CLOUDSEC, the leading global cybersecurity conference, will take place in Mumbai on October 25. Hosted by Trend Micro Incorporated, CLOUDSEC India 2018 provides a platform for the industry to discuss and address cybersecurity issues arising from a hyper-connected world, with this year’s theme being ‘Freedom to Connect’.
CLOUDSEC India 2018 will see renowned experts, industry thought leaders, and CIOs/CISOs from government agencies and businesses come together to re-evaluate and redefine their understanding of threats and risks. The day-long event will feature interesting keynote sessions and engaging panel discussions. Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro, will open the session with a welcome address followed by keynote sessions.
Steve Quane, Executive Vice President, Network Defense and Hybrid Cloud Security, Trend Micro, will provide his insights on ‘Global Security Trends and the Automation of Cloud Security’. Andras Cser, Vice President, Principal Analyst Serving Security & Risk Professionals, Forrester, will speak on ‘Harnessing Cyber Security Trends for Profit’. And V S Parthasarthy, Group CFO & CIO, Mahindra & Mahindra Group, will also hold a session.
The keynote panel discussion on ‘Digital Transformation: Challenges & Outlook’ will be joined by BS Nagarajan, CTO, VMware India; Dhruv Singhal, Head Solutions Architecture, Amazon, India, among others. Prominent industry experts including Vinayak Godse, Vice President, DSCI; Bharat Panchal, SVP & Head, NPCI, and others are the panelists for another panel discussion on ‘Cybersecurity in Government: Readying to Protect Critical Data for Public Good’.
Col. Pankaj Dikshit, SVP, IT Infrastructure, Goods and Services Tax Network; and Brijesh Datta, VP and CISO, Reliance Jio Infocomm are among the CIO speakers to give a talk at this year’s event.
Leading cloud service providers - Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware - will hold a series of breakout sessions, where they will share their insights on securing various types of cloud environments. At the event, Trend Micro researchers will also be sharing findings and first-hand insights around emerging threats such as cryptojacking and other such covert, low-profile attacks that are fast gaining momentum.
"We are increasingly seeing cybercriminals move away from attention-grabbing ransomware attacks, which peaked in 2017, to more covert methods intended to steal money and valuable computing resources of enterprises. Specific to India, the risk of cyberattacks will grow as businesses increasingly go digital, with many of them lagging in terms of implementation of security protocols as well as in their understanding of cyberthreats,” said Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro.
“At this year’s CLOUDSEC, we are advancing the discussion around cybersecurity. The event will provide the attendees an opportunity to enhance their knowledge on the latest security strategies and also help them make informed decisions around their security choices,” added Nilesh.
CLOUDSEC India 2017 saw close to 800 participants in total. 63 percent of attendees were representatives from government agencies and enterprises and 15 percent identified as CIOs.
CSS Corp, a new-age IT services and technology support company, today announced the opening of its new delivery center in Manila, Philippines. The new center is located in Bonifacio Global City, the financial and lifestyle district of Manila.
The new facility in Manila is the latest addition to CSS Corp’s growing portfolio of delivery centers globally, which are aimed at providing new age services and tech support to the global clientele. The company plans to hire over 400 local employees over the next six to eight months, in areas such as technical support, helpdesk, customer support and account management. This development comes as part of the company’s growth strategy to expand in local markets.
CSS Corp launched its first center in Manila in the year 2009 and continues to focus on building diversified talent and capabilities for its customers. The 24,218-sq. feet new facility will house 400 employees, and will feature state-of-the-art workspaces, two training centers, technical labs, collaboration rooms and recreational areas including a 24-hour cafeteria, karaoke and billiard rooms. The entire center has been designed keeping sustainability and employee-friendliness in mind.
“We are thrilled to announce the launch of our new delivery center in Manila. We are thankful to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) for their continued support, and we look forward to a long-term, strategic and fruitful association that will complement our mutual vision of growth,” said Manish Tandon, CEO at CSS Corp.
Manish further added, “Philippines continues to emerge as an outsourcing hotspot for global players, given its strong understanding of customers in US and EU, coupled with the surge in digital-savvy talent and technical skills. We are confident that the new delivery center will aid our strategic vision of being more to our customers, while remaining committed to the local economy within the country.”
“At CSS Corp, we remain committed to driving growth for our customers, employees and the ecosystem, while delivering digital innovation and superior customer experience to our clients. Philippines, with its ease of doing business, burgeoning tech talent, and exceptional language skills, has become a favored destination for support capabilities, especially with the rise in cognitive technologies. Coupled with strong labor policies and government incentives, the country brings tremendous potential for growth in the near future,” said Arvind Kingsly Appavu, Country Head & AVP – Philippines at CSS Corp.
In 2017, CSS Corp opened two new development centers, one in Costa Rica in December and another in Bengaluru, India in April. With the new center in Manila, CSS Corp has increased its presence in Asia to 8 locations, as a part of its strategic vision to offer infrastructure and tech support capabilities to its customers across the world.
The Philippine IT-BPM industry targets to generate 1.8 million direct employment by 2022 under the Accelerate PH: Future Ready Roadmap 2022 by the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP). It also hopes to help create more than 5 million jobs in other sectors, making it the single largest creator of jobs in the Philippines.
Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) has launched a new CSR initiative, HGS’ Comprehensive School Improvement Programme (CSIP), which aims to promote quality and holistic education for underprivileged children in Mumbai and Pune. HGS has tied up with Plan India, a nationally registered not-for-profit organization striving to advance children’s rights and equality for girls to create six “Model Schools” and provide all-round development opportunities for the children studying in these government schools.
HGS’ CSIP is a three-year project that is expected to help develop adequate school infrastructure to ensure that 5,000 children have a “joyful learning environment” within the school premises and support at least 1,000 children with learning difficulties to achieve age appropriate learning level through remedial education. The programme also aims to educate and increase awareness amongst 20,000 parents about Right to Education to ensure that they actively engage for development of their children.
Speaking about the programme, Srinivas Palakodeti, Global CFO – HGS said, “India has been witnessing a significant rise in drop outs and absenteeism amongst underprivileged children in schools owing to lack of adequate amenities and proper infrastructure. Through this programme, we aim to help these schools to improve their infrastructure to ensure that holistic education opportunities are offered to all.”
HGS, along with Plan India, will upgrade and build science laboratories in schools, improve classroom infrastructure by procuring adequate benches, desks, fans, and paint the walls, etc., renovate/upgrade WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) infrastructure for boys and girls in the schools along with BCC (Behavior Change and Communication) program, and promote changing rooms for girls and installation of incinerators. The team will also promote remedial education for children who lack age appropriate learning level, develop and upgrade child friendly library, support children to set their career goals and positive attitude, promote and strengthen Children Parliament (Bal-Panchayat) and School Management Committee (SMC).
Asif Mohammad, Director – Programme Implementation, Plan India said, “Education is the most powerful tool to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty. It helps to overcome inequalities, promote inclusive development, accelerate social transformation and fosters economic progress. Plan believes that this partnership will support in providing access to quality education and water and sanitation facilities for both boys and girls. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Hinduja Global Solutions for coming on board and supporting us in this endeavor.”
ServiceNow strengthens its commitment to the Japanese market; selects NTT Communications to partner with for launch of two new Japanese data centers
ServiceNow, Forbes’ No. 1 World’s Most Innovative Company will partner with NTT Communications to open two new cloud services data centers in Tokyo and Osaka to serve Japanese customers. They are expected to be complete in the first half of 2019.
These strategic investments in Japan reflect ServiceNow’s success and growth in the Japanese market over the last five years, as well as ServiceNow’s commitment to expanding its business in Japan where digital transformation is accelerating.
ServiceNow is making the world of work, work better for peopleTM through its cloud-based Now Platform® and products designed to simply automate workflows across the enterprise, making routine tasks easier, removing complexity and creating better experiences for workers and customers.
The ServiceNow Nonstop Cloud
The new Japanese data centers are expected to enhance the ServiceNow Nonstop Cloud, which has been designed to support the availability and scalability of global enterprises.
The new data centers will add to ServiceNow’s existing nine data center pairs, which are set up across five continents to meet customers’ location and data sovereignty needs, operating in an “active‑active” mode to provide high-performing and high-availability cloud services for its customers.
At the new Tokyo and Osaka sites, ServiceNow is planning to provide the hardware, network services, and software services to deliver the full Now Platform and all partner services.
New and existing Japanese customers will primarily benefit from the ServiceNow Nonstop Cloud being delivered from two Japanese locations, supported by six global support centers. ServiceNow’s follow-the-sun global data center operational and customer support includes Japanese-speaking customer support personnel.
Mitch Young, VP and GM, ServiceNow APJ comments, “Data residency will continue to be an important consideration in Japan and we want to give our customers choice and control. Japan is a key growth market for ServiceNow and we are investing in the people, skills and talent, as well as physical hardware and software services, that we need to serve market demand both today and in the future.”
Masaaki Moribayashi-san, Senior Executive Vice President, NTT Communications said, "Congratulations on the upcoming launch of ServiceNow's Japanese Data Centers. We are honored to partner with ServiceNow to further promote work-style reform and digital transformation in Japan."
Extending ServiceNow’s Japanese business
ServiceNow does business across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) which includes enterprises across multiple industries and segments.
Leading Japanese brands such as Nomura Securities, Panasonic Information Systems, Yanmar Information System Services and GREE are already using ServiceNow to transform the way they deliver services across the enterprise and enhance the service experience by making the world of work, work better for people.
Bentley Systems Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of Agency9, based in Stockholm. Agency9 has already provided nearly half of Sweden’s larger municipalities with city-scale digital twin cloud services for city planning and related web-based 3D visualization. Since 2012, Agency9 has taken advantage of reality meshes created by Bentley’s ContextCapture reality modeling software as the digital context for visualizing urban infrastructure assets represented in GIS data, terrain surveys, and BIM models. Bentley’s new iTwin™ cloud services, introduced at the conference, add digital alignment and change synchronization for infrastructure engineering digital twins, and will enable OpenCities Planner(formerly Agency9 CityPlanner)to uniquely serve urban planning requirements at fuller levels of detail.
Phil Christensen, Bentley’s senior vice president, reality modeling said, “Our many city users globally have been asking for the useful capabilities which Agency9 has successfully implemented throughout Sweden, to take further advantage of their reality modeling programs. In fact, when we combine Bentley ContextCapture’s 3D surveying advancements (based on hybrid aerial, UAV, and ground-based imagery) with our Connected Data Environment (CDE) technologies for geospatial-to-BIM integration, we make city-scale digital twins as a cloud service broadly accessible. Ultimately synchronizing reality and ‘virtuality,’ OpenCities Planner offers the perfect web solution to enable every city in going digital.”
Håkan Engman, CEO of Agency9, said, “Now that we’re part of Bentley, we’re confident about achieving the full global potential of Agency9’s innovations. My colleagues and I, and our forward-thinking users in the Nordics, have been noted for pushing the envelope of geospatial integration and visual performance to new levels of detail. Now, as contributors toward unique city-scale digital twin cloud services from Bentley, we can foresee the realization of our users’ vision to advance from urban planning to improving cities’ asset performance.”
The Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference – 17 October 2018 – Siemens and Bentley Systems announced today the introduction of PlantSight, resulting from development together based on their highly complementary software portfolios. PlantSight is a digital solution to benefit customers through more efficient plant operations. PlantSight enables as-operated and up-to-date digital twins which synchronize with both physical reality and engineering data, creating a holistic digital context for consistently understood digital components across disparate data sources, for any operating plant. Plant operators benefit from high trustworthiness and quality of information for continuous operational readiness and more reliability.
Every real-world operating plant is characterized by cumulative evolution, both to its brownfield physical condition and to the varied types and formats of theoretically corresponding engineering data. Accordingly, as-operated digital twins must reliably synchronize reflections of both the physical reality and its virtual engineering representations, comprehensively and accurately. Moreover, further frequent changes are inevitable. With PlantSight, every process plant owner-operator can realize the benefits of as-operated digital twins – without disruption to their existing physical or virtual environment.
For process industries, characterized by ongoing capital projects, the effectiveness of digital twins depends upon the integrity and accessibility of as-operated information presented and continuously updated in trusted 2D schematic and 3D model formats. PlantSight provides all stakeholders with cloud/web-enabled visibility and access into existing data and tool interfaces, assuring that changes are timely and accurately captured and managed.
With PlantSight as-operated digital twin cloud services, operational and project-related engineering data is aligned seamlessly. All disciplines and stakeholders have immediate access to consistent representations. Especially for brownfield installations, the time and effort to federate and complete asset information will be significantly reduced, with plant documentation kept up to date, and its quality accordingly improved.
Greg Bentley, CEO for Bentley Systems, said, “From the start of Bentley Systems’ strategic alliance with Siemens, we have together seen our development of PlantSight as having perhaps the most significance for our marketplace. Siemens’ announced combination of its digital offerings for discrete and process plants enables our bringing together, through a cloud service, the complementary elements of COMOS, OpenPlant, MindSphere, and Teamcenter. PlantSight can now realize the process industries’ top priority in ‘going digital’— the digital twin enablement of their operating plant engineering!”
“With PlantSight, we’re stepping up our cooperation with Bentley and extending the possibilities offered by data utilization for the process industry. This joint solution based on the complementary know-how of Bentley and Siemens represents a key step towards making digital twins even more efficient and creating a digitally integrated value chain, which offers even greater consistency. In this way, we’re continuously enlarging our Digital Enterprise portfolio by embracing future technologies,” said Klaus Helmrich, Member of the Management Board of Siemens AG.
Valentijn de Leeuw, Vice President ARC Advisory Group, said, “I believe that Siemens’ and Bentley’s newly-developed PlantSight services will establish a foundation for next-generation asset information and performance management. For as-operated digital twins, this augments the actual plant by integrating operational data with operational intelligence dashboards, immersive operator training simulation, and links with applications such as process simulation, asset strategy, and reliability. The benefits of the environment will increase with the number of microservices provided.”
Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for 170 years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitization. One of the world's largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. The company with its listed subsidiary Siemens Healthineers AG is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment – such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems – and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, Siemens generated revenue of €83.0 billion and net income of €6.2 billion. At the end of September 2017, Siemens had around 377,000 employees worldwide.
A Public Awareness Campaign Will Be Launched with the Aim of Increasing Awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest by Engaging 10,000 People Including Public and Civil Services Personnel
Medtronic plc, declared a partnership between India Medtronic Private Limited, its wholly owned subsidiary in India, and Cardiological Society of India 2018 (CSI 2018) to drive awareness and training to perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), also simply known as ‘a technique to revive heart and lungs’, in public places. The training aims to increase awareness about managing the first few crucial minutes after someone has suffered a sudden cardiac arrest by performing CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) usage. The two organizations announced a partnership in Mumbai on ‘World Restart a Heart Day’ - 16th October 2018. The partnership document was signed by Omar Ishrak, chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic and Dr. Prafulla Kerkar, organizing secretary, CSI 2018 and head of the Department of Cardiology at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.
The CSI 2018 conference scheduled in Mumbai in November 2018 will be a pilot project which will aim to teach CPR techniques to 300 participants including public and civil services personnel from police, fire brigade, municipality and healthcare fraternity, to be trained by using a mannequin or dummy.
In a first from a medtech company, Medtronic aims to conduct several such nationwide trainings and engage with more than 10,000 people in phase one, especially the ones who operate in public places and are typically the first point of contact for people suffering an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest. During the training, attendees will be trained to spot a sudden cardiac arrest, provide hands-only CPR and revive the victim within minutes.
Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is an electrical problem of the heart that triggers a dangerously fast heart rate (ventricular tachycardia) or irregular rhythm (ventricular fibrillation). If not treated immediately, SCA can be fatal. Signs of SCA include unconsciousness and irregular or no breathing. Ninety-five percent of those who experience sudden cardiac arrest die because they do not receive life-saving defibrillation within 4 to 6 minutes, before brain and permanent death start to occur.2,3
“Sudden cardiac arrest is a serious public health issue, particularly in emerging markets like India where lack of public awareness can further complicate issues,” said Omar Ishrak. “No one single organization can tackle this issue alone. Together with CSI 2018, we have the opportunity to help improve awareness of sudden cardiac arrest and train more people to provide life-saving care in the moments that matter most—it’s a reflection of our ongoing commitment to working in partnership with others to improve patient outcomes.”
Dr. Prafulla Kerkar said, “There is no clear data available in India; but through studies and by extrapolation, it is estimated that the annual incidence of deaths due to sudden cardiac arrest are around 13 lakhs in the country. Our goal is to teach everyone to act in an emergency - to identify the symptoms and take action. Anyone could be the hero by saving a Sudden Cardiac Arrest victim’s life in a public place and give them hope of a new life, post a life-threatening incidence. People do not act in emergency situations because of lack of training and fear of doing something wrong. For every minute that elapses after sudden cardiac arrest, the chances of survival diminish by 10 percent. We are thrilled to be collaborating with Medtronic as this is the first time a medical technology company has partnered with CSI 2018 in driving awareness at such a large scale.”
Adding to this, Madan Krishnan, vice president and managing director, Medtronic Indian Subcontinent said, “Through the partnership with CSI 2018, Medtronic aims to achieve faster delivery of CPR, which more than doubles the chance of survival for a sudden cardiac arrest victim. By increasing awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest and engaging more people in learning to perform CPR in our community, we can substantially increase the survival rate of cardiac victims. Our vision also aligns with government’s focus on improving healthcare access to diagnosis, treatment and recovery for non-communicable diseases in India.”
Zerodha, India’s largest retail brokerage company, today announced that it has collaborated with Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk business in India, to offer StockReports+ to its customers. Thomson Reuters StockReports+ covers over 2000 Indian stocks to provide compelling and intuitive stock score and facilitate timely review of stock portfolio to help investors make trusted and smart investment decisions.
Speaking on the development, Gautam Verma, Country Head, South Asia, Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk business said, “In today’s decision economy, accurate and timely information is paramount. We are proud to collaborate with Zerodha who lead the way in leveraging technology to empower their customers with insights to make smart trading decisions. Thomson Reuters StockReports+ combines our independent and unbiased research, ratings and data to enable investors optimize investment selection and generate compelling trading ideas.”
Nithin Kamath, Founder & CEO, Zerodha said, “Trusted and timely data delivered through smart technology can unearth great insights to facilitate smarter trading. We are delighted to offer our customers Thomson Reuters StockReports+ that will give them a definitive edge to execute informed trading.”
Key features of StockReports+:
· Access to daily analysis and reports of over 2000 listed companies on the user dashboard
· In-depth analysis of key trends in earnings, fundamentals, relative valuation, price momentum and risk
· Access to transparent ‘Stock Score’ and drill down into each component for further analysis
· Extensive comparison of a company’s key metrics to those of its 10 closest peers
· Access to highlights from Thomson Reuters automated text-generation system that identifies the most noteworthy data
Globally, Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters is now known as Refinitiv following close of the strategic partnership transaction between Thomson Reuters and Blackstone. In India, the transaction to give effect to the partnership is expected to conclude mid-2019.
Durga Puja is not only a festival of victory of goddess Durga over an evil but is a celebration of the harvest festival that marks the goddess as the motherly power behind all of life and creation. To celebrate womanhood and raise awareness about women in agarbathi industry, All India Agarbathi Manufacturers Association donated 5 ft agarbathi to The Bengalee Association known to conduct Bengaluru’s oldest and largest Durga Puja celebrations since 1949. The agarbathi was customised and created by a team of 20 women from Bengaluru.
This year 5ft agarbathi donated by AIAMA will stand tall during the 5 day Durga Puja celebrations at Manyata Tech Park and will play a significant role in paying tribute to the fierce goddess Durga. The revelry will see a mix of socio cultural functions, music and food fest, glittering stalls of clothes, interior decoration products, gifting items and more.
Sarath Babu, President AIAMA, said ‘We are pleased to contribute 5ft agarbathi to The Bengalee Association to commemorate the largest and the oldest Durga Puja celebrations in Bengaluru. There could have been no better festivity than Durga Puja to salute womanhood, its avatars and their contribution in creating a balanced ecosystem. To support economic independence and rural employment amongst women, AIAMA aims to train a large women workforce in partnership with the association members in next few months. The initiative is in line to address both international and domestic demand.
Additionally, we would be obliged to engage with The Bengalee Association in training women who are interested in learning agarbathi rolling and packaging and become financially independent.
Robin Majumdar, General Secretary, The Bengalee Association said, ‘We are pleased by the initiative of the Agarbathi Association and their contribution towards Durga Puja Celebrations this year. Agarbathi has been an integral part of Indian festivities and plays a significant role during puja observance. This year the agarbathi customised by the association will stand tall during the five day discourse paying tribute to the warrior goddess Durga.
The Association will also be supporting puja requirements by donating agarbathi to few other Durga Puja pandal’s in the city.
Mahindra Lifespace Developers Limited (‘MLDL’), the real estate and infrastructure development arm of the Mahindra Group, has begun handing over homes in Phase 1 of its maiden premium residential project ‘Windchimes’ in Bengaluru. Windchimes is located on Bannerghatta Main Road, adjacent to the proposed Metro Phase 2 line, and comprises four towers spread across 5.85 acres. The project is being developed in two phases and offers 400 thoughtfully designed, spacious and airy apartments in 3 and 4 BHK configurations.
Home owners at Windchimes came together for a specially curated evening of stand-up comedy and live music to mark the commencement of handovers at the project. Customers, family members and friends were treated to a unique ‘gift-wrap reveal’ of Windchimes Tower 1. The ‘gift-wrapped’ buildings even caused passers-by to stop and take photos!
Speaking on the occasion, Amit Anand, homeowner at Windchimes, said, “We are delighted to have received timely possession of our home at Windchimes. It feels good be part of a trusted family such as Mahindras. Mahindra Lifespaces has also kept us well-informed on construction progress at every stage.”
Rahul Gupta, Business Head (Residential - South), Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd., said, “We are delighted to begin handovers at our very first project in Bengaluru, which is an important focus market for us. We welcome all residents of Windchimes and thank them for placing their trust and confidence in Mahindra Lifespaces."
Windchimes is less than a kilometre away from the upcoming IIM Bangalore and Hulimavu metro stations. The project is conveniently connected to nearby prime residential and commercial corridors, including workplaces, schools, hospitals, malls and retail outlets. In keeping with Mahindra Lifespaces’ focus on quality living spaces that enable Joyful Homecomings and a balanced lifestyle, the project has been designed around the theme of 'Listen to Life Everyday' and offers over 80% open spaces. Residents can indulge in various sports and recreational activities with facilities such as a clubhouse with party hall, gym, spa, swimming pool and sports activity areas amidst lush, landscaped gardens.
Windchimes has been designed to be environmentally conscious and incorporates solar water heating systems; optimal-flow water fixtures; over 50% rainwater harvesting; water meters in every apartment (pay as per usage); STP (sewage treatment plant) facilities; electrical charging points in parking areas, organic waste treatment; and unit-level segregation of waste. Windchimes is also differently-abled friendly, with preferred parking and dedicated restrooms. It is IGBC pre-certified ‘Platinum’ and one of Bengaluru’s first few ‘green’ residential projects.
Entrepreneur First (EF), the leading deep technology company builder, has launched in Bangalore. The city, long heralded as India’s start-up capital, has rapidly expanded over the years to develop a conducive environment for ideas, businesses and technology to flourish. EF’s unique six-month programme brings together the most ambitious individuals, helps them find their co-founders, develop a differentiated approach, and fundraise from the world’s best investors. Bangalore marks EF’s third location in Asia, following Singapore and Hong Kong. It is also EF’s sixth global location, following London, Berlin and Paris.
EF will invest around US$55,000 in the companies developed during the bi-annual programme, while also providing cohort members with a monthly stipend of US$2,000 as they develop business ideas in the first three months. Segments that EF will primarily focus on include defensible technology, AI, machine learning, robotics, as well as the exciting opportunities for deep tech consumer companies in India. Graduating founders can expect to pitch to leading regional and global investors at Investor Day in Singapore next July, alongside their counterparts from EF’s Hong Kong and Singapore programmes.
“Bangalore is well-known for its brilliant tech talent and entrepreneurial spirit. With our emphasis on deep tech, we are truly excited about the possibilities in India and believe that the talent pool here is ripe to create some of the world’s next biggest and most important companies,” said Anne Marie Droste, EF Global Expansion Director. “Since we entered Asia 3 years ago, we have witnessed a very encouraging glimpse of what the most talented and ambitious individuals from India can achieve at our programme. By setting up a local EF programme in Bangalore, we can access even more of such individuals, especially technologists, and help them take that first leap towards entrepreneurship.”
Nicknamed the “Silicon Valley of India”, Bangalore has seen a meteoric rise on the world stage, having been named the most dynamic city in 2017 by the World Economic Forum. According to Startup Genome, Bangalore’s startup ecosystem is valued at US$19 billion, with an estimated 1,800-2,300 active tech startups. The past decade has seen it shift from a purely skill-based factory model to a more startup mindset. There is a genuine interest in tech and an ability to attract highly-skilled tech workers.
To date, EF has helped build over 150 technology companies, collectively worth almost US$1.5 billion. Notable alumni include London-based startup Magic Pony, a startup that uses machine-learning technology to improve the quality of images and video footages, which was acquired by Twitter for US$150 million in June 2016 - just 18 months after the co-founders met on EF.
EF Bangalore officially starts on the 28th of January 2019 with applications now open at apply.joinef.com. EF is targeting to recruit up to 50 individuals for its inaugural cohort.
In a proud moment for EuroSchool Whitefield, four of their students of grade 7 have published a book called ‘The Chronicles of Wizardry’.
The incredible feat was performed by four 12 year old girls - Uditi Mourya, Treya Moodithaya, Nikkita Rosalyn and Nityasree Pola. These young girls epitomised sincerity by indulging in literary excellence in parallel to regular academic sessions.
The students revealed that they received tremendous support from their teachers, at EuroSchool Whitefield, who not only supported them but also helped them in proof reading the book.
The four girls began the process by reading about the steps involved in writing a book, from producing a rough draft of a manuscript to publishing it. During their lunch breaks they discussed the storyline, noted down the plots and the thoughts & ideas. The collaborative work of the four girls in terms of writing, reviewing and editing, resulted in them putting together a book. The whole process of writing the book took them one academic year.
EuroSchool Whitefield Principal, Shruthi Arun said, “We feel proud of our student prodigies who have performed a remarkable feat of releasing a book at such a young age. At EuroSchool, it is our constant endeavour to help students to recognize their talent, discover their areas of interest, encourage individual skills, thereby giving each child the opportunity to pursue their passion.”
The book is about a boy named Jason, who discovers that he is bestowed with magical powers and the challenges he faces in the School of Wizardry. The book is now available at Amazon for INR 236.
To cater to the growing popularity of the Tata HARRIER, Tata Motors has commenced bookings of its much awaited SUV, staring today. Born of legendary pedigree, the Tata HARRIER is based on the revolutionary architecture, derived from Land Rover’s legendary D8 architecture on which over 1 million SUVs have been sold worldwide. Customers can book the HARRIER with an amount of INR 30,000 on www.tataharrier.com or visit the nearest Tata Motors authorized dealership.
According to Mayank Pareek, President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors -“Since its showcase as a concept at the Auto Expo 2018, the HARRIER has made huge waves amongst the SUV lovers. With the rising excitement and consistent demand from our discerning customers to book the HARRIER at the earliest and be amongst the early ones to receive deliveries, we have taken a conscious decision to open bookings in the festive season. With Turnaround 2.0, we have already begun our journey towards winning sustainably in the passenger vehicle business and we are confident that with the introduction of this new class leading SUV, we will only soar higher.”
Offering exemplary driving dynamics, this 5-seater monocoque SUV has been extensively tested for a cumulative distance of 2.2 million kms, showcasing its mettle to wade through the toughest of terrains. Powered by the 2.0L KRYOTEC cutting- edge diesel engine, the vehicle delivers exceptionally refined drivability and performance. Harrier will be the first product to sport the Impact 2.0 Design language from Tata Motors. It will offer extraordinary exteriors, intelligently designed luxurious interiors, future ready connectivity and infotainment.
Marrying an extremely robust legendary architecture to the power- packed performance of KRYOTEC, the Tata HARRIER promises to set new benchmarks for SUVs with its launch in early 2019.
New research from Accenture gives clients a tool to help them derive maximum value from the adoption of digital technologies and power profitable growth.
The research — titled “Delivering Digital Dividends: How to Start Making Your Technology Investments Really Pay Off” — identifies the key external factors that organizations need to address to maximize gains from digital technologies they adopt.
The research builds on Accenture’s “Combine and Conquer” report from last year, which identified the best combinations of digital technologies to drive maximum business impact. “Combine and Conquer” calculated that companies that implemented those technologies effectively could boost their market capitalization by 28 percent, on average.
The goal of the new research, “Delivering Digital Dividends,” is to help clients realize such gains by becoming what Accenture refers to as “Industry X.0” businesses — organizations that combine digital technologies to drive exceptional efficiency gains; create new, hyper-personalized experiences; and enable new business models to drive both top- and bottom-line growth.
While “Delivering Digital Dividends” focuses initially on five technologies found to be widely relevant and applicable across industries — artificial intelligence (AI), augmented/virtual reality, big data, blockchain and robotics — it can be applied to a variety of other digital technologies, including mobile computing, 3D printing and digital twin, among others.
The research identifies five broad areas related to technology implementation, referred to as “value-triggers,” along with a series of sub-elements for each trigger. The five value-triggers are:
· Value Potential. Focuses on the potential costs savings and gains in market cap value that the technology can deliver.
· Talent Readiness. Looks at both the existing workforce — in terms of the availability of talent and skills required for development, integration and maintenance of the technology — as well as the current demand and supply for talent with the specific technology skillset.
· Capital Adequacy. Considers the growth in venture capital investment, as well as the number of mergers and acquisitions related to the technology over the past three to five years.
· Ecosystem Maturity. Analyzes the availability of widely accepted standards and protocols for the technology; efforts made to address interoperability challenges; the number of consortiums (academic and industry-specific) formed to advance the technology; and the number of start-ups focused on advancing the technology.
· Adoption Intensity. Considers a variety of sub-elements: the number of use case applications built using the technology; the number of use cases that have made it to commercial deployment; the estimated growth in technology spend; the number of companies investing in and/or developing the technology or related offerings; and C-suite perception of the technology’s ability to improve efficiencies and deliver new experiences.
The value-triggers form the core of the Accenture Digital Dividends Diagnostic, a tool that measures the advancement of the technology against each of the value-trigger sub-elements on a scale of one to five; the smaller the number, the lower the advancement of that technology in the context of the particular sub-element of the value trigger. The value-trigger scores can be assessed for specific industries, enabling an enterprise to take necessary measures toward bridging value-gaps in the context of technologies adopted. For instance, a company adopting a technology with a low ‘Talent Readiness’ score can start investing to either build the necessary talent pool within its organization or tap ecosystems to acquire the talent.
“As organizations progressively move towards adopting Industry X.0 technologies, there is a need to focus on maximizing value and driving new efficiency,” said Raghu Gullapalli, Managing Director - Industrial, Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East & Turkey (AAPAC), Accenture. “Our new research provides a structured framework in the form of Digital Dividends Diagnostic tool to bridge value-gaps while embarking on the digital transformation journey."
The report notes that disregarding even a single value-trigger can be costly. For instance, the research found that companies that managed the ecosystem value-trigger particularly well — known as “ecosystem engagers” — achieved cost reductions per employee that were 2.4 percentage points greater, on average, than those of other companies. For the three years between 2013 and 2016, this translates to cost savings of US$844 million for the ecosystem engagers, on average.
Aidan Quilligan, a managing director at Accenture and global lead of its Industry X.0 practice, said, “Executives don't have to understand all the ins and outs of a technology to get the most value from it, but they must understand the broader business landscape around the technology. While there are many excellent frameworks for assessing the internal digitization readiness of a company, until now you were on your own if you wanted to run an assessment of the external factors that might influence your digital transformation. Our Digital Dividends Diagnostic now makes this possible, providing a framework to help you get maximum value from digital technologies."
Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, and Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, today announced new initiatives under their existing partnership designed to simplify enterprises’ journey to multicloud architectures, making network and security act as seamless partners with compute and storage. As enterprises transition to multicloud environments, they need simplified and automated network management, as well as integrated and agile security. To enable this, Juniper Networks and Nutanix are deepening their collaboration in an effort to provide seamless integration between virtual and physical networks that is vital to a multicloud future.
The goal is for Juniper’s Contrail Enterprise Multicloud to integrate with Nutanix APIs to provide enhanced network visibility for virtualized workloads, ultimately facilitating automated fabric management. Additionally, Juniper’s Unified Cybersecurity Platform together with Nutanix’s software-defined networking offering, Flow, and AHV hypervisor, intends to secure applications with microsegmentation in enterprise cloud, as well as provide a hardened security posture that prevents lateral propagation of threats. Enterprises will be able to deploy the vSRX integrated virtual firewall in their Nutanix environment, extending the same capability across multicloud architectures with a single point of control using vSRX on-premises and in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
Working with Nutanix, Juniper will provide:
An operationally simplified and scalable network fabric based on Juniper’s QFX switches for Nutanix Enterprise Cloud users through the integration of Contrail Enterprise Multicloud with Nutanix’s APIs.
Enhanced microsegmentation in enterprises’ cloud architecture, creating a hardened security posture that prevents lateral propagation of threats by allowing enterprises to take advantage of the functionality of both Nutanix Flow and Juniper vSRX.
With Juniper’s Contrail Enterprise Multicloud and Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud, enterprises will be able to seamlessly build, connect, secure and operate multicloud architectures.
Supporting Quotes
“As enterprises race toward multicloud, they are burdened with complexities that arise during each stage of the journey. By integrating Contrail Enterprise Multicloud and Juniper’s Unified Cybersecurity Platform with Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud, we are delivering an end-to-end secure and automated multicloud environment spanning compute, storage and networking for our customers.”
-Bikash Koley, Chief Technology Officer, Juniper Networks
“The future of enterprise infrastructure is multi-cloud - that’s no longer up for debate. Networking shouldn’t be the complex burden holding companies back from this transition, and that’s why we’re so committed to working with our partners like Juniper to offer our joint customers seamless, secure networking fit for the multi-cloud world.”
- Raja Mukhopadhyay, VP of Product Management, Nutanix
“We have separately used both Juniper and Nutanix technology as components of Expedient’s Enterprise Cloud and Disaster Recovery solutions. This collaboration further enables multi-cloud adoption for customers with applications operating on diverse infrastructure. From our perspective, this partnership further validates our vision of having a single security perimeter to protect workloads across clouds.”
-John White, Vice President, Product Strategy, Expedient
ACT Fibernet (Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd.) India’s largest fiber-focused wired broadband ISP (Internet Service Provider)[i], in association with the Government of Tamil Nadu connected 300 schools with high speed broadband connectivity in Chennai and Coimbatore. With this initiative, ACT Fibernet aims to meet the emerging need for digital education, help students to empower themselves by acquiring, absorbing and retaining the benefits of digital learning.
Digital literacy is the need of the hour and is one of the most potent tool for empowerment of any society. The students will help bring transformation and enable to accomplish the government’s vision of making India a complete digitally powered nation.
Commenting on the initiative, Sengottaiyan K.A, Minister for School Education in Tamil Nadu said, “ACT Fibernet is one of the most trusted internet service provider and is known for its pioneering technology. We are extremely happy that, ACT Fibernet is investing over INR 3 Cr to extend its high-speed broadband connectivity to our government schools in Chennai & Coimbatore. This will certainly benefit our students, help them enhance their knowledge and open new opportunities.”
Speaking on the association, Sandeep Gupta, COO, ACT Fibernet said, “We strongly believe that knowledge is the key to transformation, and it is indeed a moment of pride that the Government of Tamil Nadu gave us the opportunity to digitally empower the students in the state. This initiative will benefit thousands of students and help them enrich the present-day advancements of learning, seeking information around the globe, learning beyond the prescribed syllabus and adding additional knowledge to develop them into future instructors.”
Connecting the community to the virtual world through internet is imperative for the people to grow, develop and sustain in the community. With the government’s constant and fervent efforts to digitally educate citizens, Government’s National Digital Literacy Mission will further receive support through initiatives such as ACT Fibernet’s and its contribution to the country’s digital growth.
Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, in alliance with USA-based PTC Inc., has unveiled a state-of-the-art Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru, focused on Internet of Things (IoT)-based innovations. The CoE will focus specifically on Industry 4.0 solutions in Manufacturing and Oil & Gas sectors.
LTI will leverage the CoE to design, build and showcase solutions for smart, connected enterprises, from proof-of-concept to industrialized deployments. The CoE will showcase the possibilities of transformative technologies to global customers, featuring Industrial IoT solutions developed on PTC’s ThingWorxâ platform. LTI plans to deploy reusable IoT assets from its real-world experience in implementing enterprise-scale digital transformation solutions for global customers like L&T Construction and other global industrial manufacturing enterprises.
A unique feature of the CoE will be the use of real-time data from multiple facilities in use at LTI’s campus, thereby providing rich, real-life data beyond what’s usually available in a simulated environment. These include:
- Asset Performance Management capabilities shown using data from generators in use on campus, demonstrating condition-based monitoring
- Connected Elevator solutions shown using data derived from the elevators in use on campus
- Smart transport solutions used to track & monitor performance of lawn mowers on campus
- Additional information inputs will help showcase other capabilities, such as those for solutions that supply & sort products on a conveyor
AR/VR technology will also be demonstrated to show how those technologies can be used to contextualize digital information in the physical world and enable seamless interaction with users.
Sudhir Chaturvedi, President Sales, and Executive Board Member, LTI, said “The convergence of the physical and digital worlds is resulting in exciting business opportunities and LTI aims to maximize returns from these. Our collaboration with PTC offers enterprises pursuing Industry 4.0 transformation the chance to gain privileged access to hi-tech innovations to help them accelerate their digital adoption journey.”
Michael DiTullio, EVP, Sales and Marketing, PTC, said “Companies are investing significant resources to transform their businesses – having clear direction and the right technologies is critical for success. We are pleased to partner with LTI on this CoE to help accelerate these transformations and help companies achieve value through connected products more quickly.”
ThingWorx is a leading industrial IoT platform purpose-built for driving industrial innovation. With rapid development tools and support for on-premise or cloud deployments, ThingWorx is the preferred IoT choice for companies serious about industrial innovation.
Netmagic, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTT Communications (NTT Com), and among India’s leading Managed Hosting and Multi-Cloud Hybrid IT solution provider, today announced that it is now an Advanced Consulting Partner inthe Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN). APN Consulting Partners are professional services firms that help customers design, architect, build, migrate and manage cloud solutions built on AWS.
NTT Com-Netmagic meets the thorough requirements of the APN Advanced Consulting Partner tier with its AWS expertise, capabilities and engagement within the AWS Partner community. With thispartnership,NTT Com-Netmagic gets access to training and certifications for conducting Proof of Concepts for customers. This further enables the Company to enhance the experience for their customers, by providing them an opportunity to experience a new approach to access control for apps, endpoints and infrastructure.
“NTT Com India-Netmagic’s investment in strengthening its expertise in AWS services is a progressive move from the company and its leaders. It gives their customers the ability to confidently explore the benefits of moving to a cloud, and continue to work through a trusted provider across all facets of the transition whether it’s from a hybrid or on-premises architecture,” said Navdeep Manaktala, Head of Business Development, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited.
“We are extremely pleased to be recognized as an Advanced Consulting Partner in the APN. This achievement is a reflection of NTT Com-Netmagic’s continued effort to help our clients not only migrate to AWS, but to continuously optimize their usage. Our collaboration with AWS also enables our customers with differentiated flexibility to leverage our award-winning managed security services on AWS platform,” said Nitin Mishra, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company).
As an Advanced Consulting Partner, NTT Com-Netmagic is in a stronger position to continue helping organizations in their cloud journey, from strategy and design, to implementation and management of their hybrid architecture under NTT Com-Netmagic’s unique onshore/nearshore managed services model.NTT Com-Netmagic’s clients are consistently benefit from its very own cloud expertise. These benefits include significant infrastructure cost savings, strong security management, and increased focus of their IT teams on strategic business activities.
Following an efficacious launch of new CAMON AI series consisting of 4 smartphones early this month, TECNO Mobile, a premium smartphone brand from TRANSSION India, today unveils its striking TV ad campaign for festive season. The TVC is part of the overall 360-degree campaign for 4-weeks starting 10th Oct until 11th Nov’18.
The ‘HarSuratKhoobsurat’ campaign for TECNO new range of camera-centric smartphones is based on the philosophy that India is blessed with beauty all around and it’s not just scenic, this beauty lies amongst us all. It can be seen on every face we come across. And it deserves to be captured, even more beautifully. It also truly compliments what the new TECNO CAMON AI series has to offer through its superb Best Anylight AI camera smartphones that aims at clicking exceptional pictures in any light condition.
Talking about the new campaign Gaurav Tikoo, CMO, TRANSSION India said, “Har Surat Khoobsurat is not only a campaign for us but it is a philosophy that we truly believe in. We at TECNO are committed to delivering best camera and selfie experience across key price segments. And this festive season our new TECNO CAMON AI range of smartphones aims at celebrating beauty of every Indian and empowering them to pose proudly in any light condition. Through this campaign we want to better connect with them and revolutionise the Best Anylight photography experience. And to perfectly sum this idea up we rehashed the evergreen hit by Bombay Vikings, Kya Surat hai in our TV commercial. It highlights the khoobsurat features of the powerful CAMON AI smartphones that capture the beautiful moments with great perfection.”
The brand has taken an aggressive approach of rolling out #TECNOHarSuratKhoobsurat festive campaign across multiple mediums ranging from TV, digital, social, radio, on-ground & retail. The 4-week TV campaign will be available across national and regional channels. The campaign will be further amplified on Social and digital platforms. To help consumers get a first-hand experience of the “Best Any Light” camera smartphones the brand will carry more than 3000+ on-ground activities covering 1200 cities enabling direct engagement with our Consumers & Retail partners.
Early this month, the brand announced the new range of TECNO CAMON AI series consist of 4 smartphones – CAMON iAir2+ priced @8999, CAMON i2 @10499, CAMON i2X @12499 & CAMON iCLICK2 @ 13499. The range flaunts many features which will change the game in the sub 14K segment such as 6.2” HD+ screen, 19:9 Super Full View notch display, 24MP AI selfie, 13+5MP Dual rear AI camera, Dual SIM, Dual VoLTE (4G+4G), 3750mAh and AI Face Unlock.
An alumnus of INSEAD, France, Sanjeeb Kalita joins Innoviti as Chief Revenue Officer. He brings over 22 years of diverse experience of Sales & BD, Large Scale Operations Management and building businesses across sectors like FinTech, IT & Telecom.
Sanjeeb till recently was the Chief Revenue Officer at Ezetap where he led the company’s international expansion, built partnerships and alliances, and was responsible for sales and revenue.
Sanjeeb was previously associated with Bharti Airtel as Vice President and Chief Service Officer.
Sanjeeb Kalita’s induction is in line with Innoviti’s aggressive plans for scaling up of its business operations post the latest fund raise of US$ 18 million in a Series B funding round led by the Singapore-based SBI FMO Emerging Asia Financial Sector Fund (the ‘SBI-FMO Fund’ jointly setup by SBI Holdings Group of Japan and FMO of Netherlands), Bessemer Venture Partners and existing investor Catamaran.
Utilizing the Series B Innoviti has rapidly expanded its customer base, doubling the volume processed and revenue over the past twelve months. Currently, Innoviti’s uniPAY NEXT platform processes over US$ 4 Bn of annual transaction volume across over 1.25 lac POS terminals at over 800 cities in India. Through its latest #LookAhead Transaction-routing technology which uses a Rules-based architecture to dynamically search for the acquiring network with optimal cost – cum-reliability combination for each transaction, the company has today increased transaction reliability to upwards of 96%, where the industry average stands at 82%.
Sanjeeb’s appointment reaffirms Innoviti’s commitment to rapidly scaling up by providing a world-class payments platform to Indian merchants.
In a recent top-deck appointment, Innoviti Payment Solutions, a leading payments solutions provider has roped in Sanjeeb Kalita, erstwhile Chief Revenue Officer of Ezetap as its new Chief Revenue Officer. The appointment is a part of Innoviti’s aggressive growth plans for scaling up its flagship solutions – uniPAY NEXT and smelending.com – post its recent US$ 18 million fund raise in July 2017.
An alumnus of INSEAD, France, Sanjeeb is an experienced FinTech professional with deep understanding of banking and technology. Prior to FinTech, Sanjeeb has worked as Vice President & Chief Service Officer at Bharti Airtel.
Speaking on the appointment, Amrita Malik, Co-founder and CBO, Innoviti Payment Solutions said, “We are delighted to have an experienced FinTech Business Leader on-board to further accelerate our rapid growth. His rich and diverse experience will help us further enhance the strong customer orientation that we are known for.”
“Innoviti is already a leader in several payment segments in India. I’m excited to be a part of this journey at a juncture when the company’s strong market position and differentiated multi-sided platform can be monetized further for rapid growth with both merchants and partners. I look forward to working with Innoviti’s highly experienced team to drive the company’s ambitious vision and aggressive growth plans” – said Sanjeeb Kalita.
Speakers at the InterraIT conclave held recently stressed the need for the information technology sector to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI). Asoke K. Laha, Founder, President and CEO of InterraIT, has emerged as a strong advocate of the adoption of cutting-edge technologies as a strategy to reorient India’s IT industries in the face of challenges posed by rampant protectionism, increased competition, and labor arbitrage in its target markets.
“We need to look inward at domestic markets with a view to bringing to the table sophisticated new technologies like open-source software, cloud computing, data analytics, and now artificial intelligence.” Laha said at the conclave.
Highlights:
· Dr Prabhat Kumar, E-Governance and AI expert said it was time to bring the full potential of AI to bear on the competitiveness, efficiency, and profitability of the IT industry in the global village. He added that China is streets ahead in the adoption of AI technologies. “These technologies are already available and we need to adapt them to our needs. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” he asserted.
· The need to look beyond the hype surrounding AI was underscored by Puneet Jindal, Founder Data Science Delhi and Lead Data Scientist at RateGain. “AI has been around for decades; it’s just that new programming has come into play and is easy to adopt,” he said. “We must focus on basics and build simple things to excite the market.”
· Explaining algorithms, the set of rules that break down a complex task, Ramakrishna M, Co-founder Intello Labs & AI expert said these can help train a machine in the use of cutting-edge technologies. He illustrated his comment with reference to image-based quality grading, the process by which an application can provide information about an image captured by a camera.
· Aniruddha Guha Sarkar, Senior Vice President addressed the practical aspects of AI , saying the application of such technologies provide a vast array of opportunities. “We need to align them with customer demands in order to say ahead of the challenges we face in the area of customer satisfaction,” he averred.
Summing up the learnings from the conclave, Jagannath Sanyal, Marketing Director said InterraIT has chalked out aggressive plans to lead the technological changes from the front. He talked about his company’s partnership with a global firm in the area of autonomous testing and their plans to strike more such alliances.
