calculations of the IT major.
Prior to its listing the company’s revenues grew from Rs 12 lakh in 1981 to Rs 8.66 crore in fiscal ended March 31, 1992, the year of economic reforms in India.
But then this growth hasn’t been as smooth as it may seem. For most of its years of existence, save the previous four, the company was managed by its promoter founders.
No company can function as an island and as our eco system broadens it typically deals with many entities like customers, partners, affiliates and others. When organized together these entities form what we term as the “extended enterprise” which is closer to the core of business than ever before. Organizations that step up to the challenge of developing programs to better manage this risk can elevate their position in the market by unleashing with confidence the reach, expertise and relationships that third parties can bring.
Third party risk management has to become a top-of-mind priority for organizations. In this respect, our recent (third) annual EERM (Extended Enterprise Risk Management) survey, based on 975 responses from a variety of organizations across 15 countries of Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa region ,has highlighted some interesting findings. 70% of organizations in India recognize an increase in risk but remain ill-equipped to deal with it because of inadequate or absolutely no knowledge of sub-contractors engaged by their third parties. In fact, 14% of the respondents in the survey stated that third party-outsourced relationships are not identified, monitored or reviewed at all.
Companies today have to rely on relationships that are multiple and third party in nature, and typically outsourced. These are like outliers on the risk periphery – even for organizations that place strong focus on risk. Our survey report highlights the below key areas where organizations could benefit from further effort:
Controlling heightened risk: Dependence on third parties continues to grow, with over 70 percent of Indian respondents stating that their dependence on extended enterprise has grown owing to business and macro- economic conditions. Impact of external events (42 percent) and increasing threat of their party related incidents and disruptions were the two most dominant factors contributing to the perception of heightened risk in the extended enterprise.
Enhanced board engagement: Board oversight and engagement with EERM programs continues to lag. At a global level, 78 percent of organizations suggest that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), CFO, Chief Procurement Officer (CPO), CRO, or a member of the Board is ultimately accountable for this topic. In India, this decision rests with the Chief procurement or the Risk Officer. Boards in India are making relatively slow progress on this matter whereby 57 percent of the respondents suggested that their boards merely have a moderate level of understanding and engagement on this subject.
Technology platforms: In keeping with the trend of increased centralized oversight of EERM activities, technology decisions are now being taken more centrally and standard tiered technology architecture is emerging. Less than ten percent of our global respondents in our survey are currently using bespoke systems for EERM, a sharp drop from just over 20 percent last year.
Sub-contractor risk: Organizations lack appropriate visibility of sub-contractors engaged by their third-parties as well as the discipline and rigor to frequently monitor such fourth/fifth parties. 57 percent of survey respondents feel they do not have adequate knowledge and appropriate visibility of sub-contractors engaged by their third-parties and a further 21 percent are unsure of their oversight practices.
Reliance Industries Limited has said it has completed acquisition of close to 73 per cent stake in artificial intelligence-based education technology provider Embibe.
"RIL, Embibe and the other stakeholders have completed all the closing conditions and have successfully completed the sale and purchase of the shareholding of the existing investors in Embibe to RIL. With this transaction, RIL will hold 72.69 per cent (on fully diluted basis) in Embibe," RIL said in a BSE filing.
RIL in April had announced that it has entered into agreements to acquire close to 73 per cent stake in education technology provider Individual Learning Private Ltd (Embibe) and plans to invest USD 180 million into the company over the next three years.
Embibe will use the capital over the next three years towards deepening its R&D on AI in education, as well as business growth and geographic expansion, catering to students across K-12, higher education, professional skilling, vernacular languages and all curriculum categories across India and internationally.
"The founder and CEO of Embibe, Aditi Avasthi, will continue in her leadership role and will drive the growth of the business," RIL said.
YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, announced the launch of yet another successful edition of its flagship YES BANK Natural Capital Awards 2018 at Natural Capital Forum organized by Natural Capital Coalition (NCC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and YES BANK, on the occasion of World Environment Day. The awards recognize individuals, organisations and educational institutes dedicated to spearheading ecological conservation and environmental stewardship.
An eminent jury panel comprising of nature conservationists, photographers, and environmentalists will select the final winners after on-ground site visits and rigorous evaluation of the applications. The winners will be felicitated at a grand award ceremony in New Delhi during October 2018. Registrations of the awards opened from June 6, 2018 at yesbank.in/nca
The YES BANK Natural Capital Awards 2018 consists of the following 7 categories:
Individual Contributions
Pixel Perfect (Photography)
Trailblazer (Photo essay)
Capturing the Ganges (New Photography Category)
Nature Leader (Individual recognition)
Organizational Contributions:
Eco Corporate (Manufacturing/Services)
Small Scale Organizations (MSMEs/Non-Profits)
Eco Campus (Educational Institutes)
Speaking on the launch of the YES BANK Natural Capital Awards 2018, Rana Kapoor, MD & CEO, YES BANK, said, “Integrating natural capital assessment and valuation into our economic system is critical to usher in a truly sustainable future for India. The Natural Capital Awards is a strategic platform to encourage and recognise the efforts of individuals, environmentalists and industry towards natural capital conservation and environmental leadership.”
Speaking on the occasion, Namita Vikas, Group President and Global Head, Responsible Banking and Climate Strategy, YES BANK, said, “Serving as the bed rock for socio-economic development, integration of natural capital considerations is the next sustainability frontier for businesses and individuals alike. YES BANK Natural Capital Awards aims to mainstream natural capital dialogue in India by showcasing and recognizing best practices in natural capital consumption, accounting mechanisms and conservation, accomplished by industry and civil society. Over the years, Natural Capital Awards has transformed into a launch-pad for impactful collaborative actions in natural capital to achieve multi-dimensional growth”
The competition has gained a lot of popularity and saw a wide participation of more than 10,000 entries from Government, corporates, international diaspora, wildlife & natural history specialists, sustainability professionals, and multilateral agencies last year. Senior ministers including Dr. Harsh Vardhan Singh (Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests and Climate Change); Suresh Prabhu (Minister of Civil Aviation and Commerce & Industry); Prakash Javadekar (Minister of Human Resource Development); Jitendra Singh (Minister of State (I/C) for Development of North Eastern Region) amongst others have participated in previous editions of the YES BANK Natural Capital Awards, and shared their valuable insights.
Important Dates:
Registrations open from – June 08, 2018
Last date for Submissions – July 31, 2018
YES BANK Natural Capital Awards 2018 ceremony – October, 2018
Creating environments for data to thrive, Western Digital Corporation has disclosed that Dropbox Inc., a leading global collaboration platform, has qualified and is the first to deploy the Ultrastar Hs14 host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) hard disk drive (HDD) at exabyte scale in its custom-built storage infrastructure, Magic Pocket. Staying on the leading-edge of data technology advancements, Dropbox completed qualification and is deploying SMR for its cloud storage environment. Leveraging the 14TB Ultrastar Hs14 HDDs and the company’s custom-built storage architecture, Dropbox is taking advantage of greater storage density and increased power efficiency, at the same level of reliability for primary storage in its cloud data centers.
“The launch of Magic Pocket was an industry-defining milestone for cloud infrastructure that provided Dropbox the foundation for delivering value to our customers and business through ongoing innovation and cost savings,” said Akhil Gupta, vice president of Cloud Engineering, Dropbox. “As we enter the next phase of Magic Pocket’s evolution, our strategic partnership with Western Digital is enabling us to scale effectively as more and more customers adopt our collaboration platform. Our deployment of SMR technology was supported by Western Digital’s service, collaboration and drive capabilities—and we’re excited to continue redefining what’s possible for cloud infrastructure together.”
“Dropbox’s Magic Pocket is an innovative deployment, and this is another proof point that our host-managed SMR HDDs deliver value in scale-out cloud environments,” said Mark Grace, senior vice president of Devices, Western Digital. “Our customers recognize the benefits of SMR HDDs and are adopting the technology to contend with the massive growth in data. When considering exabyte-scale needs, and associated capital and operating cost of the data center, the long-term value they receive in terms of lower cost-per-TB, higher density, low power and high reliability can help benefit the bottom line.”
Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced its new MX Series 5G Universal Routing Platform along with several software innovations to provide the needed programmability, performance and flexibility for rapid service deployment in the cloud economy now and for years to come. Leveraging its vast experience with leading global cloud and service providers, Juniper is unveiling its fifth generation of the MX platform, which is now the industry’s only platform to deliver near-infinite programmability, cost efficiency and versatility with performance at scale. It combines the best of software- and hardware-based networking to equip carrier, cloud and enterprise customers for the evolving technological and business demands of next-generation services delivery.
Service providers are at an inflection point where the costs of operating a complex network that can host the new era of resource-intensive applications like 5G and secure SD-WAN-based managed services are overwhelming their ability to monetize them. Also, with the additional influx of machine data coming from IoT sensors, distributed telco edge and cloud computing, networks will become overextended if they remain static, particularly as current infrastructures have become too complex, expensive and vulnerable to cyber threats for service providers to manage the distributed scale and agility required for these new services.
A poll among Juniper service provider customers about the top challenges in being able to offer next-generation services like SD-WAN, IoT and 5G, found:
More than half (55 percent) of respondents ranked the cost of infrastructure build-out as the No. 1 or 2 challenge.
Nearly 40 percent of respondents ranked the complexity of orchestrating a distributed network at No. 1 or 2 challenge.
More than half (55 percent) of respondents ranked investment protection with data-plane programmability as the No. 1 or 2 desired feature set to solve those challenges.
To address these challenges and herald the next generation of routing for the coming wave of 5G, IoT and business services, Juniper designed its MX Series 5G Universal Routing platform with new silicon for near-infinite feature programmability, as well as open hardware-accelerated 5G Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) for unparalleled performance, scale and freedom of choice, with additions to its universal chassis designed for operational simplicity, improved economics and increased agility.
With Contrail’s comprehensive automation and rich software management overlay capabilities, along with MX’s subscriber management, SPRING, and enhanced real-time performance monitoring telemetry data, the new capabilities enable customers to create and scale any type of service across a secure automated distributed cloud in a simplified way.
News highlights:
Juniper Penta Silicon: At the heart of the new MX Series 5G Platform is the new Juniper Penta Silicon, a next-generation 16nm service-optimized packet forwarding engine that delivers a 50 percent power efficiency gain (0.5 watts per gigabit) over the existing Junos Trio chipset, which leads to a 3x bandwidth increase for the MX960, MX480 and MX240. Juniper Penta enables end to end secure connectivity at scale with native support of both MACsec and an IPsec crypto engine – an industry-first – that can originate and terminate thousands of IPSec sessions without sacrificing performance. Additionally, Juniper Penta supports flexible native Ethernet support (FlexE). Juniper Penta silicon family will power the new MX Series 5G Platform for years to come by exponentially increasing performance, power efficiency and maintaining industry-leading hardware programmability that can address future innovative protocols.
MX 5G Control User-Plane Separation (CUPS) Hardware Acceleration: As service providers prepare for 5G deployments, the 3GPP CUPS standard allows customers to separate the evolved packet core user plane (GTP-U) and control plane (GTP-C) with a standardized Sx interface to help service providers scale each independently as needed for added flexibility and investment protection. The MX Series 5G platform is the first networking platform to support a standard-based hardware accelerated 5G user-plane in both existing and future MX routers to enable converged services (wireless and wireline) on the same platform while also allowing integration with third-party 5G control planes. Juniper expects this will lower total cost of ownership by as much as three to four times over software-based user plane implementations for MXs deployed in the field.
MX10008 and MX10016 Universal Chassis: Continuing service-scale innovation to usher in the next era of cloud, enterprise and carrier networking, the previously announced PTX and QFX Universal Chassis gains two new MX variants with today’s announcement: MX10008 and MX10016. Juniper’s Universal Chassis family reduces inventory management complexity by 80 percent and extends use-case versatility for operators with a revolutionary single-chassis design. The 13-RU MX10008 and 21-RU MX10016 Universal Chassis bring industry-leading and space-saving scale for edge routers at 19.2Tbps and 38.4Tbps, respectively. These new additions to Juniper’s Universal Chassis family improve per-slot economics for service scale at ~0.6 watts per gigabit, enabling customers to do more with less while simplifying network design and reducing opex. A variety of line cards and software are available to satisfy specific networking use-cases across the data center, enterprise and WAN.
The MX10008 and MX100016 will be available during the second half of 2018. Juniper Penta Silicon-powered line cards for the MX960, MX480 and MX240 will be available in Q1 2019. New CUPS support will be available in the first half of 2019.
Manoj Leelanivas, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Juniper Networks says, “Cloud is eating the world, 5G is ramping up, IoT is presenting a host of new challenges and security teams simply can’t keep up with the sheer volume of cyber attacks on today’s network. One thing service providers should not have to worry about among all this is the unknown of what lies ahead. That’s why we’ve continued innovating our flagship MX platform to deliver more speed, flexibility, programmability and security capabilities, giving our customers the peace of mind they need as a variety of demands continue to put pressure on the network. We are building on our heritage of eliminating the biggest barriers to routing that have emerged over the past decade and providing a platform that can grow whichever way the world does. Our commitment to removing complexity from routing has made it possible for our customers to connect in ways that have changed the world.”
Mike Altland, Director, Network Infrastructure Planning, Verizon says, “The rise of next-generation wireless and wireline services is having a profound impact on the underlying networks needed to make them a reality. We’ve been a longtime partner with Juniper Networks since the first MX more than a decade ago and are excited to see the unveiling of its next generation MX platform.”
David Roy, IP/MPLS NOC engineer, Orange remarks, “As a major service provider looking at the future of how we connect our customers with evolving use cases, it’s important to have a routing platform underpinning it all that’s flexible enough to accommodate the unpredictability of the industry right now. 5G, IoT and SD-WAN all present great opportunities for us to create new revenue-generating services but they can also bring many infrastructure challenges. We’ve been longtime MX users and are excited to see that the new MX 5G platform leverages new silicon with programmability and integrated security, and supports control user-plane separation to provide greater flexibility for certainty in an uncertain networking environment.”
Amit Tiwari, Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Systems Engineering, Affirmed Networks says, “Affirmed Networks is committed to providing operators with flexible deployment options as service providers continue to embrace virtualized architectures. Telco operators will be able to deliver higher performance customized 5G, IoT and business services that cater to the unique requirements of different end-user applications, with freedom of choice through open standards-based solutions from Affirmed Networks and Juniper.”
Heidi Adams, Senior Research Director, IP & Optical Networks at IHS Markit says, “While the industry is gradually transitioning to cloud-based deployments of network functions and services, high-performance routing hardware and custom silicon continue to be critical elements to address network services at scale. With the announcement of the Juniper Penta Silicon, Juniper continues to advance its routing silicon and platforms in order to ensure network operators can support existing services and applications more efficiently today, and be well prepared for the future.”
