The World Obesity Federation recognizes obesity as a "chronic, relapsing, progressive disease process, associated with comorbidities such as diabetes, sleep apnea, high blood pressure and infertility.” A recent study also linked morbid obesity to 13 types of cancer. In Karnataka, obesity is growing rapidly across both men and women, and across rural and urban areas. The proportion of men who are obese has doubled in the last decade. Increasing urbanization can be a contributing factor to these trends - lack of physical activity and growing consumption of fast food are proven to fuel obesity. But obesity is no more confined to urban areas. Even in rural areas, nearly 20% of men and women in Karnataka are obese. Widespread awareness of obesity as a serious medical condition is the need of the hour, so that patients consult doctors in time to benefit from the full range of available treatment options.
Dr. Shivaram H V, a surgeon in Aster CMI Hospital,observes that obese patients usually do not consult a medical professional promptly, “In the Indian scenario, more than 60% of individuals wait more than 6-10 years to seek out clinically proven weight-loss methods. By that time, such patients may have two or more comorbidities – such as sleep apnea or type 2 diabetes. Amongst residents of Bangalore, particularly among software professionals aged less than 30 years, the incidence of obesity is rising rapidly. Based on clinical experience, I would estimate the growth to be as high as 15% per annum. It is imperative that as soon as patients observe a steady and uncontrolled weight gain, they consult a medical expert who can identify the cause and advise corrective measures.”
Obesity treatment plans aim to limit weight gain, and eventually help patients reach and stay at a healthy weight. Treatment plans usually include diet and lifestyle recommendations, medications and bariatric surgery for eligible patients. Dr. Shivaram H V added, “When obesity is treated effectively, many comorbid conditions also show improvement. For instance, bariatric surgery is proven to help control Type 2 Diabetes in obese Indian patients. In my experience, this benefit is long-lasting. With simple habits and routines implemented by the patient post-surgery, glycemic control persists for at least 10-15 years. Similarly, I have observed sustained improvements in patients with high blood pressure, cholesterol and PCOD.”
Worldwide, of the four million deaths attributed to excess body weight in 2015, nearly 40% occurred among those whose body mass index (BMI) was above the threshold of obesity, i.e., 30 or above. To help ensure that severe obesity is treated with proven methods, insurance coverage of obesity treatment is a key step. Dr. Shivaram H Vemphasizes, “About 40% of patients visiting our hospital had previously avoided seeking obesity treatment due to financial concerns. Some even question whether they should spend money on a ‘cosmetic’ need. They discover later the reality that obesity is not just a matter of appearance, but also a serious health issue.” Recently, the IRDAI panel clarified that obesity, if contracted after buying a health cover, cannot be excluded from coverage. Dr. Shivaram applauded this step saying, “Covering obesity treatment with insurance will reinforce the seriousness of the condition, its potential to drive related lifestyle diseases and the need to seek appropriate medical treatment.”
Arena Animation, the leading animation institution in India recently organized the Creative Minds - Bengaluru 2018 — an opportunity for over 400 students to showcase their talent.
Creative Minds is Arena’s flagship student competition, where students produce and showcase some brilliant work. Students conceptualise and produce films under the guidance & mentorship of their faculty. These films and projects are judged by industry experts, who then guide and nurture them. This competition which happens across the country, judges students on various categories such as digital illustration, character design and animation, visual effects scene, 3D architectural visualization to name a few. It creates a platform for the students that provide them opportunity to learn teamwork and showcase their work within a strict timeframe, thus improving their capability, capacity and efficiency.
Congratulating the winners, Pravir Arora, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Aptech Ltd said, “Creative Minds is an initiative that offers a holistic benefit to the students. On one hand they receive quality insight including tip and tricks while using software, and on the other, they receive quick and comprehensive feedback on their work. With such competitions we want to create a stage for students to network with the industry experts. I would like to heartily congratulate the winners of Creative Minds, Bengaluru 2018”.
The industry stalwarts consisted of leading studios in India. These industry experts lent their guidance to students and also provided them useful career tips, in order to nurture industry-ready individuals. In this way, students were exposed to the latest industry trends, while at the same time they learnt to apply the learnings to the work they had presented. Along with the competition, a masterclass was conducted by industry leaders such as:
Pranay Agarwal, Head of Compositing, DNeg Studios, Mumbai
Dijo Davis, Head of L&D at Technicolor Academy & Sachin A.A. Learning Lead Compositing - Technicolour Academy by MPC Studios, Bengaluru
Arena Animation believes that a better future for the Indian animation and VFX industry can only be fueled by skilling the youth and nurturing creative minds and make them industry-ready. Initiatives like Creative Minds by Arena Animation always aim towards creating a strong community of skilled animators.
Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, now provides comprehensive protection to Motilal Oswal’s endpoints, network, and servers via one unified platform. The cybersecurity solutions securing Motilal Oswal include Trend Micro Apex One for endpoints, Trend Micro Deep Discovery Inspector for network, and Trend Micro Deep Security with anti-malware and intrusion prevention modules for servers.
Motilal Oswal is one of India’s leading financial services companies. With more than 2,200 branches in 500 Indian cities serving more than ten million customers, Motilal Oswal needed solutions that could provide comprehensive security without further complicating its IT environment.
The company first deployed Trend Micro’s Apex One endpoint security suite; then expanded the deal to include security solutions for its network and servers. Trend Micro Apex One protects the endpoints from unwanted and unknown applications. Trend Micro Deep Security provides emergency virtual patching to safeguard the servers from zero-day malware, network-based attacks, and operational impact from resource inefficiencies. Trend Micro Deep Discovery Inspector provides comprehensive threat detection and 360-degree visibility into the network, by monitoring all ports and protocols to identify attacks.
As a result, Motilal Oswal is able to monitor lateral movement within its network, reduce unscheduled downtimes, gain greater visibility into its IT assets, and decrease the time needed for security operations through one single-window management.
Nilesh Jain, Vice President, Southeast Asia and India, Trend Micro said, “Motilal Oswal’s all-inclusive deployment of our security solutions allows the company to achieve what we call connected threat defense, an integrated and layered approach to cybersecurity that gives enterprises better control over their IT environment.”
“Trend Micro’s solutions enable us to offer our customers a truly secure environment that doesn’t compromise on performance. Our organization has benefited immensely from the reduced downtimes and real-time protection from threats,” said Pankaj Purohit, CIO, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
Amit Ghodekar, CSO, Motilal Oswal Financial Services said, “One of the reasons we selected Trend Micro solutions over other vendors’ is for their unique virtual patching capabilities. Virtual patching shields our systems from zero-day vulnerabilities until a patch becomes available.”
Vijendra Katiyar, National Sales Manager, Trend Micro said, “Trend Micro’s robust security solutions have increased operational performance and provided Motilal Oswal enhanced protection against threats.”
“We gained an excellent solution in Trend Micro’s comprehensive security suite. The main benefits of improved protection and enhanced visibility, without compromising on performance enabled us to gain a safe environment within a cost-effective budget,” said Sehul Shaht, VP - IT Infrastructure Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
Trend Micro has been a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms since 2002, along with earning the rank of ‘most effective recommended breach detection system’ for two years running by NSS Labs.
Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, today announces a major 3-year contract with the C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), an organization within the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, India) to supply its BullSequana supercomputers. This contract is part of the NSM (National Supercomputing Mission), a 7-year plan of INR 4500 crores (~650M$) led by the Government of India which aims to create a network of over 70 high-performance supercomputing facilities for various academic and research institutions across India.
This project will see Atos deploy its BullSequana supercomputers, with a cumulative computing power of more than 10 petaflops. These supercomputers, including the recently announced BullSequana XH2000 will be installed in various academic and research institutions, making Atos a leading supercomputing provider in India for this segment.
“We are honoured to be given this opportunity by the Indian Authorities to be part of the NSM initiative and to become the technology partner of C-DAC for HPC-related platforms. We’re proud to be supporting India as one of the major markets with its strong growth expectations. The choice of the Indian government is testament to our experience and expertise in high-performance supercomputing and I am delighted that our BullSequana, with its unique Direct Liquid Cooling platform, will be enabling Indian academic and research institutions to accelerate their research” said Pierre Barnabé, Chief Operating Officer, Big Data & Security at Atos.
“We would like to thank the Hon’ble Minister MEIT, Secretary MEIT and the Director General of C-DAC Dr. Hemant Darbari for giving this opportunity to participate in such a prestigious program. We are very excited and looking forward to this unique technology partnership with C-DAC. Besides delivery of the Make in India Supercomputers, the partnership will bring to bear cooperation in many emerging areas, including exascale computing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.” said Arvind Bajaj, Vice President and Head Big Data & Security at Atos in India.
This new contract illustrates the strategic relationship and partnership between the two countries and marks India’s ambition to be a leader in HPC. Delivery is expected to start early 2019.
MT Educare, one of India’s largest coaching companies has launched a revolutionary book that uses digital technologies to combine the best aspects of a textbook, work book and classroom teaching into an innovative learning experience.
Captioned R+ Notebook, the said book is prepared by highly qualified teachers, instructional designers and top design professionals, and addresses the problem of students forgetting critical concepts at the time of revision. This is often a result of lack of a systematic approach where students tend to write in multiple notebooks, which a student may or may not find while revising before assessments.
The R+Notebook not only covers all the concepts and problems from a textbook along with space to solve these problems, but most importantly, each concept and problem comes with an embedded QR code. If a student has trouble recalling the concept or the approach to solve a particular problem, all he/she has to do is scan the QR code using R+Notebook’s companion app and he/she will be able to see a video of the teacher solving the problem in the classroom.
This innovation thus eliminates last minute stress that students often feel when they can’t recall a concept, or approach to a problem solution while revising the concepts closer to the assessment.
Mahesh Shetty, founder of MT Educare and the Company’s Wholetime Director said, “This is the first time in the world that a ‘traditional’ notebook has been morphed into a multi-media learning book combining textbook, notebook, classroom learning and digital technologies to create a wholesome experience for students.”
The concept was test-marketed in the week of Children’s Day and was met with resounding success. Most of the students who thronged to MTEducare centres to experience this innovative approach to learning have signed up for the Class IX & Class X (2019-21 academic session).
Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, is questioning whether the promise of public cloud may be confusing India’s enterprises and hindering their growth, rather than helping it.
Nutanix is challenging conventional cloud thinking by outlining how organizations can redefine their business and business models by taking back control of their cloud environment, rather than simply adding to it.
Modern organizations are rapidly embracing multiple cloud services and providers, attracted by the prospect of simplifying operations, improving efficiencies, driving speed and flexibility, and liberating themselves from expensive on-premise vendor solutions.
But is this race to the cloud actually holding back India’s businesses? Enterprises often end up replacing one vendor with another or opting for alternating systems to provide redundancy and business resiliency. This can end up trapping them in exactly the same inflexible, costly and complex infrastructure environment they were looking to escape.
So, what is the solution? Nutanix suggests that better management and visibility into cloud operations holds the key to realising all the promises of cloud.
“The future is not cloud. The future is managing multiple clouds.” said Nutanix Neville Vincent, Head of Nutanix, India, ASEAN and ANZ. “Cloud complexity and clutter is a challenge threatening to overwhelm IT departments drowning in reactive problem-solving. Businesses are looking for the freedom to invest and create. Instant access and control of the ever increasing cloud networks, provides that freedom. The result is a software driven IT department free to focus on enhanced customer experience and shaping the future of the business.”
It’s a timely solution and comes at a time when enterprises are seeing an explosion in IoT and other connected devices which is driving an increase in cloud deployments designed to intelligently manage these devices at the “edge”. Ensuring consistent performance and governance whenever and wherever, from the datacentre to the edge, becomes critical to future business success.
“The cost and complexity of Cloud is costing Asia’s businesses” added Vincent “Instead of focusing on growing their business and adding value for their customers, today’s leaders are instead spending most of their time trying to understand and manage their cloud environment. We change that by putting companies back in control of the cloud.”
Nutanix’s Enterprise OS mitigates the risk and restrictions of public cloud lock-in by allowing customers to move data and workloads securely and seamlessly between public and private clouds with full and immediate visibility of costs. It also provides a single point of control for managing infrastructure and applications in any cloud, from datacentre to the edge, and delivers multi-cloud governance via new SaaS offerings.
The company has been growing rapidly in India as the hyperconverged market become mainstream.
Syska Group, a leading FMEG company announces the launch of ‘Reverb C2 Wireless Earphones’. Syska Reverb is a perfect light weight, comfortable hands-free mobile companion and is powered by really long-lasting battery to make sure that your days are filled with music you love. It features high definition speaker and multifunction button with IPX4 water resistance, long lasting battery and magnetic earbuds. Syska Reverb Wireless Headset comes with HDAB Technology for rich bass and clear sound to deliver best music experience to the consumers.
Commenting on the launch of Syska Reverb earphones, Gurumukh Uttamchandani, Executive Director, Syska Group said, “New technologies are replacing the wired earphones with the wireless ones and consumers are now fond of bluetooth earphones because of the ease to carry them. By launching Reverb C2, Syska is not only looking at providing a seamless music experience to the user but we also want the consumers to experience comfort in the communication aspect too. We believe in bringing new and innovative products that will benefit the consumers and change their perception from using just a normal earphone to a classic earphone. Syska Reverb is esthetically designed to provide comfort and style at the same time and it is an all-day wear with great features”.
Syska Reverb C2 is engineered for high definition sound with HDAB Technology combined with high precision auto level equalizer ensures that the music is played in right cord to give world class sound. The Syska Reverb Earphones is compatible with all types of smartphones, tablets, PC or Mac book and music players. It also seamlessly integrates the in-built equalizer function of Google Music and iTunes, without having any need of any additional app. It is designed ergonomically for long term wear; these headphones feature flexibility to wear around your neck and the stabilizing silicon ear gels provide in-ear comfort. These ensure a perfect fit for long term wear. It is built with polyurethane joints to keep it light weight and easy to carry around whole day.
Syska Reverb C2 is also a perfect companion for outdoor or indoor activities as the earphones are certified as sweat resistant and that makes them a perfect workout companion. The product is available at an introductory price of INR 2849/- in black, blue and green colors. It is also available on leading e-commerce portals Flipkart and Amazon.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on the Digital Economy has announced ftcash as the global grand prize winner for the 2018 MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC). The winning organization was selected by the IIC Champion Committee from 20 Regional Winners in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. All were vetted after a year-long search for the most innovative, impactful, and scalable future of work solutions on the planet from more than 1,500 global registrants by in-region experts and chosen by Selection Panels at regional celebrations this summer. ftcash exemplified scalable, working solutions that broaden opportunity and harness technology to include more people in the digital economy.
The MIT IIC awards $1.6 million globally to organizations that are using technology to reinvent the future of work and create a more equitable economy.
ftcash was previously the regional winner of the Inclusive Innovation Challenge in Bangkok, Thailand. All the IIC regional winners received an expenses-paid trip to MIT for the Grand Prize Gala where they were honoured with receptions, networking opportunities, and workshops with investors, MIT, and industry experts.
“It is our absolute pleasure and honour to be recognized by MIT. This award represents the highest achievement in inclusive technology, but in our case, it is a validation and reflection of our mission of financial inclusion that resonates with millions of individuals globally. Today, with our technology any small business owner in India can access credit or digital payments with a click of a button. This gives us extraordinary power for us at ftcash to march for inclusion, to reignite the movement for “the missing middle”; to create a just society. With MIT’s unparalleled strength in technology and their commitment to Digital Economy and Artificial Intelligence, we are looking forward to a successful partnership that can allow us to harness the best available resources in the world.”, says Vaibhav Lodha, Co-founder of ftcash.
“ftcash has established itself as one of the most innovative companies today in the fintech sector and the recognition from MIT is a testimony to their focus on product market fit to serve this credit starved market segment. Through our long-term association with the company, we aim to help the company unlock the vast market potential for its product, possibly on a global scale.” says Vikram Gupta, Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures
“The grand challenge of our era is to use digital technologies to create not only prosperity, but shared prosperity,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We created the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge to recognize and reward the many amazing people and organizations that are working to accomplish this mission.”
“With the MIT IIC, we’re celebrating the entrepreneurs and innovators who are demonstrating many different ways to put powerful technology to use to improve people’s economic prospects,” adds Andrew McAfee, co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. “Our winners and other entrants show us that broadly shared prosperity is possible, which makes a great antidote to pessimism and negativity.”
For more on the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge and our mission, please visit: www.MITinclusiveinnovation.com. For more on the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, visit: ide.mit.edu.
ftcash: ftcash is one of India’s fastest growing financial technology venture, recognized by Forbes, which aims to empower micro-merchants and small businesses through financial inclusion using digital payments and loans.
ftcash provides a software and hardware based full-stack payment solution to small merchants to initiate digital payments in less than 5 minutes. In addition, ftcash uses its proprietary algorithm to understand the credit-worthiness using their transaction flow data on the payments platform along with several other data points including psychometric analysis, which can be leveraged to provide these underserved SMEs with institutional finance. After disbursement of loans, the collections is done using the payments platform for their future receivables. The company was launched in Mumbai, India in mid-2015. It was incubated by PayPal and is currently in a strategic partnership with MasterCard to enable merchant services globally. The team comprises of senior executives from Deutsche Bank, Capital One, World Bank, KPMG among others with a pedigree from Wharton, Harvard, IIMs, IITs etc.
ftcash was awarded by HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton as a winner at the UK Trade and Investment – Great Tech Initiative. Most notably, ftcash was recognized for its work in financial inclusion by President of India at Pitch@RB, TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield, Berlin, Singapore Fintech Festival and Abu Dhabi Fintech Festival. The company has also won several other accolades that include Mastercard Global StartPath, IBM Fintech Smart Camp, Red Herring Asia 50, NTT Data Open Innovation, IIM Ahmedabad CIIE-IIFL Fellowship, KPMG Hot 100 Startups, NASSCOM Emerge 50, iSPIRT InTech 50, The Fintech20 India, mBillionth Award South Asia, ISB-SAP Social Enterprise Jumpstart, Action for India 100, Village Capital Program among other accolades. It was selected for World’s first Impact Investment Show – The Real Deal on NDTV and Young Turks on CNBC. ftcash is funded by IvyCap Ventures and 500 Startups.
Cloud infrastructure provider OVH, announced the launch of Digital Launch Pad (DLP), an accelerator for Indian start-ups.
Kickstarted its operation in India few months back, the firm OVH launched its accelerator program under which the firm will offer up to $100,000 to start-ups from innovation to market stage, to deploy solutions built on OVH infrastructure along with training and expertise.
OVH’s global DLP program which was launched in 2015, has supported 1,500 start-ups in 120 countries.
DLP in India would support emerging businesses in the digital arena and allow them to benefit from reliable and flexible cloud infrastructure.
“Public cloud services market in India has seen phenomenal growth over the last 2 years, reaching $1.8 billion in 2017, and is expected to reach $4.1 billion by 2020. With its size and scale, India is well placed to take advantage of the data revolution and we want to draw on our international expertise to help Indian businesses to develop new ideas through a smart cloud, help them through the product development and go-to-market stages and grow along with them as their business grows” said Alain Fiocco, EVP & Chief Technology Officer, OVH.
Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India said, “The Digital Launch Pad initiative is another example of our commitment to our customers, and our focus on helping them grow. We carefully evaluated the Indian market and are providing what our customer’s need.”
Founded in 1999, today OVH maintains 28 data centres in 12 locations across four continents. OVH deploys its own global fibre optic network and manages the entire supply chain for web hosting, making it easier for companies of all sizes to access the cloud.
OVH, a global leader in cloud infrastructure has announced it has started operations and seen strong growth since it opened its first Indian office, earlier this year. With business in North America, EMEA and APAC, OVH has drawn on its international expertise to offer a different vision of the cloud for its growing customer base in India.
Founded in 1999, today OVH maintains 28 data centres in 12 locations across four continents. OVH deploys its own global fibre optic network and manages the entire supply chain for web hosting, making it easier for companies of all sizes to access the cloud. Since its operations in India began in June 2018, the company has seen great momentum with customers across the country signing up to it dedicated servers, web hosting, private and public cloud services.
“In the last two years, the public cloud services market in India has seen phenomenal growth – reaching $1.8 billion in 2017. By 2020, this figure is expected to reach $4.1 billion. Due to its size and scale, India is very well-placed to take advantage of the data revolution and we want to help Indian businesses to develop new ideas through a smart cloud,” said Alain Fiocco, EVP Chief Technology Officer (CTO), OVH.
Giving back to the Indian ecosystem
Today OVH is launching the Digital Launch Pad in India to support emerging businesses in the digital arena and allow them to benefit from reliable and flexible cloud infrastructure. The company offers up to $100,000 to startups to deploy solutions built on the OVH infrastructure.
Commenting on the news, Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India said “The Digital Launch Pad initiative is another example of our commitment to our customers, and our focus on helping them grow. We carefully evaluated the Indian market and are providing what our customers need, which is a safe forum to experiment with different projects, coupled with support from OVH’s experts to develop their ideas.”
A strong growth trajectory for OVH in India
Last year OVH acquired VMware vCloud Air. In India the company has integrated vCloud Air employees into the OVH organisation, increasing the size, expertise and experience of its local team. The expanded sales team has already recruited several thousand customers and the company is seeing high growth. Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India explains, “This growth is set to continue. In fact, taking into account the strength of our team, the growth we’ve seen to date and market conditions, coupled with the high-quality, cost-effective OVH portfolio, we believe that India has the potential to become the largest OVH tech hub outside of our global headquarters in France.”
To further enable this growth in India, OVH is recruiting local partners to work closely with company leveraging its international data centres in Europe and the US.
An alternative, smart cloud
Central to OVH’s operations in India is the company’s vision of a different type of cloud. Sitting at the heart of the data revolution, OVH offers an alternative solution that liberates the cloud for its customers and partners, helping them to succeed.
OVH helps organisation, regardless of their size, to control their data, innovate and develop new ideas in total freedom through a “smart” cloud:
· A Simple cloud, quick and easy to set up
· A Multi-local cloud, close to everyone all over the world
· An Accessible cloud with fair and predictable pricing
· A Reversible cloud, open and compatible
· A Transparent cloud that functions responsibly.
This “smart cloud strategy” revolves around four product universes. Each is tailored to a different type of OVH customer and the way they like to interact with OVH products and services:
OVHmarket is a digital toolbox for accelerating growth. It meets the needs of entrepreneurs who wish to harness the power of digital technology to develop their business. This universe includes a range of web, telecom and cloud solutions that are quick to implement, simple to use, competitively priced and supported by local OVH partners.
OVHspirit includes all the infrastructures you need to build a cloud platform. Infrastructure, hardware and network enthusiasts who want to build a cloud platform for themselves or their customers can harness the power of a scalable, multi-local cloud infrastructure that is based on cutting-edge technologies designed for specific needs, and offers unbeatable value for money.
OVHstack is a public cloud platform based on open standards. It is aimed at followers of the cloud-ready approach who need to develop scalable applications in the cloud. They get a public cloud that is deployed globally, yet integrates easily into their ecosystem and remains reversible.
OVHenterprise is an alternative cloud that powers successful digital transformation. This universe is aimed at decision-makers who want to achieve their strategic objectives using an alternative cloud provider. They retain control of their data by using a hybrid cloud based on both the public and private clouds offered by OVH, as well as any other clouds available on the market.
Working with tech industry giants: VMware and Intel
OVH continues to extend its longstanding global partnerships with VMware and Intel as it expands its business in India.
VMware and OVH have built a solid partnership over the past decade spanning engineering, marketing, sales and support. Boasting VMware Cloud Verified status, and with 7 Partner of the Year awards over 9 years, OVH collaborates closely with VMware to deliver an innovative but affordable Private Cloud based on the full VMware SDDC stack. Through OVH’s acquisition of VMware vCloud Air last year, customers can now also benefit from higher network performance and increased workload mobility through OVH’s global network.
Intel helped OVH design its vast range of servers for fifteen years. With this collaboration OVH is able to deliver hardware that fits a variety of needs and usages for its customers, with the best performance possible. OVH has also been able to innovate by incorporating some of Intel’s latest technologies such as Intel Xeon Scalable Processors and 3D NAND Solid State Drives. More recently OVH also incorporated Intel Optane DC SSD in our high-end servers and VMware vSAN hosts.
IBC media, the creators of the International Blockchain Congress announced the launch of Genesis hack - the world’s biggest blockchain hackathon - at the 10K NASSCOM Start-up Warehouse in Bengaluru. Genesis Hack aims to promote and grow the number of blockchain developers in India. With over 6 million trained software developers, India has the potential to be a blockchain powerhouse, and the developer community plays a privotal role.
“With India’s Blockchain initiatives scaling-up, the need for blockchain-ready developers is growing, Genesis Hack 2019 will change this by congregating over 65k developers from all over India.” - Raghu Mohan, CEO of IBC Media
The launch event of Genesis Hack saw several prominent blockchain industry personali-ties like Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision, Amit Kanodia, CEO, Host and Abhinav Ramesh, CEO of Murmur, among others. Other attendees at the event included develop-ers and participants who came to witness and support the launch of the biggest block-chain hackathon in the world. Genesis Hack is co-hosted and supported by leading industry experts who share the vision of seeing India become one of the biggest block-chain centres in the world - Nucleus Vision, XDAT, Host, Nasscom 10k startups, Spring-role, Murmur and Eleven01.
An Introduction to Genesis Hack and Why India Needs it
Genesis Hack is a blockchain hackathon that aims to propagate blockchain technology in India.. With the growing need for blockchain talent in India, Genesis Hack aims to bring together over 65k developers to compete against each other for a cash prize of over Rs 1 Crore. The participants will be tested through three major tracks that involve building a blockchain protocol, dApps, and building security solutions for blockchain infrastruc-tures. However, the cash prize is not the only incentive; the participants will also be exposed to India’s entire developer community as blockchain-ready.
The hackathon will soon open registrations for its participants and provide them with ample time and mentorship to build their projects. As its name suggests, Genesis Hack is going to set the precedent for the blockchain revolution in India by nurturing and chal-lenging a potent developer community.
The present state of affairs in India is favouring the adoption of blockchain technology at industrial and government capacities. However, the lack of blockchain developers will set back the intended progress that needs to be made in order to make India block-chain-ready. “There are several use cases for blockchain technology across several industries,” commented Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision. “But to scale up, we need engineering talent to build and maintain blockchain infrastructures. An event like Gene-sis Hackathon can help promote the need for more blockchain developers,” he added.
Additionally, there are very few blockchain hackathons that give engineers, blockchain enthusiasts and developers the means to contribute to the industry and get inducted into this small, up-and-coming developer community in India. Presently, India has about 6 million engineers who are capable of delivering a solid throughput for the blockchain industry. “As a large-scale event that brings together developers from all over India, Genesis Hack will set the precedent to enable India to solve the biggest blockchain problems in the world with a well-equipped workforce,” said Rama Iyer, President of Elev-en01.
Mettl, India’s leading talent assessment company, has released its new report on ‘Cognitive Skills at Work’. Realizing the critical shortage of talent in the market, hiring managers across the globe are now starting to focus on an applicant’s cognitive aptitude and their abilities to learn and be trained, rather than only emphasizing on their current skills. Focus on Hiring Candidates with Higher IQ and Analytical Skills, with the usage increasing by 207% specifically for cognitive assessments across a plethora of organizational verticals.
In the search for the perfect competencies to be evaluated for a particular job role, while conducting 10 million assessment annually, Mettl created a cognitive framework to categorize all popular job roles into job families based on the type and level of cognitive ability required in any job role. The framework classifies job roles from L1 to L5, covering 12 core competencies to measure cognitive intelligence at work.
Fluid Intelligence - Abstract Reasoning, Spatial Reasoning, Creativity
Crystallize Intelligence - Numerical Ability, Verbal Ability, Data Analysis, Logical & Critical Reasoning, Decision Making, Problem Solving
Core Business Function - Attention to detail, Memory, Perceptual Speed, Visualization
Mettl Cognitive Skills Framework
The cognitive ability or raw intelligence is one of the best predictors of an employees’ on the job performance and response to training. High cognitive ability is correlated by 84% with higher job performance. In fact, it is the most accurate predictor of an employee’s success at work.
Therefore, it is extremely important for organizations to, first, identify the cognitive ability requirement of every job role and then hire accordingly. Mettl Cognitive Skills Framework classifies job roles based on the nature of the job across 3 critical factors:
Information Processing: Refers to a person’s proficiency in carrying out the numerical, analytical and critical reasoning
Solution Generation: Refers to a person’s ability to think out of the box by making use of creativity and abstract reasoning competencies
Decision making: Refers to a person’s ability to solve problems and take well thought out rational and accurate decisions
Ketan Kapoor, CEO, Mettl, commented, “At least 80% of the Fortune 500 companies globally use cognitive and IQ tests during the hiring process, and through this report and guide, we aim to help more organizations see why this is a practice that could benefit them immensely. In today’s ever-evolving organizational landscape, organizations need their driving force - the people, to be aligned to their business goals and strategies, aligning them with curated competencies for each and every job role will help them build winning teams which are leaner, meaner, fitter and inclusive.”
Mapping the usage trends for cognitive assessments across major industries
Mettl’s study of various key industries found that the use of cognitive assessments has increased by 29% in the overall IT industry. Its application in the hiring process has increased by 28%, and by 101% for the purpose of learning and development (L&D). The increased usage during L&D programs is driven by the fact that high cognitive intelligence is equal to high learning agility. For an industry like IT that is evolving constantly, it’s crucial that employees in this field are highly agile in their ability to learn and keep up with new technologies.
As a leader in the SaaS-based talent assessments and L&D solutions space, Mettl constantly strives to raise the bar around skills assessments and provides award-winning recruiting and L&D solutions to the Indian corporate sector, global, as well as educational institutions. It seamlessly facilitates transformative results for its customers by employing research-backed assessments, efficient delivery on a cloud platform and in-depth analytics.
Light Information Systems, a leading AI NLP startup, has announced an upgrade to their flagship platform, NLPBots. The NLPBots V2 enables businesses and SI/ITES companies to easily automate key processes and conversations with various stakeholders across enterprise functions. The platform now comes loaded with advanced semantic understanding of unstructured and structured data, auto disambiguation, advanced UI configuration and CPU training. The versatility of the platform makes it possible for end to end automation of various key processes like hiring, customer support etc. It can also provide insights for marketing and sales. For example, in hiring the algorithms itself will read and rank resumes and engage with potential candidates and schedule the shortlisted ones for an interview. Earlier this year, Light Information Systems was duly recognized as NASSCOM’s AI game changer for their innovative applications with AI.
Companies today have multiple bots employed within their enterprise system. On an ongoing basis, a typical chatbot requires manual curation of copious amounts of data, pre-processing and classifying according to intent, as well as training the system using GPUs to ultimately deploy a model for one specific use case. This is not only a highly cumbersome process, but also one with many challenges such as high turnaround time, below average accuracies and an operational overhead of manual interventions and change management on a regular basis.
With the NLPBots V2, enterprises can now receive tactical as well as strategic advantage of technologies like artificial intelligence and natural language processing. The advanced UI configuration enables creation of new use cases on the fly thus ensuring hassle free scalability of the use cases.
Commenting on the launch of NLPBots V2 Sanjeev Menon, CEO & Cofounder, Light Information Systems said, “With the newly launched version of NLPBots, our partners and customers will be able to reduce the amount of time spent on classifying content and disambiguating information within the use case framework. They can now create verticalized products and solutions on this horizontal platform by merely linking the data required for the use case, deciding on the user journey and clicking to train on the platform.”
Following NLPBots V1 launch in December 2017, Light Information Systems has onboarded over 25 marquee clients and partners in its roster, including companies like Tata Communications, Persistent Systems, Edelweiss Financial Services, etc. Their client base spans across BFSI, Manufacturing, Pharma, Automobile, Telecom sectors.
CII - Young Indians Bengaluru Chapter presents the 7th edition of the CII – Yi Entrepreneurship Summit ‘FUTURE.NOW – Re-position, Re-calibrate, Re-engineer!’ a one of its kind Entrepreneurship Week that will feature thematic evenings hosted by various countries including France, Australia, , Sweden, Australia (Queensland) and Switzerland.
FUTURE.NOW will enable entrepreneurs connect with industry experts to understand opportunities in these countries, showcase their ideas and explore collaborations. ‘Entrepreneurship Santhe’ will showcase & celebrate the startup & Entrepreneurship spirit of Bengaluru. Rural Artisans and technology Entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to showcase their ideas, products and services, while visitors will be able to meet, greet and interact with Youth Icons, Cine Celebrities, College Students & Music Bands.
The 7-day event scheduled to be held from November 26 to December 2, 2018 at different locations in the city will culminate in the ‘Entrepreneurship Santhe’. a one-day, gala Entrepreneurship Street Carnival at MG Road Boulevard hosted jointly the Government of Karnataka and various trade bodies. ‘Entrepreneurship Santhe’ will feature Start-up’s with over 100 interactive exhibits and an expected footfall of 5000+ visitors for the day long festival.
KJ George, Minister for Large & Medium Scale Industries, IT and BT, Science and Technology, Government of Karnataka, along with Foreign dignitaries including Honourable Kate Jones MP, Minister for Innovation and Tourism Industry Development, Govt of Queensland, Australia; Mr. Sebastien Hug, swissnex India CEO and Consul General ; Mr. François Gautier, Consul General of France in Bangalore ;Mr. Jean-François Ambrosio, French Trade and Investment Commissioner for South India, Business France and Mr. Muthu Kumar, Chairman - CII Karnataka along with incubators, investors and Startups across industries will be attending this first of a kind summit in Bangalore.
Laeeq Ali , Chair CII Young Indians Bengaluru Chapter said “The weeklong engagement looks at the ‘World at Bengaluru’. Each day would feature a thematic interaction hosted along the interests of a geography of the world. These would range from entrepreneur keynotes, curated dialogues, panel discussion and elevator pitches enabling entrepreneurs to redefine and recalibrate themselves to be future proof and relevant globally”.
By Lakshmi Mandyam, VP of automotive, Embedded and Automotive Line of Business, Arm
In my role as Arm’s automotive lead, my team and I are constantly talking with both car makers and our automotive ecosystem (the top 15 automotive chip makers license Arm IP) discussing progress toward fully-autonomous driving. We of course talk about how we can address their performance, power and security requirements, but most of the discussions often focus on safety.
Safety is the highest priority for car makers we talk with, for both the obvious technology factors associated with autonomous systems controlling all aspects of driving, but also to ensure that human passengers can trust their automated driver. If consumers don’t trust the autonomous systems in their cars are safe, then mass market acceptance of this technology will be slow to happen.
Ironically, it’s a human factor, driver error, autonomous driving is expected to eliminate. Considering 94 percent of all accidents are a result of driver error, fully-autonomous driving is expected to significantly reduce the number of accidents and fatalities. It is why safety cannot be an afterthought and take a backseat to performance, power-efficiency and security when developing autonomous-class SoCs and systems. Unfortunately, the path to level 5 autonomy has been paved with prototypes, often based on power-hungry, expensive data center CPUs lacking even the most basic functional safety features.
Arm has prioritized safety for years now and it is a key reason why Arm IP is in 65 percent of the silicon used in ADAS applications. Our automotive ecosystem has access to the industry’s broadest array of functional safety IP with the latest ISO certifications. To further ensure our silicon partners get a head start on safety, today we’re announcing the Arm Safety Ready program which centralizes Arm’s massive investment in safety, enabling our silicon partners and the entire automotive supply chain to accelerate their timelines for bringing safer products to market faster.
But our safety leadership doesn’t stop with integrating the latest certifications and standards. Today, we’re also announcing availability of the first autonomous-class processor with integrated safety, the new Arm Cortex-A76AE, which has been uniquely designed for automotive and includes Split-Lock technology, a game-changing safety innovation available for the first time in application processors.
Getting ‘Safety Ready’ for the next levels of autonomy
The Safety Ready program encompasses Arm’s existing safe and new or future products which have been through a rigorous functional safety process, including systematic flows and development in support of ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 standards. Safety Ready is a one-stop shop for software, tools, components, certifications and standards which will simplify and reduce the cost of integrating functional safety for Arm partners. By taking advantage of the program offerings, partners and car makers can be confident their SoCs and systems incorporate the highest levels of functional safety required for autonomous applications.
Cortex-A76AE: The world’s first autonomous-class processor with integrated safety
The Cortex-A76AE is a game-changing new CPU uniquely designed for automotive and optimized for 7nm process nodes. AE stands for “Automotive Enhanced” and any Arm IP with the AE designator will include specific features addressing the requirements of in-vehicle processing.
A high level of processing capability is required for autonomous driving, with inherent safety as standard. Cortex-A76AE delivers both without compromise as the industry’s first high-performance application processor with Split-Lock capability, combining the processing performance required for autonomous applications and high-integrity safety. While Split-Lock is not new to the industry, Arm is the first to introduce it to a processor uniquely designed for high performance automotive applications such as autonomous drive. Split-Lock delivers:
Flexibility not available in previous lock-step CPU implementations
CPU clusters in an a SoC can be configured either in ‘split mode’ for high performance, where two (or four) independent CPUs in the cluster that can be used for diverse tasks and applications
Or ‘lock mode’ where CPUs are in lock-step, creating one (or two) pairs of locked CPUs in a cluster, for higher safety integrity applications
The CPU clusters can be configured to operate in a mix of either mode, post Silicon production
Car makers can also design their autonomous systems to require watts and not the kilowatts required for today prototypes thanks to Arm’s leadership in power-efficient computing in Cortex-A76AE. Lower-power also enables a more energy-efficient use of vehicle battery power combined with thermal efficiency to aid the packaging of compute capability while extending the range of vehicles for a lower total cost of driving.
As always, Arm takes the entire system into consideration and to complement Cortex-A76AE, Arm is introducing new Automotive Enhanced system IP for designing a comprehensive autonomous-class SoC. The new CoreLink GIC-600AE, CoreLink MMU-600AE and CoreLink CMN-600AE provide critical elements such as high-performance interrupt management, extended virtualization and memory management, and connectivity to multiple CPU clusters to scale performance in safe multicore systems. These products have been designed to enable high-performance systems, targeting ASIL-B to ASIL-D safety integrity, and support the Split-Lock and systematic capabilities for functional safety designed into the Cortex-A76AE.
Scalability only the Arm automotive ecosystem can deliver
Development costs are increasing exponentially as the software complexity and volume for autonomous systems is rising dramatically. To put this in perspective, it’s predicted that a Level 5 vehicle will require a billion lines of code, whereas a Boeing 787 Dreamliner requires 14 million lines of code. Arm and its robust automotive developer ecosystem are simplifying and reducing costs across all layers of automotive software stacks and the tools on a common architecture.
Arm’s Automotive IP roadmap
The Cortex-A76AE is the first in a roadmap of “Automotive Enhanced” processors which will deliver the fullest functional safety capable IP portfolio in the industry. The new roadmap includes “Helios-AE” and “Hercules-AE”, all optimized for 7nm. More details to come as these products are launched. For more on the safety-first guiding principle driving our AE roadmap, visit this blog from Arm’s President of our Intellectual Property Group, Rene Haas.
Arm has been designing chips for automotive applications since 1996 and only Arm can address the compute needs of the entire vehicle from bumper to bumper. It’s why the top 15 automotive chip makers are Arm licensees, and why Arm-based silicon powers more than 65 percent of today’s ADAS applications as well as 85 percent of IVI applications. By delivering safe, autonomous-class compute solutions to the industry, Arm and its ecosystem are ensuring safety is not an afterthought and helping car makers earn the consumer trust required for the mass deployment of safe and fully-autonomous vehicles.
Today at Arm TechCon, Arm disclosed details on a dedicated roadmap and new brand of infrastructure-class IP for 5G networks and next-generation cloud to edge infrastructure. Arm Neoverse solutions are uniquely designed for higher-levels of performance, security, and scalability not seen today. Innovation from microarchitecture design up through silicon, software, and systems will enable best-in-class solutions to address the diverse and evolving requirements across the entire compute spectrum.
Arm also provided a first look at its Neoverse processor IP roadmap, with early details on upcoming platforms optimized for leading-edge process nodes. The new roadmap is designed specifically for infrastructure, beginning with the launch of the “Ares” IP platform in early 2019 on 7nm and delivering staggering performance gains of 30 percent per generation through 2021. The Neoverse IP roadmap has been specifically architected for the unique performance, efficiency, and scalability requirements needed to keep up with changing data patterns, new workloads, and the ever-increasing demands of an infrastructure evolving to support a trillion intelligent devices.
“Today Arm is sending disruptive shockwaves across the cloud, networking and storage world as Arm Neoverse delivers the foundation for the new global infrastructure to enable a trillion connected devices,” said Drew Henry, senior vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “Arm Neoverse IP will enable a broad set of our ecosystem partners to transform infrastructure from cloud to edge and push compute to where it’s most needed, store data where most appropriate, and evolve networking to securely connect this complex world.”
In his TechCon keynote, Henry shared his vision for the new infrastructure and the diverse range of use cases Neoverse will address, including hyperscale cloud datacenters, storage solutions, and 5G networks. Arm Neoverse is based on guiding design principles centered around:
World-class high performance, secure IP and architectures purpose-built for cloud native and networked workloads
A highly-scalable set of IP optimized for leading-edge process nodes, including “Ares” (7nm), “Zeus” (7nm+), and “Poseidon” (5nm), designed to enable systems across the infrastructure
A robust ecosystem empowered to build unique and diverse solutions targeting a wide range of use-cases through leveraged investment in unified software, tools, and silicon platforms
“The modern datacenter is no longer a physical construct, but a center of data and compute residing in the cloud and on the edge. More than ever, organizations must consider distributed, connected datacenter design methods to support the data and devices coming in the 5G world,” said Patrick Moorhead, Principal Analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “Arm is one of those rapidly emerging in the market and with Arm Neoverse purpose-built IP, it should be well-positioned to support many of the compute spectrum needs from hyperscale to edge access.”
Designing IP and system architectures for focused markets such as server, automotive, and networking has been a key priority for Arm over the past year. In the infrastructure space specifically, Arm has already been successful as the largest architecture deployed in the global internet infrastructure with nearly 30%-unit share. This achievement highlights not only a shift in preferred architecture, but the pervasiveness of Arm-powered technologies across the entire infrastructure market[1].
The announcement of Neoverse underscores the continued investment Arm and the ecosystem are making to deliver more ubiquitous compute from the cloud to the edge while delivering world-class performance and efficiency for the next generation of distributed cloud to edge infrastructure.
Resources:
Read more about Arm Neoverse in a blog by Drew Henry
Visit the new Infrastructure Solutions website
Learn more about Arm ServerReady
Learn more about our work with developers on the Arm Infrastructure Community
[1] Source: IDC and Arm; data shown is thru 6/2018
Supplemental Quote Sheet
Ampere
“Ampere is actively developing high-performance Arm-based server CPUs and platforms for the future of hyperscale, cloud, and edge computing,” said Rohit Vidwans executive vice president of Engineering at Ampere Computing. “We are excited about Arm’s commitment to growing the ecosystem of Arm products into new areas with the Neoverse announcement.”
Broadcom
“Combing Arm’s long-term infrastructure roadmap with Broadcom’s best in class networking technology, Broadcom delivers leadership performance products for the datacenter that are still power efficient. Arm’s roadmap enables optimizations that accelerate customer workloads for the evolving compute and connectivity requirements of tomorrow’s datacenter,” said Ed Redmond, senior vice president and general manager, Compute and Connectivity, Broadcom, Inc.
Cadence
“Building upon on our longstanding collaboration with Arm, Cadence has delivered specific flows for Arm-based designs from edge nodes through networks to the cloud including joint test chips, library, and memory development and characterization, RAK implementation flows, optimized verification flows and Cadence DDR, PCIe, and CCIX IP integrations that support Arm’s Neoverse solutions,” said Paul Cunningham, corporate vice president and general manager of the System & Verification Group at Cadence. “We’ve also been working closely with Arm Neoverse ecosystem partners to implement SoC devices in Arm-based datacenters. As the first and only ecosystem partner to provide an Arm ServerReady compliance certification methodology, we’re jointly enabling our mutual customers to shorten time-to-silicon.”
Marvell
“Marvell Infrastructure Processors are extensively deployed in a variety of leading network products. They are designed to analyze, secure, compute, and transform in both wired and wireless networks from the edge to the core,” said Raj Singh, senior vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Processors BU, Marvell Semiconductor Inc. “As a long term technology licensee, as well as an Arm IP customer, Marvell is very pleased to see this increased focus on the enterprise and 5G markets with Neoverse IP. We believe this will greatly benefit the whole Arm ecosystem in providing high performance and power-efficient solutions for the next generation of network infrastructure and compute.”
Mellanox
“Mellanox smart Ethernet and InfiniBand interconnect solutions provide the highest performance, efficiency, and scalability for Arm-based compute and storage platforms,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Furthermore, Mellanox Bluefield™ SmartNIC integrates multi Arm cores with Mellanox interconnect technology, enabling the next generation of cloud, 5G networking, security storage solutions and more. We look forward to continuing work with Arm to leverage their new capabilities.”
RedHat
“Choice allows businesses to select the best solution for their needs, and this is true all the way down to the underlying architecture. It's up to software vendors like Red Hat to be able to support this demand for choice from our customers as they extend operations into the hybrid cloud," said Stefanie Chiras, vice president and general manager, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat. "With this emphasis on choice front and center, we look forward to supporting solutions from the Arm Neoverse ecosystem as our customers seek to match their evolving business requirements to the most appropriate enterprise IT solutions.”
SUSE
“SUSE has been an early and enthusiastic supporter of Arm technology. Customers use SUSE products to support IT infrastructure based on Arm processors for High Performance Computing, Cloud, Storage, Network infrastructure, and Edge Computing. The introduction of the Arm Neoverse technology roadmap will accelerate the transformation of IT infrastructure by delivering technology and ecosystems tailored for specific workloads.” Brent Schroeder, SUSE Chief Technology Officer, Americas
Synopsys
“Leading semiconductor and system companies rely on Synopsys tools and Interface IP for their most advanced cloud, infrastructure and networking designs,” said Deirdre Hanford, co-general manager, Synopsys Design Group. “Synopsys and Arm have been collaborating for more than 25 years to enable mutual customer success, and our latest collaboration delivers optimized support for Arm’s Neoverse platforms, where our Design Platform with Fusion Technology™, Verification Continuum™ Platform, and DesignWare® Interface IP have already enabled tapeout success for early adopters of Arm’s Neoverse roadmap, including the next generation “Ares” processor.”
TSMC
“Time to market in today’s rapidly evolving infrastructure requires proven, scalable IP, development tools, advanced processes, and a complete ecosystem to provide compelling solutions,” said Suk Lee, senior director of Design Infrastructure Marketing Division at TSMC. “The Arm Neoverse ecosystem leverages our most advanced processes to provide the highest performance solutions to a highly connected world.”
Xilinx
“High-performance IP, along with a complete ecosystem, enables customers to take full advantage of the flexibility inherent in our Arm-based products, said Gaurav Singh, vice president, architecture and verification, Xilinx. “The evolution of these cores, coupled with the capability of CCIX, provide an ideal platform for smart offload and purpose-driven edge compute platforms. We congratulate Arm on the launch of Neoverse and are looking forward to what it might enable.”
