Seagate Partners with Cyark to Digitally Preserve the Gateway of India in Photo-Real 3D Models

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in data storage solutions, today announced a partnership with international non-profit organization CyArk to digitally preserve the Gateway of India, a historic arch monument in Mumbai. Digital scanning and archiving of the arch monument commenced earlier this month, with data and images from the field exercise being turned into photo-real 3D models for future generations of students, tourists and cultural heritage enthusiasts to experience the site virtually anytime and anywhere.

“Heritage sites are a significant part of humanity’s collective memory, but many of them are at risk from the ravages of time. This year, we are excited to continue our partnership with CyArk and participate in this significant journey of cultural preservation in India,” said Robert Yang, vice president of Asia Pacific sales at Seagate Technology. “We believe in the value data can bring both to the present and the future, which is why we have worked together since 2015 to digitally preserve some of the world’s most unique and historically significant locations. Our commitment is to provide the best data storage solutions to CyArk so they can securely store and protect the data they collect throughout a project, from capturing and processing to archiving, further enabling all sorts of new possibilities for future generations.”

The Gateway of India was selected by CyArk as part of their international programme for digital preservation through aerial surveys conducted with drones, terrestrial laser scanning known as LiDAR, and photogrammetry exercises. CyArk will provide 3D models and architectural drawings, which will be used as a baseline to monitor the monument’s surface for any future changes in its condition. Seagate is supporting CyArk both in the field and the office with its data storage solutions such as the LaCie® Rugged® Thunderbolt™ USB-C SSD, DJI Copilot, 2big Dock Thunderbolt™ 3, and Seagate’s Nytro® SSD, BarraCuda® Pro 10TB, as well as other high capacity, high performance drives. These devices ensure that the massive 3D capture data files from the field are safely backed up, centralised, and ready for processing to create detailed maps and architectural drawings that aid in the conservation of heritage sites. The stored data is also used to share the monument through exciting, interactive virtual reality experiences for citizens, residents, tourists and academics alike while helping to preserve the design and architecture of the monument.

“The proposed project of the 3D scanning of the iconic Gateway of India is truly beneficial for creating an easily accessible digital database of the monument, ensuring its enhanced protection and the formulation of comprehensive conservation policies,” said Dr. Tejas Garge, director, Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Maharashtra.

“We are grateful for Seagate’s support to complete our first project together in India. The Gateway of India is one of the most iconic landmarks in Mumbai and our digital documentation work will provide site managers with the tools they need to ensure the longevity of this incredible place,” said CyArk CEO John Ristevski.

Originally built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to the city in 1911, the Gateway of India was a symbol of the British Empire in India. Completed in 1924, it has since borne witness to almost a century of development in Mumbai, from its location immediately adjacent to the five-star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the first building in the country to receive intellectual property rights protection for its architectural design. The monument is now a reminder of the city’s rich colonial history as Bombay, and is the unofficial icon of the city.

Since 2003, CyArk has amassed high-tech digital records of over 200 heritage sites in 40 countries, including the Tu Duc Tomb and An Dinh Palace in the Complex of Hue Monuments in Vietnam, the Wat Phra Si San Phet in Thailand, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Bagan in Myanmar and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

Experian Grows Innovation Footprint to Financially Enable India’s 190 Million Unbanked

Experian, the world leader in information services, is further expanding and investing in its innovation facility, Experian X Labs based in Singapore. The facility serves as Experian’s first incubator and collaboration centre for cutting-edge solutions, aimed at addressing pressing economic and societal issues in the India, such as financial inclusion. The Experian X Labs team, comprises of data scientists, product architects and industry innovators.

Financial inclusion is a significant challenge for economic progress in India, a region that is home to more than 190 million people without access to formal financial services[1]. Fostering greater financial inclusion, through financial access and education, will lead to more opportunities and economic growth. The Experian X Labs team leverages alternative data, advanced analytics and partnerships with industry organisations to develop technology solutions that will bridge the gap between India’s unbanked and financial service providers. The recently expanded Experian DataLabs[2] plays an integral role in the facility, providing a compliant and secure environment for experimentation with data and collaborative research.

Mohan Jayaraman, Regional Managing Director, Decision Analytics and Business Information Services at Experian Asia Pacific, said: “Responsible innovation is the driving force behind our work at Experian. Matching major societal issues with localised solutions, the data science and technology experts at Experian X Labs are tapping on data generated from alternative sources to provide valuable insights into a person’s credit worthiness. Data generated through the region’s rapidly growing internet penetration and mobile usage rates, for example, can help build financial identities for Asia’s unbanked. In the Indian context, this also translates into harnessing various initiatives in the India tech stack and the vibrant data economy to look at opportunities for boosting financial inclusion.”

Solutions that are currently in development at Experian X Labs include Experian X Score, a credit-scoring system based on alternative data, aimed at helping the new-to-credit population in India strengthen their financial identities and progressively gain access to a wider set of financial services. To achieve this, Experian India has partnered with multiple local entities in the digital payment processing and personal finance space. These developments will follow Experian’s previously launched Prove-ID in India[3], an automated identity and address verification service that helps over 7 million marginalised Indian citizens gain access to government and financial services. Prove-ID gathers key consumer insights from multiple data sources and helps banks verify customers at a faster and more efficient rate.

Experian X Labs provides the organisation with a platform to collaborate with start-ups, fintech providers, related businesses and academic institutions in the region. The team is also working to seed and develop APAC-wide solutions aligned with Experian’s core areas of expertise around financial inclusion, digital payments and consumer enablement through advanced data analytics, research and development. In addition to developing innovative technology solutions, the Experian X Labs will continue to play a central role in Experian’s efforts to build digital financial marketplaces in the region, better matching financial solutions with people who need them.

Adani Group Set to Scale New Heights in Indian Defence & Aerospace Capabilities

In line with its vision of nation building, Adani Defence and Aerospace is proud to participate in Aero India 2019, Asia’s premier airshow to be held at the Yelahanka Air Force Station, in Bengaluru from 20th to 24th February 2019. The exhibits will be showcased in Hall B across the stalls 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.8a and 3.11b. Adani Defence & Aerospace has one of the largest presence amongst the Indian private sector organizations in Aero India 2019.

The Adani Group is committed to the national security agenda, and to help transform India into a destination for world-class defence manufacturing, aligned with the Make in India initiative. Efforts have been raised to enhance India’s defence and industrial capabilities by focusing on platforms and technologies of critical importance to meet emerging security challenges.

Ashish Rajvanshi, Head of Adani Defence & Aerospace commented.  “We have put our might behind the small and medium enterprises in the country and invested in their differentiated capabilities and future growth. All our initiatives have been driven by the belief that India needs to have an ecosystem of capabilities, to enable true indigenization and help achieve the ultimate goal of self-reliance in defence manufacturing. Today, with our Group companies, we have amalgamated world class skills and capabilities across carbon aero-structures, metal aero-structures, transmission gears, systems & avionics, engine components etc. which are being showcased at Aero India 2019. With these capabilities, Adani defence & aerospace is well positioned to transition to system integration of larger platforms including UAVs, Rotary-wing and Fixed-wing aircrafts.”

Key showcases

Adani, along with its Israeli partner Elbit Systems, will showcase the HERMES 900 MALE at stall 2.7. The MALE UAV is being produced in India and offered by Adani & Elbit’s joint venture company under IDDM category of DPP 2016 to the Indian Armed Forces. Adani has established India’s first Unmanned Aerial Systems manufacturing facility for HERMES 900 MALE at Adani Aerospace Park in Hyderabad, Telangana.

Adani, along with its Group companies Alpha Design & Comprotech, and US partner Rave Gears will showcase their rotary-wing capabilities at stall 3.8a. It also includes carbon aero-structures and aerospace components, transmission gearboxes and gears, systems and avionics currently supplied to global OEMs. 

SASTRA University Signs MoU with SV.CO to Bring Facebook School of Innovation’s Virtual Reality Course

In a move to bridge the gap between academia and industry, SASTRA, a deemed-to-be university in Thanjavur, has signed an MoU with SV.CO, India’s first digital incubator for college entrepreneurs, to bring the Facebook School of Innovation’s Virtual Reality Elective for its students.

Ranked as a Grade 1 Category Institute by the University Grants Commission, the highest classification for Universities in India, SASTRA is empowered with the autonomy to create courses in partnership with industry, in order to bolster the central government’s Skill India and Startup India programmes.

As part of the programme, Foundation for Innovation & Research at SASTRA TBI (FIRST), the new Technology Business Incubator (TBI) supported by the Department of Science and Technology, has setup a modern VR Lab comprising of devices such as Oculus Rift, Oculus GO, HTC Vive, and other ultra-modern gaming laptops for its students.

A group of 40 students, shortlisted out of 100 applications, has been selected for the inaugural batch of the Virtual Reality course, part of the university’s academic degree launched as an elective for sixth-semester students. Students from various disciplines such as computer science, electronics, mechatronics &biotech have opted for the VR elective, indicating a broad acceptance across multiple branches for the Facebook-supported course.

Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships for India and South Asia, Facebook, said: “The School of Innovation programme is committed to support the creation of a robust innovation ecosystem in emerging technologies at universities and the course integration with SASTRA University is our first major step in this direction.”

The School of Innovation programme, co-created by Facebook and Startup Village Collective (SV.CO), is designed to help students work with emerging technology, build world-class products, under the mentorship of industry experts.

Speaking about the partnership, Suma Sundararajan, Programme Head and Chief Operating Officer of SV.CO, said: “SASTRA is laying a strong foundation to systematically move up in the ARIIA innovation rankings as all the key parameters like launching new courses, setting up of new infrastructure and guidance for students to build prototypes are an integral part of the course design.”

Launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development, the Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) ranks Indian academic institutions on their innovation rankings and catalyse the adoption of modern courses by academic institutions in the field of technology and entrepreneurship.

Elaborating on the VR elective’s USP, Sridharan Venkataramanan, CEO of Foundation for Innovation & Research at SASTRA TBI, said: “In this digital era, it is critical to develop young engineering workforce with emerging technologies such as VR, AR etc. This course is well designed with help of industry experts and makes SASTRA students ready to face the digital world as we embrace the Industry4.0 in manufacturing domain and overall Business4.0 across segments such as retail, banking, finance and so on. We are happy to collaborate with the School of Innovation. Our faculty team has been trained, and we have industry curriculum as well as support from industry professionals for course evaluations.”

Keeping in mind the practice of higher education syllabuses taking a long time to be updated, SASTRA has integrated the course in three weeks with the School of Innovation. According to Venkataramanan, an industry veteran, the elective will lead to a well-rounded industry learning experience and value for the students.

At the School of Innovation’s upcoming VR Day Programme, where 21 talented student developers will be showcasing their innovations in the field of virtual reality, SASTRA will also be sharing its learnings focusing on the new course.

The event, to be held on February 23 in Bengaluru, will offer the visiting academic institutes a glimpse of how the university integrated the emerging technologies course into its industry curriculum.

Academic institutions and students can access the details of the VR course at www.sv.co/sastra . 

Lenovo Delivers Strong Performance with Highest Quarterly Revenue in Four Years

Data Center Group enjoyed continued hyper growth in Hyperscale and Software Defined Infrastructure, and increased its lead as #1 in the world’s TOP500 supercomputer rankings

Lenovo Group has announced results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2018. Lenovo posted its highest group revenue in four years of US$14 billion, up 8.5% YOY (12.8% YOY excluding currency impact).  The company reported strong pre-tax income of US$350 million (up 133% / +US$200 million over the previous year) - an all-time record for the company as all businesses continued to report profit improvements.

The Group recorded a net profit of US$233 million for the fiscal quarter, significantly improved from the net loss of US$289 million in the same quarter of last year. Basic earnings per share in the third fiscal quarter was 1.96 US cents or 15.35 HK cents.

“When we set out on our journey of Intelligent Transformation, our goal was to restore and then accelerate Lenovo’s business momentum, while providing our customers and partners with the best technologies in smart IoT, smart infrastructure and smart vertical solutions. We’ve done exactly that and more - our strength and position as the industry’s most prolific global technology organization is firmly established.  What I’m most pleased to see is how Lenovo is bucking the current industry trend – we’re strong, have delivered record-breaking results this quarter and are only getting stronger”, said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Chairman and CEO.

Business Group Overview:

The Intelligent Devices Group (IDG) posted record revenue and profit; powered by its third straight quarter since inception of revenue growth - up 6.2% YOY to US$12.4 billion.

During the quarter, the PC and Smart Devices (PCSD) business under IDG reported US$10.7 billion in revenue, up 11.6% YOY, and sequentially extending the Group’s momentum from the previous quarter. PC revenue grew 16% YOY, outperforming the market by more than 17 points with PTI margin also improving by 1 percentage point. Lenovo maintained its position as the world’s undisputed leader in PC sales with record market share of 24.6%. A focus on high-growth and premium segments saw Workstations, Thin and Light devices, and Visuals revenue outgrow the market by more than 30 points, Gaming by 16 points and Chromebook by over 220 points.

The Mobile Business Group (MBG) under IDG posted its first worldwide profit since the Motorola acquisition in October 2014. This notable achievement came from masterful execution on Lenovo’s strategy to reduce expenses, streamline the Group’s product portfolio and focus on core markets.  Notably North America saw a breakthrough quarter for the Group with volumes outgrowing the market by a staggering 40 points. Additionally, MBG’s focus on other specific geographies is also showing significant results: Lenovo retains the #2 position in Latin America, despite currency fluctuations and supply constraints.  In China, thanks to a range of new products under the Lenovo brand, the Group continued to build on the momentum quadrupling revenue and reporting strong growth in PTI margin.

Lenovo’s Data Center Group (DCG) reported its fifth consecutive quarter of profit growth (PTI margin up 3.6 percentage points YOY) on a 31% YOY increase in revenue to US$1.6 billion. In fact, DCG recorded YOY revenue growth in all geographies, highlighted by triple-digit growth in North America, and double-digit growth in Asia-Pacific, EMEA and Latin America.  The NetApp joint venture, which is now operational in China, will further strengthen the portfolio and expand business opportunities.  Hyperscale once again served as a significant contributor with triple-digit revenue growth and Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) revenue grew almost 70% YOY. The Group not only remained #1 on the TOP500 list of supercomputers globally, but also increased its lead.

Boeing F/A-18 ‘Make in India’ to Transform Defense Industry

Boeing held discussions with its partners, Mahindra Defence Systems (MDS) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), on the proposed F/A-18 Super Hornet ‘Make in India’ plan at Aero India 2019.

The partners are developing comprehensive plans to set-up a new “factory of the future” to manufacture Super Hornet locally. The program is expected to work with several Indian suppliers to grow a thriving defense aerospace base which could accelerate other programs. The facility will create a world-class, highly trained aerospace workforce.

This unique public-private partnership  is intended to bring Boeing, HAL and MDS’ global scale and supply chain, its best-in-industry precision manufacturing processes, as well as the unrivalled experience in designing and optimizing aerospace production facilities to expand India’s aerospace ecosystem and help realize the ‘Make in India’ vision.

Boeing’s Super Hornet is a proven platform that offers the fighter of the future for India – networked, survivable and reliable. Introduced in 2007, the F/A-18 Super Hornet is the world’s preeminent carrier capable aircraft and best suited for India’s naval fighter requirements – designed from day one for carrier operations. The Super Hornet is highly capable across the full mission spectrum for the Indian Air Force and is a true multi-role aircraft, able to perform virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum, including air superiority, day/night strike with precision guided weapons, fighter escort, close air support, suppression of enemy air defenses, maritime strike, reconnaissance, forward air control and tanker missions. This, coupled with designed-in stealth and the right payload capacity, makes the Super Hornet the ideal fit for India.

Ericsson and Juniper Networks Partnership Gains Momentum with Joint Transport Solutions

Since announcing a deepened partnership in September 2018, Ericsson and Juniper Networks have secured more than 20 new customers worldwide. The two companies are today unveiling further enhancements to their joint 5G transport network and security solutions to meet increasing demand.

Service providers who are looking to deploy 5G-ready networks are turning to the combined Ericsson and Juniper portfolios to deliver the required transport infrastructure, operations and service delivery solutions they need that remove complexity and ensure ease-of-use.

Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson, says: “The positive market response to our expanded partnership with Juniper is a testimony to the strength of our joint end-to-end transport solutions. We hope to sustain this momentum by further enhancing our leading, high-performance transport portfolio to ensure that next-generation networks continue to benefit our customers.”

Manoj Leelanivas, Chief Product Officer, Juniper Networks, says: “By integrating complementary portfolios and technologies, Juniper Networks and Ericsson continue to partner and further develop end-to-end transport solutions for the 5G era – solutions that give service providers greater flexibility, performance, security and automation.”

With the evolution of Ericsson’s solution for network slicing, Juniper’s SDN controller, NorthStar, is interworking with Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration, providing seamless control from the cell site to the packet core network – including the data center gateway. This allows automation and integration of connectivity services in the transport domain into an end-to-end network slice. With this solution, Ericsson’s Wide Area Network Orchestrator (WANO) acts as a hierarchical SDN controller in charge of configuring connectivity services.

Transport orchestration added to Ericsson’s network slicing solution provides the network slice with guaranteed bandwidth and key performance indicators, such as latency. Slicing in the transport domain is also enhanced by combining soft network slicing through Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration and hard network slicing through Junos node slicing on Juniper’s MX Series portfolio. In combination with Ericsson Radio System, this joint solution will enable an end-to-end network slice on a shared infrastructure that can be secure, optimized and isolated.

Another enhancement is in the security area, where solutions from Juniper are being integrated into the Ericsson RAN offerings. In addition to the newly announced 5G High Layer vRAN, Ericsson security functionality has been complemented with Juniper SRX and vSRX gateway products as the IPSec security solution to elevate and extend the security framework across the network.

Juniper PTX, MX and SRX will be natively integrated into Ericsson Security Manager to reduce time-to-market by automating hardening and facilitating monitoring and compliance of security policies.

Khanungdej Triratupathum, Chief Technology Officer, TrueMove, says: “TrueMove is committed to providing a superior experience for our mobile users with a constant evolution of our services. We are working toward the virtualization of several components of the Mobile Core. The Ericsson and Juniper Networks partnership allows us to take advantage of an integrated best-of-breed solution by running Ericsson virtual network functions (VNFs) and Ericsson Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) with the Juniper MX series platform as our data-center gateway.”

Mikko Kannisto, Director of Transmission Networks, DNA, says: “Finland is a unique market where most customers use mobile broadband as their primary broadband service, and with data traffic increasing 33 percent year-over-year. Strengthening our core network to not only meet the growing demands of our customers today – and allowing us the flexibility to prepare for 5G – has been a priority for DNA. Juniper Networks and Ericsson have implemented renewed DNA core network that supports 5G transport capacity, boosting our 5G readiness.”

According to mobile operator Jazz, as network demands increase, the company has to ensure that the network they build today will allow them to manage the end-user experience with excellence, especially as they move toward a 4G advanced era and beyond. The joint solutions from Ericsson and Juniper Networks provide seamless connectivity from radio cell site to internet gateway with best-in-class technology, while delivering a future-proof infrastructure to enable a great end-user experience.

As part of the partnership, Juniper will continue to use Ericsson’s go-to-market capabilities for mobile opportunities and Ericsson will include Juniper’s solutions for edge, core, security and network slicing as part of its end-to-end 5G transport portfolio.

Juniper and Ericsson will demonstrate their enhanced solutions at the Juniper booth in Hall 2, stand 2I60/2J61, and at the Ericsson booth in Hall 2, stand 2O60 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona starting February 25, 2019.

Atos Installed its First Supercomputer in India at IIT-BHU as Part of HPC Agreement with Indian Government

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, has announces the installation of its first supercomputer in India.

The BullSequana, which is the first supercomputer to be installed as part of the Indian Government’s National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), was officially inaugurated at IIT-BHU in Varanasi by the Prime Minister of India the Honorable Narendra Modi.

Named ‘Param Shivav’, this supercomputer is the first of several to be installed across India as part of a major 3-year agreement between C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), an organization within the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, India) and Atos. It 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.

The supercomputer is equipped with the latest processors and accelerators on the market, to provide optimal performance and improved energy efficiency. It will be used for academic projects and research.

“We are proud that our BullSequana supercomputer is empowering researchers at the IIT-BHU to accelerate their digital simulation projects. This installation marks the start of a strategic relationship and partnership between France and India and cements our position as the leading supercomputing provider in India for HPC.” said Pierre Barnabé, Chief Operating Officer, Big Data & Security at Atos.

Coding Legends Face-Off in a Tense 5-Hour Programming Battle in India’s IT Hub

Dozens of competitive programmers from all over the world descended on Bengaluru this past weekend for India’s biggest programming event: SnackDown 2019 - a global programming tournament organized by CodeChef. The fierce competition lasted five hours and invited contestants to try their hands at 10 complex algorithmic problems. Borys Minaiev from Ukraine and Gennady Korotkevich from Belarus came together to take home the coveted title of SnackDown Champions as well as a cash prize of $10,000.

The 1st runners up were Oleg Merkurev and Aleksei Daniliuk from Russia while the 2nd runner-up slot was claimed by Ji Ruyi and Yuhao Du from China. This victory did not come easily for Borys and Gennady (who now live in Russia). It was a tense battle right down to the finish with the winning team making a successful problem submission during the last 30 seconds of the contest. The final twenty seconds completely changed the fate of the contest. This was a second SnackDown win for Borys and Gennady who had previously lifted the SnackDown cup in 2016. In the current edition, they beat out SnackDown defending champions Aleksei and Oleg to earn the top spot.

SnackDown also rewarded the best School team: Shih-Yu Wang from National Experimental High School, Taiwan and Yeoh Zi Song from Chung Ling High School, Malaysia, as well as the best women’s team, had Xiaoou Zhou and Jiayi Mao from China. This year, SnackDown opened to registrations from over 27,000 teams comprising of more than 40,000 programmers from different parts of the globe participating in different rounds of the contest. The finale saw 26 international teams comprising of 51 individuals from 13 different countries who competed against one another under one roof. Additionally, the top 10 Indian teams and 3 school teams from India were invited to the on-site finals to meet and interact with the best programmers, adding another facet to this event, making it the only event of this scale to give exposure to the young programming talent from India. The best Indian team this year stood at 25th position comprising of Ginuga Saketh and Yash Chandnani, both from IIT Kanpur.

For those who don’t know, SnackDown is the only programming competition of its size and scale that is conducted in India and it attracts the very best programming talent from India and overseas. As there is practically no eligibility criteria to enter, SnackDown attracts a varied mix of entrants, from school and university students to working professionals, who all put their life on hold for three days to attend this exciting event. This year 839 school teams registered to participate in SnackDown alongside 3438 female teams registered. The event saw registrations from 115 different countries.

Speaking at the event, Bhavin Turakhia, CEO and Co-Founder of Directi, said, “Year after year, participants at SnackDown continue to fascinate and thrill us with their talent and dedication to programming. SnackDown represents the best talent in the programming community and it’s a great feeling knowing that they enjoy our competitions. I hope that this competition and CodeChef’s other efforts continue to inspire programmers of all ages and skill levels to continually improve their own abilities and in turn, improve the standard of programming in India and overseas too.”

“We are humbled with the response we have received for this edition. We are always amazed by the talent and passion of the teams which only seems to grow every year. In particular, we want SnackDown to be a platform where the best Indian programmers can meet and interact with their overseas counterparts and judging by our successful activities and interactive sessions, it makes me happy to see that happening!” said Anup Kalbalia, BU Head, CodeChef.

Hero Electronix’s Tessolve Opens Center of Excellence for Chip Design in Bengaluru

Hero Electronix, a part of the Hero Group, has announced the opening of its dedicated Semiconductor Chip Design Center in Bengaluru. The center has been set up by Tessolve, a Hero Electronix venture and a leading engineering solutions company. The center will focus on the needs of Tessolve’s clients, which include major global semiconductor companies. The company recently inaugurated another center in Visakhapatnam, which primarily focuses on software and test program development. The goal is to scale the design team by 100% over next 2 years to support growing demand for chip design projects from Tessolve’s customers.

Since the acquisition by Hero Electronix in 2016, Tessolve has strategically focussed on expansion of its services portfolio by enhancement of its capabilities. It has successfully transitioned from a semiconductor test engineering services player to becoming one of the leading end-to-end engineering solutions partner for top semiconductor companies – from pre-silicon to post-silicon services. Expertise areas now cover chip design (VLSI), test development, and hardware design through Embedded Systems development.

The new design center will provide strong impetus to Tessolve’s chip design offering.  As more and more clients seek capability and depth in a critical area like chip design, the new facility has been set up as the center of excellence for all chip design projects. It will work in close association with Tessolve’s other design centers to develop innovative chip solutions across verticals – automotive, server, graphics and mobile platforms, to name a few. Training will be a key focus area. Tessolve already runs training programs for engineering talent aimed at long-term growth and development of the workforce.

According to P. Raja Manickam, Founder & CEO, Tessolve: “Our vision is to be the leader in semiconductor and systems engineering from concept to delivering chips and systems. We believe in being a technology services company where we help our customers with in depth expertise, enable time to market advantage and economic benefits. It is an important milestone for the Tessolve team in our journey to become a chip design leader and is followed by the acquisition of Analog Semiconductors a year back to strengthen our analog design capabilities. It will further help in strengthening our capabilities as an end to end solutions partner and semiconductor engineering services leader.”

Nikhil Rajpal, CEO, Hero Electronix added: “We are proud of Tessolve’s growth and achievement since our partnership as today it is amongst the leaders in the semiconductor engineering space. We have not been shy of making investments in assets and infrastructure to add strategic capabilities as Tessolve made acquisitions in key areas - embedded systems, analog design, PCB fabrication and test lab. The new design centre will help accelerate Tessolve’s growth and replicate its test engineering leadership in chip design.”

The new center is located at Global Technology Park, Block C, Bellandur, Outer Ring Road. The new office will be catering to chip design projects across all domains - Design Verification, Design for Test and Debug, Physical Design, FPGA Emulation, Post SI Validation, Analog & Mixed Signal (AMS) Design.

Microsoft Shows the Way to Unlock Full Potential of AI for India

Envisioning the potential of AI for India, and continuing in its mission to empower India, Microsoft detailed the country’s readiness for AI in a whitepaper titled ‘Age of Intelligence’.  Focus on making India a digital economy, mobile phone penetration, reduced data costs are all collaborating to make for an environment conducive to extend connectivity and services to the underserved segments of the population, Microsoft said in a whitepaper on AI, unveiled at the NASSCOM Technology and Leadership Forum (NTLF) 2019.

The whitepaper titled ‘Age of Intelligence’ outlines challenges and opportunities with respect to AI and how appropriate government policies, technological advancements including growing internet penetration and connectivity help reap benefits of digital transformation in years to come. Furthermore, Microsoft called for the technology industry to actively partner and engage to help realize India’s aspirations in AI, given that many of the initiatives outlined need technology as the backbone to achieve scale, efficiency and sustainability. Cloud infrastructure and rapid deployment of intelligent cloud services will play a key role in driving AI adoption in the country.

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India said “Our ambition is to enable a human-centered approach to AI. India is currently at an inflection point in the adoption of AI. Building on the four foundational pillars – enabling digital transformation across industries, forging coalitions for innovation, building a future-ready workforce and creating sustained societal impact will unlock and accelerate the potential of AI. All of this should be done within an over-arching ethical framework for AI development and usage.”

In this paper, Microsoft presents an industry point of view on the ‘age of intelligence’ that this world is embarking upon, wherein intelligence will be experienced in every facet: in products and services, in the way individuals communicate, how organizations function and collaborate, and how society and countries evolve. Microsoft AI is a vision for empowerment – for every developer to innovate, every organization to redefine industries and every individual to transform society.

Developers to innovate

Microsoft is democratizing AI and is making the technology used in building its own AI applications available on Azure to empower developers and institutions in solving their most difficult problems.

For instance, a challenge in India relates to inclusion- given India’s linguistic diversity and literacy. This results in a digital language barrier, with services not being easily accessible to all citizens. AI is playing a key role in removing this barrier, by enabling voice recognition, text to speech and translation for all key Indian languages.

Once that is fully available, all services can be offered to all citizens, in the language of their choice. Microsoft is closely working with developers to bring these services to all major Indian languages.

Enterprises to redefine

Enterprises can achieve far more with a comprehensive AI being AI to every application, every business process, and every employee. AI enables organizations to take better-informed decisions by making it easy to derive insights from data, helping them expand customer engagement, optimize operations, and improve offerings. Reimagining business processes with AI also makes work more efficient, saving employees time so they can focus on higher priorities.

Healthcare – Healthcare sector will be transformed through effective use of analytics driven insights decoding the complex data available, which so far remained a significant challenge worldwide. Microsoft has enabled analytics-driven individualized treatment plans based on a patient’s genetic makeup, medical history, lifestyle along with cloud-based solutions to empower healthcare organizations and help them build and deploy compliant, virtual health assistants can provide users with conversational and engaging access to the most relevant and accurate healthcare services and information.

For instance, Narayana Health is looking at new avenues to optimize its operations and augment patient care with technology. One of the ongoing projects being piloted internally is to use Artificial Intelligence to decipher X-Rays to point out any irregularities from a normal X-Ray, which would help doctors save time in diagnosis.

Public Sector-. AI tools enable governments to connect with their citizens more effectively, eliminate waste, and protect sensitive information. Microsoft’s Smart cities – Intelligent technology and Citizen services tools are designed to tackle common challenges such as fee and toll management, traffic optimization, and sustainability as well as help provide citizens with easier access to consolidated government services through tracking, search, and conversational bots.

Education- Technology is creating unprecedented opportunities to connect students to the world around them and help them realize their full potential. Teachers, administrators, and technology innovators are collaborating to solve some of the most pressing challenges in education through AI. Microsoft’s AI is helping in enhancing accessibility in the classrooms and providing school-wide AI insights into student success and risk across entire schools or school districts help educators make informed decisions on how to improve student outcome

As India surges forward with its digital transformation, large and small organizations - both public and private - are waking up to the power of cloud computing, data analytics and intelligence. They are already beginning to use the transformative power of the cloud to improve their lives and businesses.

Society to transform

AI is a powerful tool for increasing access to information, education, employment, government services, as well as social and economic opportunities.

In its work to deploy AI, Microsoft is working with policy think tanks and research organizations such as Niti Aayog (National Institute for Transforming India) and ICRISAT in creating and adopting frameworks to accelerate AI-led digital transformation across sectors. This will help frame the guard rails of where and how AI should be used to instill trust and responsibility across AI-based systems.

India is digitally ready for a comprehensive AI framework aligned to industries long-term strategy. With the size of the market and opportunity for growth it’s imperative to implement AI for India that bring economic, societal and inclusive growth. Microsoft is best positioned to address the current AI needs and ready to support all stakeholders across the entire spectrum including government, businesses, and communities by collaborating with them to accelerate all AI opportunities to drive critical growth for India’s progress.

Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital (SDMH) Partners with Medvarsity for Training Medical Professionals

Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital (SDMH) partners with Medvarsity Online Ltd., a leader in online medical training for courses related to Emergency medicine, Cardiology, Critical Care & Endocrinology to the practitioners at SDMH, Jaipur, Rajasthan. Each program has been designed thoughtfully to upskill the students to become highly qualified, informed and confident for their healthy professional growth. These set of courses are being deployed at SDMH with a vision to enable and strengthen the present of healthcare practitioners in order to provide better patient care for future.

India is facing a lack of upskilled professionals in today's healthcare ecosystem, where 61% of India's higher education leaders believe that our education system is not at par with the society's changing needs, reveals a research conducted by IBM. This is exactly the reason why the country needs to take proactive measures to transform the system with newer models that align with the industry goals. 

“The state of Rajasthan carries the double burden of high prevalence of infectious diseases and high incidences of cardiac complications. By partnering with SDMH, the largest healthcare provider in the state, Medvarsity aims to positively impact this requirement through upskilling and training.” said Mr. Gerald Jaideep, CEO, Medvarsity Online Ltd. on the partnership.

Training in Fellowship In Emergency Medicine, Master Class in Clinical Cardiology, Fellowship in 2D Echocardiography, Master class in Critical Care Medicine, Fellowship in Intensive Care Medicine and Masterclass in Diabetes Mellitus are aligned to meet the key need areas of today’s healthcare industry. Upskilling is a critical need for healthcare practitioners, whether they are managing a clinic or a specific department. Medvarsity’s courses are designed to provide the knowledge and clinical excellence required to fulfil the job responsibilities in these departments.

“Healthcare industry is making a shift in Rajasthan, with the Government led by Mr. Ashok Gehlot, Chief Minister of Rajasthan successfully crossing all barriers to provide comprehensive healthcare services to the people. With this partnership with Medvarsity we are aiming to boost the best of the healthcare services to a common man and by facilitating the Medvarsity’s updated courses to our doctors, we believe we are strengthening the medical sector of not only the city but the country too” said Dr. Gajendra Gupta, Medical Director,SDMH

These certificate programs are aimed at giving doctors and other healthcare professionals the in-depth knowledge and skills needed to manage people and departments efficiently within the health centers and hospitals. Medvarsity plans to become the go-to platform for continuing professional development in the healthcare domain.

Independent Research Firm Names McAfee a Leader in Cloud Security Gateway Report

McAfee, the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company, has announced that market research firm Forrester recognized the company as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Cloud Security Gateways, Q1 2019 evaluation. Also referred to as cloud access security brokers (CASB), Cloud Security Gateways (CSG) are on-premises or cloud-based software that secure enterprise usage of cloud services.

The Forrester Wave evaluates and ranks products in the CSG category. The report provides security leaders with evaluations of the 10 providers that matter most and how they stack up. Forrester evaluated the most significant CSGs based on 34 criteria and conducted a detailed technical evaluation of each product as well as an analysis of each provider’s market presence, strategy, services and partners and customer satisfaction.

In the report, authored by Forrester Vice President Andras Cser, McAfee received the highest score possible in the categories of IaaS Monitoring, Cloud Malware Detection, Sanctioned and Unsanctioned Application (Shadow IT) Detection, User Activity Monitoring, and Scalability. McAfee also received the highest score possible in the strategy category in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform Monitoring Plans, Cloud Data Governance Plans, Cloud Encryption Plans, Cloud Malware Detection Plans, Unsanctioned Cloud Apps Plans and User Activity Monitoring Plans criteria. Above all other evaluated vendors, McAfee received the highest score in the IaaS Platform Monitoring Plans criteria.

The report states that McAfee MVISION Cloud (the McAfee CSG) “…offers comprehensive policy management, which is uniform for forward and reverse proxy, and APIs. The solution also covers sanctioned and unsanctioned application monitoring, DLP [data loss prevention], and reporting/dashboarding very well.”

“Through MVISION Cloud, McAfee is dedicated to providing a cloud-native means for organizations to consistently protect their data and defend against threats across the spectrum of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), IaaS and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), without the friction of requiring agents on end-user devices,” said Rajiv Gupta, senior vice president of Cloud Security at McAfee. “We believe our position as a Leader in Forrester’s Wave for Cloud Security Gateways is another validation of McAfee’s comprehensive vision and relentless execution to address our customers’ cloud security needs.”

McAfee MVISION Cloud enables organizations to accelerate their business by giving them total visibility and control to protect their data and applications in the cloud. It takes the evolution of the former McAfee Skyhigh Security Cloud product and introduces new integrations within the broader McAfee portfolio, including McAfee Data Loss Prevention and McAfee Web Gateway, providing consistent security and policy enforcement across device and cloud environments. MVISION Cloud secures SaaS applications such as Office 365, Box, and Salesforce, along with IaaS and PaaS platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

HDFC Bank Collaborates with Route Mobile to Showcase RCS Business Messaging at MWC 2019

HDFC Bank Ltd. (“HDFC Bank”), one of India’s largest private sector bank has partnered with Route Mobile Limited (“Route Mobile”) to showcase Rich Communication Services (“RCS”) on Google’s RCS Business Messaging platform at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019. Route Mobile is among the leading cloud-communications platform service provider to enterprises, over-the-top (“OTT”) players and mobile network operators.

RCS is an upgrade to SMS on a global scale. Users can now access a range of advanced capabilities from within their native messaging service – capabilities which previously required a separate OTT app to be downloaded. Messaging is no longer limited to sending simple SMS text: it has become a platform. The features of this new platform enable businesses to deliver intuitive and interactive campaigns to their customers while maintaining the reach, reliability and ubiquity of the biggest messaging platform in the world – SMS.

Nitin Chugh, Country Head - Digital Banking, HDFC Bank said “The RCS messaging agent we are showcasing illustrates the constant endeavour by HDFC Bank to harness the cutting edge technologies and digital platforms to offer a unique experience to our customers. In this age of hyper-personalization, we want to make customer experience better with a richer and highly interactive messaging platform.

Route Mobile’s MD and Group CEO, Mr. Rajdipkumar Gupta said “We believe RCS is the future of messaging and this collaboration will not only enhance the momentum for BFSI industry but also enhance the momentum for other industries toward advanced messaging and accelerate the awareness of next-generation technology, such as RCS.”

Facebook School of Innovation to Showcase Best of New-Age Technologies in Virtual Reality by Students

In a presentation of cutting-edge innovations in the field of emerging technologies in India, 21 talented students from the Facebook School of Innovation will be showcasing their work to a panel of industry leaders on February 23 at Royal Orchid Regenta in Bengaluru.

As part of the Facebook School of Innovation VR Day Programme, co-created by Facebook and Startup Village Collective (SV.CO), the brightest minds of the country will get an opportunity to exhibit their talent through product prototypes designed using Virtual Reality.

The participating students, shortlisted after a nationwide exercise covering some of the best engineering schools, underwent an intensive six-month developer-training programme under the mentorship of five professionals who are experts in the field of emerging technologies. The purpose of the VR program, built in collaboration with industry partners Scapic and Unity, is to impart key skills required to build a world-class VR prototypes.

Speaking about the steep learning curve that the students showed during their programme, Suma Sundararajan, Programme Head and Chief Operating Officers of SV.CO, said: “Through the School of Innovation, we now have students who have transformed themselves from being enthusiasts in an emerging technology to become industry-ready, professional VR developers who are capable of building stand-alone VR applications. Students now have a choice to use their skills to take a job, build their own startup or go for masters in areas like Gaming or Machine Vision.”

Satyajeet Singh, Head of Platform Partnerships for India and South Asia, Facebook, added:“With disruption being the new norm driving the Indian technology ecosystem today, we want to equip our budding entrepreneurs with the latest in emerging technologies and enable them to become problem solvers of tomorrow. The Facebook School of Innovation and the VR Day Programme seek to encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship in Indian students and impart them with relevant skill sets, to bridge the gap between academia and industry requirements.”

Trained in a comprehensive and in-depth industry curriculum, the student developers also learnt about the global best practices through multiple online sessions with Global Virtual Reality experts. In terms of the practical aspect of the training, the students were provided Oculus GO VR Devices to build their respective applications and product prototypes. These technological innovations will be demonstrated at the event, which will also be attended by an array of vice-chancellors, members from state startup missions, fellow students and parents.

Launched in December 2017, the Facebook School of Innovation Programme is designed with an objective to give industry exposure to engineering students in India in emerging technologies and help them to build their ideas into next-generation, globally marketable products and services.

The 21 student developers, who will be the main attraction of the VR Day Programme, were selected from 1,191 applications received from 25 Indian states. The engineering and design students who made the cut through a three-part selection process belong to some of the most well-known institutes of the country, such as: BITS Pilani, NIT Calicut, College of Engineering Pune, KIET Ghaziabad, Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Kerala, Sri Sairam College of Engineering, Bengaluru, and Image College of Arts, Animation and Technology.

With an aim to spread awareness in the emerging field of Virtual Reality, the School of Innovation programme conducted a series of workshops for nearly 5,000 students across the country, of which three talented developers will be given the chance to showcase their work at the VR Day.

Tata Motors to Supply 80 Electric Buses to West Bengal Transport Corporation

Reaffirming its commitment towards E-mobility in the country, India’s leading bus brand Tata Motors announces the supply of 80 Electric buses to the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) at an event held in the city today. The company has already supplied 20 Ultra Electric 9/9m AC E-buses, with remaining 20 9/9m AC E-buses scheduled to be delivered by March 31, 2019. The company will also be supplying 40 9/12m AC E-buses to WBTC in a phased manner. Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, flagged off the buses with dignitaries from WBTC and Tata Motors. The new buses will begin their inaugural journey from Nabanna, Howrah.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Rohit Srivastava, Product Line Head – Passenger Commercial Vehicles, Tata Motors, said, “With growing environmental concerns, electric bus is definitely a symbol of future mobility. Tata Motors has always been at the forefront of the E-mobility evolution and this order is a testament of our best-in-class solution tailored for the bus segment in India. The order is part of the 255 e-buses to be supplied to six STUs in the country, of which WBTC is one. Our in-depth understanding of sustainable public transport for different markets and customers is what differentiates us from our competitors. We are determined to develop alternate fuel technologies and create more energy efficient vehicles thereby supporting the government’s efforts towards promoting electric vehicles in the country.”

Manufactured at Tata Motors Dharwad plant, the Ultra Electric buses will have a traveling range of up to 150 kilometers on a single charge. The company has installed charging stations at Nonapukur, Kasba, Newtown and Belghoria. Furthermore, intermediate charging terminals powered with fast charging are mounted at Howrah and Santragachi. The indigenously developed e-buses offer superior design and best-in-class features. The Li-ion batteries have been placed on the rooftop to prevent breakdown due to waterlogging. The batteries are liquid cooled to maintain the temperature within an optimum range and ensure longer life along with better performance in tropical conditions.

Dr. A.K. Jindal, Head Engineering (Electric & Defence), CVBU, Tata Motors said, “Tata Motors has been engaging in advanced engineering and development of electric traction system for Hybrid as well as Pure Electric vehicles for over a decade. The Ultra Electric Bus is a new modular platform, which has been developed in a very short lead-time of less than a year, leveraging the knowledge and experience we have gained and demonstrating our commitment to the Government of India’s National Electric Mobility Mission Plan for Public Transport.  The architecture of the platform has been conceived and developed by in-house engineering team of Tata Motors, meeting the requirement of various tenders floated by different state transport undertakings. The exterior has been designed with new brand identity that includes stylized Ultra headlamps and streamlined looks. The vehicle architecture ensures very low energy consumption and low TCO (total cost of operation) apart from being a Zero Emission environment friendly bus.”

The new age Ultra Electric buses, powered by an Integrated Electric Motor Generator are built on existing proven platforms of Starbus and Ultra. With a max power of 245KW and continuous power of 145KW, the buses have a seating capacity of 31 + 1D seats. The buses will help in zero tailpipe emissions, 50% lower fuel costs, 20% better energy consumption and lower maintenance downtime as compared to diesel buses. The Ultra Electric buses are air-conditioned, have modern interiors and comfortable seats for 31 passengers. As an industry first, there will be air suspension for both front and rear axles to make travel more comfortable for the commuters. Integrated electric motor generator with a peak power of 333HP can deliver 197HP continuously ensuring effortless driving in congested roads and frequent start stops needing no shifting of gears.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Narayan Swaroop Nigam, Managing Director at West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC), said, “As one of the most densely populated cities in the country, Kolkata is a challenge for us. However with our strong commitment to transform Kolkata as one of the smartest cities in the world, public transport has always been a key focus area of our government and today is a very significant day for the people of Kolkata. The state-of-the-art Ultra 9m AC Electric buses by Tata Motors is a big step towards achieving better public transport, with a clear emphasis on providing sustainable, affordable and safe mobility solutions for the masses. These E-buses will soon ply on the roads of West Bengal, from Howrah to Jadavpur, Garia to Airport, Behala to Rajarhat and Esplanade to Santragachi. We look forward to strengthening this association with Tata Motors to bring smart city solutions for a greener and cleaner Kolkata.”

The critical electrical traction components have been sourced from internationally known best-in-class suppliers in USA, Germany and China offering proven products. The buses have been tested and validated by Tata Motors across states including Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Assam and Maharashtra to establish performance in diverse terrains. The company has tenders to supply 255 electric buses to six public transport undertakings including WBTC (West Bengal), LCTSL (Lucknow), AICTSL (Indore), ASTC (Guwahati), J&KSRTC (Jammu) and JCTSL (Jaipur). In addition to this, the company is also working on developing its electric mini-bus segment in the near future.

TechGig Announces the Launch of the Sixth Edition of Code Gladiators; Offers Rs 1 Crore Worth of Prizes

At a time when finding the right talent is like looking for a needle in a haystack, recruiters are trying out all available methods in a bid to find the best tech talent and the right fit for their firm. Hence, skill-focused coding challenges, technical interviews, personality evaluation tests are fast-emerging as popular mediums to assess job applicants.

In a recent survey by TechGig, as many as 33% IT recruiters confessed that assessing the skills of coders beforehand is the biggest challenge. Also, they cited time-consuming interview formats and a talent pool that isn’t diverse enough as roadblocks in hiring the right talent.

With these imminent challenges, hackathons/coding contest emerge as a holistic recruitment platform for companies to pre-assess candidates, meet them on a one-on-one basis and position themselves better vis-a-vis their competitors.

In “TechGig Developers Survey 2019”, a large majority of developers cited new job opportunities as the #1 reason for participating in coding contest/hackathons. Surprisingly, prize money was the third reason and was preceded by self-learning.

With these facts in consideration, the announcement of TechGig Code Gladiators 2019 comes as a big respite for the Indian IT industry struggling to find talent, especially in emerging technologies.

TechGig – India’s largest IT learning platform with over 3.2 million members – is back with its globally acclaimed hackathon in a bid to bring IT recruiters and job seekers on one platform.  Registrations for TechGig Code Gladiators 2019 are now open.

The 2017 edition of TechGig Code Gladiators was recognised by the Guinness World Records for its incredible 2,00,000 registrations. The 2018 edition was even bigger in terms of response and saw the introduction of new themes. The success of TechGig Code Gladiators can be gauged from the fact that this popular coding competition has grown from strength to strength in all these years.

Increased participation in Code Gladiators by the leading IT companies in the world each year also validates the importance of such coding contests and hackathons for companies across diverse industry verticals. These coding competitions help companies get access to talent specialising in new and emerging technologies which are otherwise difficult to access through conventional hiring mediums.

“I’ve been very fond of Code Gladiators and I’ve watched it grow year on year and two years ago it even entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest coding contest in the world. TechGig Code Gladiators is a Super Hackathon of sorts, so to all the people entering the contest this year that’s the place where you get to shine. It’s like the Olympic Games or The Asian Games of Coding”, says Dr Siddhartha Chatterjee, CTO and GM, Cloud Services, Persistent Systems.

TechGig Code Gladiators 2019 has undergone a major revamp as is evident from this teaser video. This edition will see some exciting new names to the theme rounds to make the contest much more appealing to the young coders. The new themes at Code Gladiators 2019 are:

Virtual Assistant Empire, Automation Bay, House on the Cloud, The Blockchain Kingdom, Kingdom of Intelligence, The Valerian Warriors, House of Immersive Reality, and IoT Landing.

"In its sixth edition, Code Gladiators 2019, is expected to continue its upward trajectory and draw more participants than the record of 2,30,000+ participants achieved last year. Any company facing a talent crunch in emerging technologies must try the hackathon/coding contest route to tap into talent with incredible technical skills. There is no better platform to do that than the India’s largest coding battleground, TechGig Code Gladiators 2019", said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig.

“One of the most gratifying things to me is the fact that the participation graph of Code Gladiators has been pointing North ever since the first edition was launched in 2014. TechGig Code Gladiators is not just popular within our community of over 3.2 million registered users but also with leading companies who want to engage with this quality pool of talent with experience in a wide range of tools, technologies and programming languages. My best wishes to all the participants in this year’s competition”, said Sanjay Goyal, VP at Times Internet Ltd. & Head - Product & Technology, TimesJobs and TechGig.

To register at the Code Gladiators 2019 edition visit https://www.techgig.com/codegladiators

Russian Helicopters Identified Potential Partners in Localization of Ka-226T in India

Russian Helicopters Holding Company (a part of State Corporation Rostec) and a number of Indian companies signed Memorandums of Understanding at Aero India 2019. The parties agreed to explore the producing a number of assemblies and components for Ka-226T helicopter in India.

The MOUs were signed with the following companies Elcom, Valdel Advanced Technologies, Dynamatic Technologies, Integrated Helicopter Services and Bharat Forge, covering assemblies such as fuselage, blades, radiostation and landing gear.

“We have launched a new stage of Ka-226T project: identifying the chain of manufacturers among the Indian companies. I am positive that the agreements reached today will result in a long-term mutually beneficial cooperation at a later stage when the production of Ka-226T is transferred to the customer’s territory”, noted Andrey Boginskiy, Director General of Russian Helicopters Holding Company following the signing.

"The program of localization of production of Ka-226T helicopter in India is a key project within the scope of the "Make in India" program. The contract provides for the delivery of 60 Ka-226T assembled in Russia and the production of 140 units in the territory of the partner country. That said, the project opens up ample opportunities: I am sure that the rotorcraft assembled in India will be in high demand in this country as well as in the third markets. In particular, we intend to take part in a bid for the delivery of 111 Naval Utility Helicopters for the Indian Navy.   The selection of Ka-226T will allow India to reduce expenditures for transportation, maintenance, personnel training due to the localization of production in its own territory", highlights Victor Kladov, Director for international cooperation and regional policy at State Corporation Rostec.

Light utility helicopter Ka-226T features coaxial main rotor system, maximum take-off weight of 3.6 tons and is capable of transporting up to 1 ton of payload. The main distinctive feature of the helicopter is its modular design. Ka-226T can be easily fitted with a transport cabin enabling the transportation of up to 6 people, or with modules carrying special equipment. Flight performance of Ka-226T helicopter, its environmental friendliness, cost effectiveness, state-of-the-art avionics suite and additional flight safety solutions make this helicopter one of the best in its class.

South India’s Smallest Baby of 1.6 Kgs Gets a Pacemaker at Manipal Hospitals, Bengaluru

Manipal Hospitals Bengaluru stacks up yet another medical marvel in its record as it becomes home to South India’s smallest baby to undergo a pacemaker implantation. The 4 day old baby weighing 1.6 Kgs was born with septal defect (hole in the heart) on 28th January this year and was successfully operated by Dr Devananda N S, Chairman & Consultant HOD, Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Manipal Hospitals.

Hailing from Shimoga, the baby’s parents realized there was some defect in the fetus even before it was born through fetal echocardiography (test used to diagnose cardiac conditions in the fetal stage) during one of the checkups conducted by Manipal doctors locally. However, considering the condition is curable, doctors at Manipal assured the parents to cure the baby and not terminate pregnancy.

Thus, the couple moved to Bengaluru and delivered the baby on 28th January 2019. However, as detected, baby was born with a hole in the heart and was shifted to ICU the very next day. Considering the baby was just a day old and weighed only 1.6 Kgs, a suitable pacemaker was not available in the hospital. As a result, the hospital placed an order for the smallest pacemaker available from Hong Kong which arrived on the fourth day and the surgery was performed immediately.

Speaking about the case, Dr Devananda N S, Chairman & Consultant HOD, Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Manipal Hospitals said, “The initial 3-5 days are very crucial as babies are the most fragile during this time. Especially in this case, there were many challenges as the heartbeat was just about 0-40 times a minute with normal being 140 times a minute during the time of birth. Moreover, the baby was weighing only 1.6 Kgs. Owing to the size, we had to find the smallest pacemaker to be implanted. Nevertheless, thanks to the advance neonatal care with multidisciplinary expertise, we were able to send back home a baby born as old as 4 days with septal defect.

Timely diagnosis and intervention paid off in saving the baby in this case, however lot of people lose their babies due to lack of awareness. Babies with any suspected or known heart diseases should not be salvaged as there is always a possibility to survive. Fetal echocardiography plays an important role in diagnosis, management and follow up of patients in such cases,” added Dr. Devananda.

Expressing her joy, the baby’s mother said, “I have gone through two miscarriages earlier due to complications and I could not save my babies. Even this time I completely lost hope and never thought I would see my baby alive until I met doctors at Manipal Hospitals. As this is our first child, we wanted the best care to be available for him and we are extremely thankful to the team of experts at the hospital who took immense care of our bundle of joy.”

Experian Grows Innovation Footprint to Financially Enable India’s 190 Million Unbanked

Experian, the world leader in information services, is further expanding and investing in its innovation facility, Experian X Labs based in Singapore. The facility serves as Experian’s first incubator and collaboration centre for cutting-edge solutions, aimed at addressing pressing economic and societal issues in the India, such as financial inclusion. The Experian X Labs team, comprises of data scientists, product architects and industry innovators.

Financial inclusion is a significant challenge for economic progress in India, a region that is home to more than 190 million people without access to formal financial services[1]. Fostering greater financial inclusion, through financial access and education, will lead to more opportunities and economic growth. The Experian X Labs team leverages alternative data, advanced analytics and partnerships with industry organisations to develop technology solutions that will bridge the gap between India’s unbanked and financial service providers. The recently expanded Experian DataLabs[2] plays an integral role in the facility, providing a compliant and secure environment for experimentation with data and collaborative research.

Mohan Jayaraman, Regional Managing Director, Decision Analytics and Business Information Services at Experian Asia Pacific, said: “Responsible innovation is the driving force behind our work at Experian. Matching major societal issues with localised solutions, the data science and technology experts at Experian X Labs are tapping on data generated from alternative sources to provide valuable insights into a person’s credit worthiness. Data generated through the region’s rapidly growing internet penetration and mobile usage rates, for example, can help build financial identities for Asia’s unbanked. In the Indian context, this also translates into harnessing various initiatives in the India tech stack and the vibrant data economy to look at opportunities for boosting financial inclusion.”

Solutions that are currently in development at Experian X Labs include Experian X Score, a credit-scoring system based on alternative data, aimed at helping the new-to-credit population in India strengthen their financial identities and progressively gain access to a wider set of financial services. To achieve this, Experian India has partnered with multiple local entities in the digital payment processing and personal finance space. These developments will follow Experian’s previously launched Prove-ID in India[3], an automated identity and address verification service that helps over 7 million marginalised Indian citizens gain access to government and financial services. Prove-ID gathers key consumer insights from multiple data sources and helps banks verify customers at a faster and more efficient rate.

Experian X Labs provides the organisation with a platform to collaborate with start-ups, fintech providers, related businesses and academic institutions in the region. The team is also working to seed and develop APAC-wide solutions aligned with Experian’s core areas of expertise around financial inclusion, digital payments and consumer enablement through advanced data analytics, research and development. In addition to developing innovative technology solutions, the Experian X Labs will continue to play a central role in Experian’s efforts to build digital financial marketplaces in the region, better matching financial solutions with people who need them.

Absolutdata Integrates IBM Watson for Scalable Business Impact through Enhanced Insight Mining

Absolutdata, a leading data analytics firm, has announced that they have embedded IBM Watson services into their NAVIK AI Platform to help companies build an Intelligence Stack across Sales and Marketing functions. The Watson enhanced NAVIK AI Platform combines data, analytics and technology to optimize decisions on an ongoing basis without having to build a data science team while the NAVIK AI Sales Solution delivers dramatic improvements in sales and marketing effectiveness. The benefits seen include salesforce effectiveness, customer targeting, campaign management and optimized decision making across industries.

“Many of our global clients are interested in achieving the business transformation that AI can deliver,” said Dr. Anil Kaul, Co-founder and CEO of Absolutdata. “Yet they struggle with the best approach to start, and how to get the promised scalable business impact. IBM Watson AI can deliver results quickly, economically and at a scale that gets noticed at the board level.” Dr. Kaul adds, “We are in the early stages of companies building their intelligence stack and NAVIK enables our clients to develop a strategic competitive advantage that will last a long time.”

Integrating IBM Watson with Absolutdata’s NAVIK AI platform and services allows clients to utilize analytical frameworks and natural language processing to mine existing sales data. As a result, clients are better poised to identify hidden revenue streams, run hyper-personalized campaigns at scale and derive deeper business insights, compared to traditional methods of resource-based analytics and model development. This will help businesses enhance productivity, eliminate manual intervention and access huge data sets in real time, which was not possible earlier.

Following a phased approach, Absolutdata has incorporated IBM Watson into NAVIK SalesAI, NAVIK MarketingAI, NAVIK ResearchAI and NAVIK MicroMods, with others under development. Absolutdata is also using other IBM services such as Weather to enhance effectiveness in certain modules.

One of the world’s largest dairy companies is using NAVIK integrated with IBM Watson, to mine consumer insights and drive quick marketing decisions about brand, campaigns and pricing. The brand’s marketing team can classify and generate automated insights from both structured and unstructured data rendered real-time across mobile devices and the web, reducing decision lead time from weeks to seconds with over 99 percent uptime.

Absolutdata’s growing team of 400 data scientists and engineers is implementing AI solutions across client needs and is receiving extensive training on IBM Watson as a key component of the partnership.

Legrand India to Become a Part of the USD 15-B IoT Market in India; By 2020, 40 Product to be Fully Digitized

Legrand India, a global leader in electrical and digital building infrastructure provides a new dimension for connecting lives with their roll out of IoT programme- ELIOT. ELIOT which stands for Electricity + Internet of Things is a programme that aims to inject the power of communications, advances in connectivity and intelligence in the building environment and enhances value of the connected products to improve user experiences. Eliot also supports the development of suitable digital infrastructures for buildings and provides interoperability.

In India the Eliot product offerings are – Residential: Arteor With Netatmo, My Home Up, Classe 300 IP Door Phones, Nuvo for Audio Systems; Hospitality: Neat for Integrated Assisted Living, Flex Commercial: Power Distribution Unit, Energy Distribution.

ELIOT, a combination of “electricity” and “IoT,” will work to transform built environments through a purpose-built cloud, with gateways for installed legacy offerings, an array of natively connected new products, and solutions comprising connected, intelligent technologies and services.

Legrand India through their IoT Eliot programmes aims is to deliver additional benefits for all private and professional users, whether they are end users or installers. The products are interconnected in such a manner that they are able to talk to each other and interact when the user wishes too.

The Eliot IoT programme is based on three cornerstones-

•      Connected solutions,
•      Interoperability and
•      Sustainable digital and electrical infrastructure for buildings.

Legrand is joined by partners Amazon Echo, Samsung and Google Play, Renault, Marriott in launching ELIOT, which offers a purpose-built cloud, gateways for installed legacy offerings, an array of natively connected new products, and innovative solutions comprising connected, intelligent technologies and services.

Legrand offers triple focus of digital trust in IoT eliot programme i.e. advantage in using the brand relationship satisfaction, ensuring security where no one else can access your data and ensuring privacy where no one else except you can access your data.

On the launch of ELIOT programme, Mr. Jean Charles Thuard, CEO & Managing Director, Legrand India said, “India is at the cusp of technological advancements and it is the right time for IoT to become mainstream. Customer have evolved and millennials are already using app-based services. The success of IoT products require proximity to both the people who are the users of IoT devices and to the to the power and data connectivity that will enable those IoT devices and services. We at Legrand are trying to build an environment where various devices can seamlessly be connected devices get connect and combine it with analytics to improve the performance and interoperability of the devices. He further added, “Eliot is a great way to establish dialogues with these new-age modern products. We have made some great partnerships and I am sure our customers will enjoy the added benefits of our solutions under Eliot. Under Eliot, Legrand by 2017 has been able to successfully digitalise more than 30 out of 100 product families globally”.

Speaking on this occasion, Mr Sameer Saxena, Director, Marketing Legrand Group India said, “India has the ecosystem in place for connected devices. Internet penetration is at its peak, people have befriended technology as a part of their daily life and demand for voice-controlled device (Alexa, Google etc) is strong. Through our partnership modules we have a robust system ready for our interoperable offerings and we feel this will arm our customers with all around efficient solutions for building and living spaces.”

With its Eliot program, Legrand has decided to speed up the deployment of its connected offerings, to the benefit of both private and professional users. Professional applications currently account for 60% of the overall market of the Internet of Things. Globally ELIOT programme are present at France, Greece, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Dubai, America and made its first-time entry in India region with its launch today in Hong Kong.

Singapore Airlines to Introduce “Airbus A350 Aircraft” in Bengaluru Starting May 18, 2019

Singapore Airlines is pleased to announce the introduction of its A350 medium haul aircraft on the Bengaluru to Singapore sector. It will be the first airline to start A350 services from Bengaluru International Airport. The inaugural service SQ505 will depart from Bengaluru International Airport at 0120 hrs on 18 May 2019. Progressively, all ten weekly scheduled Singapore Airlines services will operate on this new aircraft type, subject to regulatory approval.

“Singapore Airlines is delighted to start services on this latest generation aircraft to Bengaluru. In line with the company’s commitment to product and service excellence; the Airbus A350 medium haul aircraft combined with our award-winning inflight service will provide Indian travelers enhanced comfort,” said Mr. David Lim, General Manager India – Singapore Airlines.

The A350-900 features higher ceilings, larger windows, an extra wide body delivering more space and comfort as well as lighting designed to reduce jetlag. Fitted with the new regional Business Class and Economy Class cabin products, the A350-900 medium haul Business Class cabin has 40 seats in a 1-2-1 arrangement that ensures direct aisle access for every customer, while the Economy Class cabin has 263 seats arranged in a comfortable 3-3-3 configuration.

New Business Class

The new medium-haul Business Class seats have been manufactured by Stelia Aerospace. With each seat able to recline directly into a 76” fully-flat bed, customers can rest in more comfort, even on the shortest flights. Each seat measures up to 26” in width with retractable armrests that can be raised and lowered.

Other features include ample stowage space for personal items, a business panel with in-seat power supply and USB ports, an integrated reading light unit with adjustable lighting intensity and a personal 17” full high-definition touchscreen monitor.

New Economy Class

The new Economy Class seats have been designed and manufactured by RECARO and also offer customers an enhanced in-flight experience. Each seat has an ergonomically-designed contour backrest that provides greater relaxation, and a six-way adjustable headrest with foldable wings to provide more neck support. Economy Class customers can also enjoy an enhanced entertainment experience on their personal 11.6” full high-definition touchscreen monitor.

Other features that have been introduced for Economy Class customers include storage space for small personal items, a coat hook, USB port and in-seat power supply.

In-flight Entertainment

The A350-900 medium haul aircraft are also fitted with the latest Thales AVANT in-flight entertainment system – a first in SIA’s fleet. This has been designed with a new user interface that offers a more intuitive experience and navigation options, leaving customers with the pleasure of enjoying Singapore Airlines’ myKrisWorld and its selection of more than 1,800 movies, TV shows, audio programmes and games with even greater flexibility.

Customers can receive personalised content recommendations based on their preferences and viewing history, while KrisFlyer members can bookmark and resume content, as well as customise and save preferences and playlists for subsequent flights. KrisFlyer members and Business Class customers will also have access to additional in-flight entertainment content choices.

In addition, customers will have access to high-speed in-flight WiFi service on the new A350-900s, equipped with Inmarsat GX Aviation’s broadband connectivity system offered through SITAONAIR.

Singapore Airlines placed orders for a total of 67 Airbus A350-900 aircraft, 29 of which are already in the fleet including six ultra-long-range variants, 21 long-haul variants, and two medium-haul variants.