The Challenges of Developing a Safe and Effective COVID-19 Vaccine

By Mr. Neeraj Mehta, CEO, Immunifyme

COVID-19 which is caused by the virus named SARS-COV-2, originated from China and quickly spread across the globe. WHO recognized it as a Pandemic which has till today infected 15.2 million people worldwide and more than 620 thousand deaths. In India it is spreading wider and till now about 1.24 million people are infected and nearly 30 thousand people have lost their lives.

It is a dreaded disease and the whole world is looking for a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 effectively and control the spread of the disease. While many companies are in the race to produce a vaccine, few have already gone into various Phases of human trials. Moderna's mRNA-1273 and Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine are ahead and have proven the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

So now that we know, the vaccines are definitely on the way, the world will face a different kind of challenges. 

Few of the challenges which I see are:

1. Avoiding counterfeited vaccines 

Fake Vaccines! Yes, COVID-19 is a dreaded pandemic and everyone is looking forward for a vaccine. Thanks to Serum Institute of India and Adar Poonawalla that we have already started the production of COVID-19 vaccine in the name of Covishield for India and the world.

2. Vaccine Distribution

Covishield is not a Routine Vaccine: The world will need billions of doses to be manufactured in order for the vaccine to be available in all parts of the World, thankfully Serum Institute of India is one of the only few companies in the world to have the capability to manufacture this volume of doses. GAVI too has tie-up with UPS. UPS has committed a US$ 3 million in new funding and in-kind logistics support spanning two years, provided by UPS and The UPS Foundation to Gavi. This initiative will help COVID-19 vaccine's equitable and timely distribution. However, India will still need its own logistics in order for the vaccine to reach to everyone. We must ensure it is accessible to each person in India.

3. Surveillance during Vaccination and monitoring and follow-up for upcoming doses

Monitoring of people who would have received the vaccine: This is extremely crucial for us to monitor people who would have received the vaccine, in order to ensure they also receive the follow up dose and how are they doing in the long run after receiving the vaccine.

While it is a great thing that vaccine will be available soon, but we should be prepared for a long wait as well. The initial supplies will be extremely limited and the frontline health-care professionals will get the first access followed by those people who are vulnerable to serious illness. To make this vaccine reach each and everyone, India will have to work hand in hand with other nations.

Huawei Ranks No. 6 Among World’s Most Innovative Companies 2020

Global leading ICT infrastructure provider Huawei has ranked No. 6 in BCG’s recent released list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2020, moved up by 42 places. This is the highest ranking for the tech giant since it first made the list in 2012. According to the report by Boston Consulting Group, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Huawei occupy the top 6 spots in the new ranking, followed by Alibaba, IBM, Sony and Facebook.

The ranking is based on a survey of 2,500 global innovation executives and assesses companies’ performance on four dimensions of Global “Mindshare”, Industry Disruption, Industry Peer View and Value Creation. This year, BCG also added a new scoring dimension that captures each company’s variety and intensity of boundary breaking, by assessing its ability to breach established industry entry barriers and play in an array of markets outside its own.

As the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has continuously invested over 10% of its annual revenue back into R&D. In 2019, the company’s R&D expenditure totalled CNY131,659 million, accounting for 15.3% of its total revenue. 

In terms of 5G, Huawei invested 4 billion USD in the past decade, which makes it the global leader in this next-generation technology. To further commercial adoption and promote new innovation in 5G applications, the company has established 5G joint innovation centers together with carriers worldwide.

According to its annual report, the tech giant is shifting itself from an innovation 1.0 model to Innovation 2.0, which means breakthroughs in basic theory and developing new basic technologies, driven by shared vision for the future.

In the global fight against COVID-19, Huawei doubled down its innovation efforts and launched the Anti-COVID-19 Partner Program that focuses on AI, remote office, smart healthcare and online education, to support the fight against the pandemic. Its AI-assisted diagnosis, for example, could output CT quantification results in seconds and help frontline medical staff detect COVID-19 cases.

“When we began the research for this 14th edition of BCG’s Most Innovative Companies report, COVID-19 had not yet emerged. As we explored the data and interacted with clients, however, it became clear that this year’s core findings—about the advantages of scale and the imperative for serial innovation—may be even more relevant today as innovation leaders need to adapt to rapidly shifting patterns of supply, demand, consumer behavior, and ways of doing business,” wrote the author of the BCG report.

Over the next 5 years 1,000 German firms may invest in India

Upbeat on the second fastest growing economy in the world, about 1,000 German firms may invest in India in the next five years, the head of Baden-Wurttemberg, regarded as the most successful German state, said today.

"I am sure, in next five years 1,000 more companies from Germany and may be 200 from our state would be interested in investing in India," Guenther H Oettinger, the Minister- President of State of Baden-Wuerttemberg (Germany) said here.

About 1,800 German firms, including Porsche, Siemens, BMW, Voith and Audi have already invested in India which is being seen as the potential German manufacturing hub for the Asian market.

Indian industry and workers match the quality of Europe's and North America's, Oettinger said at the CII meeting.

With over six per cent expansion, the Indian economy is the second fastest growing after China despite global recession.

German Ambassador to India Thomas Matussek also addressed the meeting stating the India-German bilateral trade is expected to touch $27 billion by 2014 from over $18 billion in 2008.

India's major exports to Germany include garments, machinery and instruments, electronic goods and transport equipment, while imports comprises machinery, iron and steel, machine tools and organic chemicals.

Agencies

One billion mobile users in India by 2015

India could have more than one billion mobile phone users by 2015, with the bulk of that growth in rural areas, one of the country's top telecom executives said on Wednesday.

Manoj Kohli, chief executive of India's biggest mobile phone group Bharti Airtel, told an industry conference in Hong Kong that his firm is aiming to almost double its customer base to 200 million people in the next few years.

"Achieving a billion plus (Indian mobile users) by 2015 is possible," he told the Mobile Asia Congress, the region's largest telecom industry gathering.

"The largest growth will happen in the rural market," he said, adding that pricing wars between providers were knocking down rates in the Indian market and making phones affordable to more people.

Competition in India has become even more aggressive as new players unleash deeper price cuts with innovative per-second billing plans that have pushed call costs down to less than a cent a minute.

"There is hyper-competition like no other place in the world," he said.

India is the world's second-biggest cellular market with more than 400 million users, lagging behind only China, which has over 600 million users.

Rural customers are also seen as key to growth in China, said Chang Xiaobing, chairman of China Unicom, one of the nation's three major telecoms operators.

The company aims to tap "vast rural areas" for growth as demand for basic mobile voice services slows in saturated urban markets, he said, with customers now looking for multi-function devices that can send emails or play movies.

"Voice is a mature market in some areas, but we still see some growth potential," Chang told the conference. "Voice will be in continuous demand (in China)."

But Chinese operators must boost their data business to offset falling prices on voice calls, he said.

Chang has said he expects Apple's iconic iPhone, which Unicom distributes, will be China's highest-selling smartphone despite disappointing results after its official launch this month.

Mobile connections in Asia Pacific are expected to cross the two billion mark this year, more than triple the level in 2003, according to statistics released by conference organiser GSMA, a mobile industry trade group.

Agencies

IT spending likely to fall 5.2% worldwide, says Gartner

The worldwide IT spending is on pace to decline 5.2 percent this year. However, the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, with IT spending forecast to total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009, according to research firm Gartner. In Asia Pacific, IT spending is expected to grow by five percent to reach $515.6 billion in 2010.

Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research, said that this represented a fast V-shaped recovery for IT spending in the region. Emerging regions will resume strong growth, he said. By 2012, the accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in Asia will directly influence product features, service structures and the overall IT industry.

However, growth varies considerably by country, vertical market and IT sector. Sondergaard said that while software would post the strongest growth in Asia Pacific, telecommunications still represented the largest area of IT investment.

In Australia, the five-year outlook for enterprise IT spending is a compound annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, with total IT spending by Australian businesses to reach Australian dollar 56.4 billion by 2013. The vertical sectors with the highest IT spending growth would be communications (3.2 percent), healthcare (2.6 percent) and utilities (2.3 percent). While IT spending will increase next year, Gartner cautioned IT leaders not to be overly optimistic.

"While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012," said Sondergaard. 2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of Chief Information Officers the IT budget will be zero percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011, he added.

Sondergaard said that the three most-searched terms by Gartner clients on gartner.com provide some clues as to the priorities of IT leaders around the world. Cost remained the most-searched term during 2009, although it peaked in May, followed by cloud computing. "Next year will be the year when cloud computing moves from the discovery phase to small pilots, as part of organizations' desire to move from owned to shared IT," he said.

The third most-searched terms on gartner.com were business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). "We believe that 2010 will see increased focus on optimization of business processes linked to software applications, what we call application overhaul. That is what will drive growth in the software segment," Sondergaard said.

Agencies

Google adds new social search functions for users

Internet search giant Google has been working on adding more features in its search domain for making it easy for the users to easily find blogs and twitter feeds.

Users need to open a profile with Google and services can be accessed from Google labs.

Google Germany spokesman Stefan Keuchel said that friend finding on internet would become very easy with the help of new facility. He added that Twitter feed's new searches and the recently introduced search functions are different. The function would initially be made available in English.

The new social graph can be readjusted as per user's preferences. The feature would allow only close friends to be highlighted in the searches, leaving postings from others.

Agencies

Google enters mobile advertising space with AdMob acquisition

In a push to expand its digital advertising empire to cellphones, Google has agreed to acquire AdMob, a fast-growing mobile advertising start-up, for $750 million in stock, the companies said.

AdMob is one of the top sellers of banner ads on iPhone applications and Web pages that can be retrieved from mobile phones. The acquisition could help establish Google as an early leader in the small but rapidly expanding mobile phone advertising business.

The deal shows that Google is serious about becoming a major player in the mobile advertising ecosystem, said Neil Strother, an analyst with Forrester Research. It puts Google in the front-runner position.Strother and other analysts said that position could prove tenuous. The mobile advertising business, which has long been hailed as the next big thing, remains embryonic.

Agencies

Accenture on a hiring spree in India; To hire 8,000 by 2010

Global technology and consultancy firm, Accenture has said that it is going to add around 8,000 people in India by the end of next year taking its total employee base in the country to 50,000.

"We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," said Accenture Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, William D Green on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit. Indicating a recovery from the global downturn, Green said the company will continue to focus in India, specially in the areas of analytics, reports a media.

Accenture's focus in India is going to be the analytics space, which will help its clients in converting information into insights for better yields. Green added, "We believe that analytics is going to be an important trend that our customers are going to demand from us. We think India is going to be a great place for us. We have some core centres of excellence in the analytics space in the country."

Accenture, which has annual revenue of $21.58 billion for fiscal 2009, will strengthen its focus on clients in pharmaceutical, telecommunications and energy in the country.

Agencies

Will HP merge its PC, print divisions?

Hewlett-Packard Co is considering a plan to reorganize the company and combine its printer and personal computer units, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A plan is being finalized that would put Todd Bradley, who leads HP's PC group, in charge of the combined division, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

An HP spokeswoman declined to comment on what she called "rumor and speculation."

PCs made up around 30 percent of HP's revenue in the July quarter, with the printing group accounting for roughly 20 percent.

The printing group boasted an operating margin of 17 percent, making it HP's most profitable division.

For fiscal 2010, HP forecast revenue growth of 3-5 percent in its PC business and zero to 2 percent in its printing group.

HP is the world's No. 1 PC maker, holding a roughly 20 percent share of the global market.

The Journal report said Vyomesh Joshi, a longtime HP veteran who leads the printing division, could potentially leave the company in the coming months.

He has been approached in recent years by other technology companies looking for a new chief executive, the report said, citing people familiar with Joshi's discussions.

Agencies

New smart card technology by 2014, says MTA

Bus and subway riders will be able to abandon the MetroCard and use debit or credit cards to ride anywhere in the city by 2014, according to the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the first time set a target date for a no-swipe smart-card system to be in full use after years of studies and pilot programs.

With smart-card technology, riders simply waive or tap their credit or debit cards on readers when entering a subway station or bus.

Not having to swipe at turnstiles or dip a MetroCard into a fare box reader should speed travel and reduce MTA expenses, experts have said.

"I think it's great," Bill Henderson, executive director of the MTA's Permanent Citizens Advisory Council. "The technology is going help out the riders and the system."

The 2014 date is included in an MTA document detailing some of the major initiatives in the five-year capital plan recently approved by the authority's governing board.

If fully funded, the capital plan will allocate $220 million for a smart-card system, which also would include prepaid cards not linked to bank or credit accounts.

Agencies

Ford Motors on a hiring spree in India

Ford Motors has signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government for the $500-million expansion programme at its manufacturing facility at Maraimalai Nagar, a city suburb.

As part of its plan to expand its manufacturing facility in Chennai, car manufacturer Ford India has announced that it will hire 1,000 people. The expansion of the manufacturing unit will be completed by next year.

According to a company official, the company has already hired 400 people and the rest will be recruited by next year. On Thursday, the company signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government for the expansion by setting up new engine manufacturing units. As a part of its expansion plans, the company would double its vehicle production capacity to two lakh units per year. A new engine production unit with a capacity of 2.5 lakh is also being set up at a total invest cost of $500 million announced early last year.

The agreement was signed by Industries Secretary Farooqui on behalf of the government and Ford Managing Director Michael Boneham before Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and U.S. Ambassador Tim Roemer among other officials.

Agencies

GM, Reva to jointly roll out more electric vehicles

The Indian arm of General Motors (GM) Thursday said it is partnering Bangalore-based electric car maker Reva to develop and produce electric vehicles for the Indian market.

According to General Motors India managing director Karl Slym, the initiative was "in line with government objectives to reduce fossil fuel dependence".

"We are going to work closely with the central and state governments in India to develop infrastructure for electric vehicles charging and providing specific financial benefits to consumers," Slym said.

Describing electric vehicles as "a growth area around the global automotive industry", GM's president of international operations Nick Reilly said: "This cooperation with Reva in India will accelerate GM's progress to meet the emerging needs in many parts of the world."

Reilly said his company was pursuing several energy alternatives and advanced technology options to meet the changing needs of customers around the world.

"Electrically driven vehicles, based on battery and hydrogen fuel cell technology, offer the best long-term solution for providing sustainable personal transportation," he added.

The two companies have already started the feasibility study of GM's vehicle platforms to produce electric cars and are expected to announce the details shortly.

Reva had launched its electric car in 2001.

GM India, which has been unaffected by the bankruptcy proceedings of its parent in the US, is central to the company's global growth strategy.

Agencies

Ex-lovers most popular online search on the Net

Most people look for their long lost love on the internet, a new survey has found.

The study found that one out of four people are using social networking sites like Facebook to search a childhood sweetheart.

Search engine Ask Jeeves claims that 9% even confessed trying to know details of a one-night stand.

Nearly 37% said that they wanted to learn about their ex to just “see what they were doing these days”, reports the British tabloid the Sun.

Surprisingly, 4% even looked for former flames just to inform them how happy they were without them, while 3% searched to find out how miserable their ex were.

Apart from searching for previous lovers the poll also suggested that a trend of “vanity searching”, which means looking for yourself on the net, has become increasingly popular.

Agencies

New green computing centre from Microsoft

In an eco-friendly move, Microsoft has announced that its new center at its Redmond headquarters will cut the company's carbon footprint by 12,000 metric tons per year. The Redmond Ridge 1 centre will combine Microsoft's research laboratory servers from individual product groups with the corporate systems that process other data, reports BusinessGreen.com.

According to the software giant, the facility is due online in April 2010 and will provide major power efficiencies. "The opening of Redmond Ridge is a big milestone and represents a real transition point in the company's culture," said Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft.

The building has been designed to be as energy-efficient as possible, using air heat exchangers to keep the temperature down. Air conditioning starts only if the temperature rises above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. "This facility is a great example of how technology can help improve the energy efficiency of a company's operations," said Bernard.

The move is causing something of a cultural shift at Microsoft, however. Engineers developing new code are physically removed from the servers testing it for the first time. Microsoft has not said how much of its computing it intends to centralize, but is aiming to cut its carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2012.

Agencies

TCS, Wipro and HCL emerge top IT leaders

A recent rating — for global R&D service providers across India, China and Eastern Europe — by Zinnov Management Consulting identifies Wipro, TCS and HCL as market leaders in the overall rating based on components like financial strength and business models, innovation & expertise, people strength and operations.

The rating has also highlighted the impact of recession on the R&D service providers community across all key levers — like contract re-negotiation, increase in sales cycle time, bankruptcy of clients and fears of business continuity risk — which did result in many of them having to reassess and redefine their strategies.

Result of this reassessment has seen core mid-market service providers like Tata Elxsi, Tech Mahindra, Aricent, MindTree, Symphony, Sonata, Global Logic, Polaris and Aditi, moving strongly towards the top-pack and establishing themselves as leaders in specific industry verticals, said the rating.

Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov Management Consulting said, the global economy has witnessed a major reset and is currently observing green shoots of recovery, with Germany, India and China among others showing signs of improvement. “This tectonic shift in the economy has led to numerous changes in the current market dynamics, but one thing that can be safely assumed is the continued growth of interlinkages between global businesses and stronger relationships between service providers and MNCs would only continue to grow in times to come.’’

Vertical specific rankings were also under taken to understand the capabilities of the various service providers in providing turnkey product engineering services in verticals like aerospace & defense, automotive, consumer electronics, healthcare, semi conductors, telecom, & software.

The rating study also found that, R&D offshoring to India, China, Russia and Central & Eastern Europe is expected to grow at 6-7% with India and China continuing to constitute close 90% of the overall market. Though large firms have neither dramatically cut down nor increased their R&D spends. Hence, R&D offshoring to India, China, Russia and CEE is expected to remain flat.

Agencies

StanChart to open KPO in Bangalore; Hire 2,000 staff

Foreign lender Standard Chartered Bank plans to hire around 2,000 employees in India in the current financial year, a top official said.

The bank currently has around 8,000 employees in the country.

The banking major has also plans to open an office of its knowledge process outsourcing network -- Scope International-- in Bangalore by October, StanChart's Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia Sreeram Iyer told reporters here.

At present, Scope International has offices in Malaysia, China and Chennai.

It employs over 7,000 employees in its Chennai unit.

Agencies

Indian IT firms see return of hiring, salary hikes

Many were predicting six months back that the Indian IT industry would be entering its twilight zone, but now there are indications that these predictions may go wrong. Several IT companies have restarted hiring and are giving salary hikes to their employees.

"That phase of drastic downturn is behind us," says S Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "There's stability now. The deal pipeline is encouraging, but the time it takes to close a deal remains long. And many customers are yet to fully open up their IT budgets," Ramadorai added.

While IT majors like TCS, Wipro and Cognizant have started promotions and salary hikes, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys feels that things are looking better now, however the company prefers to wait and watch before giving any promotions or hikes, reports The Economic Times.

The recovery of the defamed Satyam Computer Services under the new owner Mahindra Satyam has also proved to be a boon for nearly 28,000 employees across all levels, with the restoration of the variable pay. The variable component is 10 percent at the entry level, 20 percent at the middle level and 30 percent at the senior management level. IT bellwether Wipro has lifted its freeze on hikes and promotions, at least for some employees.

Manpower supply company TeamLease, which saw its open positions drop significantly from 10,000 a month to 800 post-recession, has in the past couple of months seen those numbers rise to 3,500.

With the current trend companies have also started showing more confidence in the Indian market. Information infrastructure company, EMC has announced that it will invest $1.5 billion in India over the next five years, a level of investment from a single company that the sector has not seen in close to two years. Partha Iyengar, Regional Research Director in Gartner India, says the number of calls the company gets from customers for directions and consulting has gone up sharply in the last 3-4 months.

The Indian IT industry was one of the worst hit by the recession on account of its dependence on international markets - especially the U.S. and European markets. The freeze on IT budgets by companies around the world meant that new orders dried up. Industry association Nasscom initially forecast that IT exports would grow by 22-24 percent in 2008-09, but as the recession deepened, this was revised down to 16 percent. For this fiscal, the association has projected a 4-7 percent growth to $48-50 billion.

Agencies

Cisco expands campus; Likely to increase headcount

Cisco will be adding two additional office blocks totaling a floor area of 70,000 square feet. The expansion will happen around its 2.1 million square feet campus at Cessna Business Park on the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore.

This expansion might be by far the biggest in the commercial space market in this region in the last one year. Although Cisco declined to comment on the expansion, it issued a statement saying, "We have designated Bangalore as our Globalization Centre East and indicated that we will have 10,000-12,000 employees based here over the next three to five years. The idea is for 20 percent of the top talent in Cisco to be based here." At present, Cisco has 4000 Indian employees.

Agencies

Will Twitter permit ads on website?

Twitter, the fastgrowing microblogging site now seeking ways to make money, expanded its terms for users to allow advertisers to reach the site’s more than 45 million monthly visitors.

Twitter, that lets people send an unlimited number of 140-character messages, is just now beginning to ramp up efforts to monetize, or gain revenue from, its popular site.

On Thursday, it revised its “terms of service” to specify that it may run ads. “We leave the door open for advertising. We’d like to keep our options open, as we’ve said before,” founder Biz Stone wrote on Twitter's official blog.

Advertising revenue is the time-honored way for websites to generate revenue while remaining free for users. Explosive growth in social networking is attracting interest: worldwide unique visitors to Twitter’s site reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-over-year.

Agencies

IBM, Google, Oracle, Microsoft suggest newspapers ways To generate net revenue

Some of the world’s most prominent technology companies are offering suggestions to publishers on how they can charge readers for news online.

IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Google — a company some newspapers blame for helping dig their financial hole — responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily charge for news on the web.

But building the infrastructure for charging readers is one part of the equation. The other part looks more challenging: getting publishers to make the leap and stop giving news out for free on the web.

Randy Bennett, the senior vicepresident of business development at the newspaper association, said his group initiated the process after a meeting of publishers in May near Chicago. A report that was posted online on Wednesday by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University includes 11 different responses from technology companies. Google’s proposal may be the most eyebrow raising, if only because the company — which aggregates thousands of articles from media outlets on its news pages — is so closely associated with the freewheeling ethos of an open internet.

Google proposed offering news organizations a version of its Google Checkout system, which is used for processing online payments. It would give readers a place to sign in to an account and then pay for media from a variety of sources without having to punch in their information over and over. And the company says it could offer publishers several pay methods, from basic subscriptions to socalled “micropayments” on a perarticle basis.

Along with the technology heavyweights offering ideas are tiny startups. CircLabs, run by just four people and incubated at the Missouri School of Journalism, is developing a program that would feed news from different sources into a bar across the top of web browsers. Martin Langeveld, the company’s executive vicepresident, said the application will offer both targeted advertising and the option of charging.

Agencies