Binance Launches “Build For Bharat”; First DeFi-Focused Digital Hackathon in Indian Market

Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest digital asset exchange, today launched ‘Build for Bharat’, a twofold program with a hackathon and acceleration opportunities for blockchain developers and startups in India.

The hackathon is sponsored by Google Cloud, along with leading technology companies Matic Network, Marlin Protocol, Band Protocol and Ankr cloud infrastructure, while the acceleration comes under Polaris, an initiative by the Blockchain for India 50M fund, launched by Binance and WazirX in March 2020.

Spanning over a few months  -- from 24th August to 31st October 2020 -- the Build for Bharat hackathon will be open to creators, innovators, startups, and BUIDLers from all over India working on unique and creative products utilizing digital assets and blockchain technology. The solutions will be centered around decentralized finance (DeFi) such as mini-Tokens, micro-financing products, blockchain datasets, blockchain-AI solutions and more.

“India has been one of the most interesting countries Binance has tapped into!” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “We’ve seen entrepreneurs create robust blockchain-based solutions from scratch and scale it. With the second-largest blockchain developer base in the world - India has already kickstarted the revolution of decentralization and we’re here to fuel it!”

Selected participants will undergo three stages of filtration with 100 teams shortlisted in the first cohort, 20 teams in the second, and five teams in the final cohort. The finalists will receive rewards from a pool of 30,00,000 INR while the winning teams stand a chance to secure additional investment and mentorship opportunities under the Polaris accelerator, an initiative by the Blockchain for India fund.

To apply for Build for Bharat program, head over to the event registration website. Registrations for the program are open from today till 11th September 2020.

[The event is managed by Lumos Labs (Formerly known as IBC Media) - A Singapore-based innovation management platform.]

About Binance

Binance.com is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Binance Exchange serves users from 180+ countries and regions. Binance’s dual-chain architecture comprises Binance Chain & Binance Smart Chain that empowers the developer community to build their own decentralized apps and digital assets on one blockchain, while also taking advantage of the fast trading performance offered on the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX).

WayCool Foods Receives US$114K from Dutch Development Bank FMO for Kits

FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, has allocated a grant of US$114K to WayCool Foods, for procurement and distribution of dual-purpose PPE kits and enablement of on-site soil testing to farmers. It follows WayCool’s latest Debt Financing round of US$ 5.5 million, that was guaranteed by US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

The distribution is being carried out under the Outgrow Programme, the company’s flagship programme for farmers. Some 15,000 small holding farmers across 5 states in India will benefit through this unique initiative. The dual-purpose PPE kits will help protect farmers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and also shield them during agricultural operations such as pesticide spraying. In-situ soil testing will enable farmers to get their soil health measured without having to travel, thus facilitating effective soil management while maintaining social distancing.

Outgrow is the company’s agricultural extension programme that engages with farmers through their entire cultivation cycle, from planning to inputs to harvesting, substantially increasing profitability of the farmer, reducing their risk, and guaranteeing farmers 270 days of steady income by leveraging a host of emerging technologies.

The company has been leading efforts to help the Indian farmer cope with the current crisis, through various channels. Most recently, the company had run a crowd funding campaign for PPE kits through Milaap. It had also driven an awareness campaign showcasing the efforts of the farmer and trucker (the invisible hands in the agricultural supply chain). The FMO grant helps the company build upon this effort.

Sendhil Kumar Natarajan, head, agri initiatives, WayCool Foods, commenting on the initiative said, “Farmers are essential service providers as they feed the nation. They are also very vulnerable during disruptive events such as the ongoing pandemic. Our measures have focussed on enabling the farmers earn their livelihood while reducing the risks they face. The FMO grant will help us in protecting a significantly larger number of farmers and we thank FMO for their timely support.”

FMO’s grant demonstrates their commitment to supporting communities that require India’s food and agriculture distribution sector.

Speaking about the initiative, Jaap Reinking, director, private equity, FMO, said, “We are proud to offer additional support during this period. India has experienced one of the world’s strictest lockdowns. These measures left little recourse for the country’s millions of farmers, particularly those in the poorest provinces, who were unable to get access to essentials and protective equipment. The initiative’s goal is to find affordable and reliable sources of PPE and ensure these are allocated where they are needed most. Additionally, this grant will be used to procure Soil Testing kits for farmers, which will ultimately improve their income and reduce wastage.”

The company procures, processes, and distributes a range of food products including fresh produce, staples, and dairy products, moving over 250 tonne of food every day to 11,000 clients across South India. The company operates a soil-to-sale model, engaging deeply with a base of 40,000 farmers in more than 50 regions across India, while bringing efficiency through its direct supply chain model. The company plans to accelerate profitability and improve on its capital-efficient model by continuing to invest in technology and automation across the value chain.

The company has previously raised three rounds of funding from Lightbox, LGT Lightstone Aspada, FMO, Caspian Impact Investment, and Northern Arc Capital Limited.

SmarterBiz Raises INR 8 Crores Pre-Series from StartupXseed and Prominent Angels

 • A post-COVID new norm start-up working on Customer Experience delivery with the most secure technology stack

• Aims to grow at 8X doing about 72 Crores in ARR by Mar 2021 

• Remote WFH solution to enable companies to traverse towards OPEX model 

• Solving Customer Experience (CX) for enterprises 

SmarterBiz, India's first end-to-end CX platform enabled with the gig workforce has raised INR 8 crore as a part of their Pre-Series A round. 

The contributors for this funding round were StartupXseed Ventures (Deep Technology – B2B – Early-stage fund); Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik, Former Chairman of Microsoft India; Mr. MJ Aravind, Former co-founder Daksh, Former Partner Artiman; Mr. Ravi Viswanath; Mr. Ramesh Radhakrishnan; Mr. Ranjan Biswas; and Mr. MJ Aniketh. 

Founded in 2014 by Rajesh Bernard, Vijay Krishna, and Prateek Mehta, the company was funded initially by Utthsihta Yekum Fund.

SmarterBiz is an AI-powered customer experience platform that enables remote management of customer journeys and agent life cycles. SmarterBiz has helped several enterprises, including unicorns build scalable, flexible, and hyper-local customer experience, cost-effectively. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged businesses to ensure business continuity and manage increased customer interactions through remote workforce and reduced costs. With the SmarterBiz CX platform, customers can now remotely enable and manage the complete life cycle of the CX process across both digital and human touchpoints. With a single integrated approach, SmarterBiz takes away the pain of running customer experience on multiple siloed systems and processes that do not talk to each other. SmarterBiz provides an end-to-end platform to CX teams to manage the entire lifecycle of their customer, technology backbone, process, and customer support agents on the cloud. 

SmarterBiz serves several enterprises, including five segment leaders in E-commerce, BFSI, Hospitality, and Telecom sectors. It manages more than 5000 agents as part of its gig workforce. 

Rajesh Bernard, CEO & Co-founder of SmarterBiz said, "SmarterBiz has built a CX platform for a gig-workforce ideally suited under these COVID 19 conditions. SmarterBiz is committed to offering an omnichannel experience that elevates the experience across all customer touchpoints. We provide a competitive advantage to our customers by offering a choice between automation and manual intervention at all these touchpoints. With the investment, we plan to grow by 8X ARR this year and create more gig opportunities in the market." 

"Companies like SmarterBiz can foresee the benefits technology can bring, to reinvent the businesses and add value to the system. It will surely be a game-changing category disruptor during and post-COVID 19. There will be an increasing need for companies to integrate customer journeys, tech, remote work, and Gig models into their business process. We believe that SmarterBiz will be one of the most sustainable global companies of the future, for the solution it brings in and the execution capabilities of the team," said Mr. BV Naidu, Managing Partner, StartupXseed Ventures.

"At last, a seasoned leadership team, a novel premise, immaculate conceptual skills, and meticulous execution. SmarterBiz is indeed a company to watch out for." Mr. M J Aravind, Ex co-founder Daksh. 

The key benefits of the solution for customer experiences are that it facilitates remote work opportunities across India, flexible working hours, earning potential in a WFH set up, and is a mobile light, simple, and efficient application. 

The unique CX platform—Uearn.ai— streamlines the customer journey across multiple touchpoints with an omnichannel CX tech platform, fluid workflow management, and gig workforce, replacing the CapEx model to an OpEx model. The competitive advantage of SmarterBiz is the scalability (4X) it offers at lower costs and faster time to serve as compared to traditional models. 

About SmarterBiz: SmarterBiz, founded in 2014, is India's first end to end CX platform enabled with gig-workforce. It allows companies to shift their CX centres to 100% OpEx model. SmarterBiz streamlines customer journeys across multiple touchpoints with its CX platform—Uearn.ai—lowering the cost to serve, time to serve, for CX centre. It delivers the customer experience through its platform and gig-workforce, bringing convergence of tech and people to run multi-layered operations for its clients. Its fluidity allows clients to scale 4X times faster than the traditional model supported by a talented workforce that can work from remote distributed locations. Uearn.ai facilitates remote work opportunities and has 5,000 trained gig workforces with customer experience profiles. Uearn is available as a remote gig workforce app in Google Play Store. 

SmarterBiz is transforming the CX delivery for some of the leading banks to tech unicorns. To know more, visit www.smarterbiz.ai

Stride Ventures Invests Rs 15 Crores in ZipLoan; Marks First Foray into Fintech Lending

Stride Ventures, one of India’s leading venture debt funds, has led a debt round of INR 15 crores in ZipLoan, a technology-enabled lending platform that provides loans to MSMEs. Through their customized offerings and deep relationships across banks and corporates, Stride aims to be a strategic partner in Ziploan’s journey.

This is Stride’s first foray into Fintech lending and the amount will be disbursed across two tranches. The investment underlines the firm’s commitment to leverage traditional banking capital to cater to the startup ecosystem.

ZipLoan caters to the need of working capital loans for kirana stores and micro industries. Its proprietary ZipScore platform, that tests creditworthiness of a borrower, has so far helped it maintain its non-performing assets (NPA) at under 3%. 

Ishpreet Gandhi, Founder and Managing Partner, Stride Ventures, said “We are excited to partner with ZipLoan in their pursuit to revolutionize lending to small business owners. It is our endeavour at Stride to make credit accessible and efficient as we try to prevent equity dilution and make entrepreneurs truly ‘Atmanirbhar’. The company has exhibited tremendous growth without compromising the quality of the loan book. We are confident that the company will continue to scale even in these challenging times.”

Kshitij Puri, Co-founder & CEO, ZipLoan, added, “We are privileged to partner with Stride Ventures as they help us realise our mission of addressing funding needs of small business owners. The MSME segment is the most important contributor to our economy, but still continues to be credit starved. Even during the current crisis, the MSME segment has shown great resilience demonstrated by strong collections we have had.” 

Stride Ventures launched its maiden fund in 2019 with a target corpus of INR 500 crores and plans to invest in 35-40 startups over the next 3 years.

About Stride Ventures 

Stride Ventures is focused on providing debt solutions to growth stage start-ups. Stride provides tailor-made debt solutions to start-ups, enabling them to strategically allocate capital. Bringing more than six decades of collective underwriting experience, the fund helps its portfolio companies leverage the banking ecosystem through their domain expertise and extensive network.

About ZipLoan

Ziploan is a tech-driven digital lender focused on small ticket business loans. Till date, Ziploan has disbursed approx. INR 400 Cr across 10,000 borrowers. Ziploan is present in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow and Dehradun. Ziploan is addressing the key pain point of small businesses i.e. access to formal credit by customizing the loan sourcing and underwriting process for its target customer base.

GitHub Archive Program: The Journey of the World’s Open Source Code to the Arctic

At GitHub Universe 2019, we introduced the GitHub Archive Program along with the GitHub Arctic Code Vault. Our mission is to preserve open source software for future generations by storing your code in an archive built to last a thousand years.

On February 2, 2020, we took a snapshot of all active public repositories on GitHub to archive in the vault. Over the last several months, our archive partners Piql, wrote 21TB of repository data to 186 reels of piqlFilm (digital photosensitive archival film). Our original plan was for our team to fly to Norway and personally escort the world’s open source code to the Arctic, but as the world continues to endure a global pandemic, we had to adjust our plans. We stayed in close contact with our partners, waiting for the time when it was safe for them to travel to Svalbard. We’re happy to report that the code was successfully deposited in the Arctic Code Vault on July 8, 2020. 

Join us as we follow the code in its journey to the Arctic, and take a look at a few other things we’ve been up to here at the GitHub Archive Program. 

The journey of the world’s open source code to the Arctic Circle  

Your code’s journey begins in Piql’s facility in Drammen, Norway where the boxes with 186 film reels were shipped to Oslo Airport and then loaded into the belly of the plane which provides passenger service to Svalbard. Svalbard, roughly 600 miles (1000 km) north of the European mainland, just recently opened up to visitors from countries within the Schengen Area and the European Economic Area.

The code landed in Longyearbyen, a town of a few thousand people on Svalbard, where our boxes were met by a local logistics company and taken into intermediate secure storage overnight. The next morning, it traveled to the decommissioned coal mine set in the mountain, and then to a chamber deep inside hundreds of meters of permafrost, where the code now resides fulfilling their mission of preserving the world’s open source code for over 1,000 years.

Introducing the Arctic Code Vault Badge   

Millions of developers around the world contributed to the open source software now stored in the Arctic Code Vault. To recognize and celebrate these contributions, we designed the Arctic Code Vault Badge, which is shown in the highlights section of a developer’s profile on GitHub. Hover and you can discover some of the repositories an individual contributed to.

An update from our Archive Program partners 

The Internet Archive is a well-known, widely beloved non-profit digital library which provides free public access to collections of digitized materials. In partnership with the GitHub Archive Program, the Internet Archive (IA) commenced its ongoing archive of GitHub public repositories on April 13 of this year. At present, IA is using a two-pronged approach. First, their well-known Wayback Machine is accessing and archiving raw GitHub data as WARCs, or Web ARChive files. As of this writing they have archived some 55TB of data. Second, they have the goal of making entire archived GitHub repositories available via “git clone,” while also keeping repo comments, issues, and other metadata easily accessible on the web. This second initiative is well underway and initial archiving is expected to commence this month.

Software Heritage is a non profit, multi-stakeholder initiative launched by Inria in collaboration with UNESCO with the goal to collect, preserve and share the source code of our software commons. They already archive more than 130 million projects, with their full development history, and we are delighted to announce that 100 million of these are from GitHub. Thanks to the collaboration announced at GitHub Universe 2019, the archival engine is being improved with the goal to keep it up to speed with GitHub‘s growth, but if the project you are interested in, or its latest version, is not archived yet, you do not need to wait, it’s easy to trigger its archival right now in a few clicks on https://save.softwareheritage.org. 

Project Silica is developing the first storage technology designed and built from the media up for cloud-scale storage of long-lived data. By leveraging recent discoveries in ultrafast laser optics, data is stored in quartz glass, through a process that permanently changes the physical structure of the glass material. Quartz glass is a durable storage media that offers unparalleled data lifetimes of upwards of tens of thousands of years. It is resilient to electromagnetic interference, water, and heat, making it the ideal storage medium for ensuring the world’s open source software is forever preserved for future generations. As a partner in the GitHub Archive Program, Project Silica is committed to driving storage innovation, and developing a storage technology that addresses the need for a sustainable and reliable storage technology for the world’s long-lived data. We’ve archived 6,000 of the world’s most popular repositories as a proof of concept for future archives.  

What’s next? 

Code, culture, history, and technology: The Tech Tree

Every reel of the archive includes a copy of the “Guide to the GitHub Code Vault” in five languages, written with input from GitHub’s community and available at the Archive Program’s own GitHub repository. In addition, the archive will include a separate human-readable reel which documents the technical history and cultural context of the archive’s contents. We call this the Tech Tree. Inspired by the Long Now’s Manual for Civilization, the Tech Tree will consist primarily of existing works, selected to provide a detailed understanding of modern computing, open source and its applications, modern software development, popular programming languages, etc. It will also include works which explain the many layers of technical foundations that make software possible: microprocessors, networking, electronics, semiconductors, and even pre-industrial technologies. This will allow the archive’s inheritors to better understand today’s world and its technologies, and may even help them recreate computers to use the archived software. Encapsulating the world’s cultural context and technical history is a challenging prospect, and we expect the Tech Tree to evolve and iterate over time. We will soon publish to the Archive Program’s GitHub repository a very initial draft list of works selected for the Tech Tree, along with, importantly, a request for community input. We look forward to incorporating ideas and suggestions from the GitHub community before the Tech Tree is added to the Arctic Code Vault.

IDEMIA Launches iCube, an Innovation and Incubation Program in India

IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, launches iCube, an innovation and incubation program to support and assist Indian startups that leverage Augmented identity. In a fast-changing digital environment, Identity has become an indispensable building block for making businesses and cities safer and smarter in a vast range of environments and usages including financial services, healthcare, education, food sustainability, smart cities, IoT, e-Governance, e-commerce, travel & mobility, telecom, defence and more.

IDEMIA addresses these new challenges and needs with the launch of iCube, a program designed to assist and speed up start-ups and innovators in their product development and commercial roll-out.

Pierre Barrial, President & Chief Executive Officer at IDEMIA, stated: “IDEMIA has always been at the cutting edge of innovations in making the world a smarter and safer place. We are delighted to enable start-ups and developers to leverage the innovations we originally developed for corporations and governments across the globe. I am thrilled that the IDEMIA Innovation and Incubation program - iCube - is launched in India, one of our most vibrant markets globally. Not only do I look forward to help start-ups to succeed in India, but I am equally excited about taking some of their solutions to our customers across the world. I look forward to this mutually rewarding and exciting journey of co-creation.”

Sanjeev Shriya, Managing Director IDEMIA India added, “Innovation is the core of IDEMIA’s identity. Over time, we have developed cutting edge solutions with a global impact in domains like Financial services, Citizen Identity, Telecom, IoT or M2M. Thus, we are delighted to announce the launch of iCube - the IDEMIA Innovation and Incubation program that will help build compelling solutions for a safer and better world. This program is designed to assist startups and innovators by providing them access to our expertise and technology. It aims to speed up their product development and help them get to market faster.”

To further support developers and innovators, IDEMIA has opened its application program interfaces (APIs) and launched a credit program. In addition, IDEMIA’s engineers and its industry experts will share their insights and knowledge during several sessions and talks.

http://idemia.co.in/iCube

iCube will also work closely with corporations in curating and co-creating solutions that may be mutually beneficial.

IDEMIA will engage with startups and innovators through the following programs:

Startup Assistance Program

An ongoing program providing eligible startups credits to use IDEMIA and partner organizations’ technologies and products, APIs, SDKs, and other support

Accelerator Program

A curated 3-month program to help developers and startups become better prepared for market

Developer Program

A selected opportunity for startups to co-create solutions with IDEMIA’s technology teams and business teams

Scale Fast-Track Program

A selected access for startups to IDEMIA’s global client base and opportunity to jointly go to market with IDEMIA

 iCube may also provide selected startups with office space in their world class incubation facility located in Noida, India. iCube has already partnered with Lumis Partners Supply Chain Labs and Freshworks to reach out to a wider range of startups and support them in their journey.

About IDEMIA

IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, provides a trusted environment enabling citizens and consumers alike to perform their daily critical activities (such as pay, connect and travel), in the physical as well as digital space.

Securing our identity has become mission critical in the world we live in today. By standing for Augmented Identity, an identity that ensures privacy and trust and guarantees secure, authenticated and verifiable transactions, we reinvent the way we think, produce, use and protect one of our greatest assets – our identity – whether for individuals or for objects, whenever and wherever security matters. We provide Augmented Identity for international clients from Financial, Telecom, Identity, Public Security and IoT sectors.

With close to 15,000 employees around the world, IDEMIA serves clients in 180 countries.

Shared & Co-Working Startups are Laying the Foundation for Business Growth in India

Shared office spaces have become quite popular in India in the last 5 years. Its massive growth has disrupted the conventional work environment and helped India to get on a progressive track.

Steady economic development and burgeoning startup community in India is driving the flexible workspace industry. In the Asia-Pacific (APAC) market, India has the 2nd largest flexible workspace market, second only to China. CBRE report has found out that in the last 4 years, US$3 billion has been infused in the shared office space market, making it one of the fastest growing emerging markets.

The concept of shared office spaces is catching up in metros and now in the tier II and tier III cities as well. Startups like MyBranch, Qdesq and Flipspaces are coming up with technology driven solutions for start-ups & big firms so that they can continue growing their businesses in this COVID era. Let's have a look at their business model. 

1.    MyBranch:  The firm works on the concept of shared working space and helps big corporate firms to extend their footprints in the Tier -2 & Tier- 3 cities. It came into existence in 2016 and since then has expanded its services in 25+ cities services across India. The firm plans to extend its services to 100 MyBranch locations by the year 2021.

2.   Qdesq: Qdesq is a coworking aggregator and was founded in the year 2015. They provide a tech-enabled platform for the workforce to search and book flexible workspaces. The firm recently launched Qpro; a new vertical to accelerate the restrategizing of workspaces. The platform provides on-demand dedicated desks and promotes work near home.

3.   Flipspaces: Flipspaces is a tech-enabled venture in interior design, products, and projects for commercial spaces. The firm was founded in the year 2015 and since then they have managed to acquire global experience in designing and building for Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and coworking spaces. 

Springboard Secures $31M in Series B Funding Led by Telstra Ventures

Springboard, a mentor-guided online learning platform that prepares people for in-demand careers, announced today it has raised $31 million in Series B funding, bringing its total capital raised to more than $50 million. This round was led by new investor Telstra Ventures, with participation from Vulcan Capital and SJF Ventures, and returning investors Costanoa Ventures, Pearson Ventures, Reach Capital, International Finance Corporation (IFC), 500 Startups, Blue Fog Capital, and Learn Capital. 

Springboard launched India as its first geography outside the USA in 2019 and has placed its learners in Fortune 500 and world-renowned companies such as Samsung, Salesforce, Visa, LinkedIn, Cisco. The latest round of capital will enable Springboard to double down on student employability in response to the current job market in India and globally, by creating new hiring-focused products and strengthening employer partnerships to help graduates land their dream careers. 

Since inception, Springboard’s programs were designed to be entirely online, yet heavily supported by human interactions with mentors and a network of career experts. The new capital infusion will help Springboard further support job-seeking graduates by building several innovative tools for India and global markets:

The Hireability Forecaster, which provides early indications of student success and potential employability roadblocks by combining the power of Springboard’s predictive technology and the insights from its global community of almost 1,000 industry mentors. With 80% of Springboard mentors indicating they would hire their mentee, mentors and coaches will have the ability to indicate student achievement and intervene to course correct if students fall behind. 

Springboard Introductions, which offers Springboard students personalized, targeted introductions and job referrals from its community of over 13,000 mentors, alumni, fellow students, and employer partners that collectively represent over 50% of the Fortune 500 across 108 countries. Candidates who are internally referred are 15 times more likely to be hired than those who apply on a job board.

Student-Job Fit Recommender, an AI-driven job matching tool, which recommends open roles at Springboard’s employer partners that match each student's unique background and skill set. 

"India is witnessing one of its toughest challenges owing to the recent job losses that have impacted a large section of the workforce. It is therefore imperative for displaced workers to make the difficult transition into new, in-demand careers,” said Parul Gupta, Co-founder, Springboard. “Our remote-first, mentor-guided model is uniquely positioned to serve not only these individuals, but also universities and employers who need help navigating today's new economic reality. We're delighted to partner with a great group of investors, as we continue on our mission to transform over one million lives by 2030."

“Technology used to be a niche area but that’s no longer the case. As more and more companies are built on tech, the need to understand concepts like Data Science, AI, ML, UI/UX has become more homogenous. For learning to be meaningful, it needs to encompass state-of-the-art curriculum with real-world projects as well as mentorship and that is what Springboard stands for. With this funding we are in a good position to build on our strengths to provide in-demand job skills and holistic support at every step,” said Vivek Kumar, Managing Director, Springboard.

“The education sector is facing a tectonic shift. As enterprises and countries alike seek more and better talent with digital skill sets, the technology training market is set to explode,” said Albert Bielinko, Principal, at Telstra Ventures. "We invested in Springboard because the strong educational and job placement outcomes achieved by its students are a big differentiator. Springboard's highly personalised approach is built with the online learner in mind first, not as an afterthought, and offers a life-changing value proposition for Springboard's graduates.” 

Started by co-founders Gautam Tambay and Parul Gupta in 2013, Springboard pioneered a learning model that has enabled thousands of successful career transitions into the most in-demand technology fields via its job-guaranteed programs that are taught entirely online. Unlike most online learning companies that stop at teaching technical skills, Springboard focuses on employability -- 94% of eligible graduates secure a job within a year, earning an average salary increase of $26,000. Springboard’s unique strength is its remote-first yet human-centric approach that matches each student 1:1 with a personalized mentor—an industry professional working in their chosen field—who provides weekly feedback to keep students motivated and accountable. This approach has resulted in 330% student enrollment growth from June 2019 to June 2020. 

Furthering its commitment to student employability, Springboard is expanding its career services. It has tripled the number of virtual apprenticeship opportunities to build portfolio-worthy content and provide real-world work experience. The career services team has grown its career coaching capacity by 4x to provide more access to office hours, mock interviews, and a team of placement experts assigned to each student. To provide additional support during the job search, Springboard has extended its professional mentorship after program completion. 

In the coming months, Springboard plans to grow its industry-leading course offerings outside the high-tech industry to include additional skills gap disciplines. The company will also look to deepen its partnerships with universities and employers, enabling them to adapt to evolving reskilling needs in a post-pandemic economy.

Ed-Tech StartUp TagHive Collaborates with Government of Madhya Pradesh to Make their Schools Smart Across 52 Districts

Schools Smart 

* TagHive’s flagship product – Class Saathi to onboard 2080 schools across 52 districts in MP

* This decision has been made after successful pilot tests of Class Saathi in 2 districts, which was launched on Children’s day, 14th November, 2019

* Looking at associating with a CSR partner to expedite the deployment 

Samsung Ventures backed ed-tech start-up TagHive Inc., today announced that it has received a letter of confirmation from the Government of Madhya Pradesh to deploy ‘Class Saathi’ to a network of 2080 schools in the state. Class Saathi is an AI powered app by TagHive which, along with its clicker, is an affordable classroom solution that engages every student even in remote schools that have no infrastructure such as Internet, computers and electricity. Class Saathi also provides an app for parents and an app for administrators to monitor progress and take appropriate action. TagHive recently closed its Pre-Series A Funding round by Mr. Joon Hyon from South Korea, currently valuing the start-up at USD 10 million.

The Education Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri. Prabhuram Chaudhary, along with the Principal Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, Mrs. Rashmi Arun Shami and thier delegation had personally visited South Korea last year. The objective was to benchmark best practices in Korean schools. And, they witnessed successful implementation TagHive’s clicker solution across schools of South Korea. The visit convinced the team of Indian delegates to kick-start Class Saathi’s pilot on 14th November, 2019 (Children’s Day).

Speaking about this collaboration, Mr. Pankaj Agarwal, Founder & CEO of TagHive said, “TagHive entered the Indian market in 2019 and has been looking to strengthen and rapidly grow the presence of ‘Class Saathi’ – world’s first patent pending clicker solution to work on a mobile phone app. We did a successful pilot with government schools in 2 districts of Madhya Pradesh last year. Over 4,800 questions were solved by students during the pilot test. The government officials could see the learning outcomes of the students in real time and take corrective action almost immediately. With this collaboration, Class Saathi would be deployed in over 2000 schools catering to over 100,000 students and 4000 teachers. Class Saathi as a solution is ideal for government schools because it is low-cost and does not need schools to have any additional infrastructure, besides the teacher’s smartphone.”

Mr. Lokesh Kumar Jatav, Commissioner of School Education Department in Madhya Pradesh said, “We believe Class Saathi will revolutionize the K-12 education system of the state. On the basis of the pilot done in our schools, the results are extremely encouraging as it helps to increase student engagement in the classrooms and learning outcomes of the students. To begin with, we are now looking at installing the Class Saathi clickers in 40 schools in each of the 52 districts.  We are also looking for a suitable CSR partner to help us accelerate the deployment of Class Saathi across the state.”

Speaking on the future plans of TagHive, Mr. Pankaj Agarwal further added, “Not only does Class Saathi improve the learning capabilities of students, it also helps identify students that need help in specific subjects. The interactive quiz solution of the app enables teachers to understand the strength and weaknesses of the students. Post Madhya Pradesh, we are also looking at expanding to other states. Our mission is to help students and teachers achieve more on a daily basis and provide Class Saathi to all 250 million students in India.”

About TagHive Inc.:

Incorporated in April 2017, TagHive Inc. is a Samsung funded, education technology company headquartered in South Korea and with corporate infrastructure and operations in India. The edtech startup is founded by Mr. Pankaj Agarwal, an IIT Kanpur graduate with an MBA from the

Harvard Business School. TagHive offers clicker-based classroom response systems and AI powered at-home learning app under the ‘Class Saathi’ brand in India and under the ‘ClassKey’

brand elsewhere. This mobile and desktop enabled smart and low-cost classroom technology solution is currently being used in over 450 K-12 schools in Korea alone. Also, over 85,000 students have already benefited from Class Saathi at-home learning app, which, for now, caters to students from Class 6 to Class 10. Currently, TagHive owns 13 registered patents and trademarks and 8 more are in the pipeline. The EdTech company recently raised its latest round of investment and stands at US$10M valuation.

Edtech Superapp Ken42’s StartNXT Ideathon Records Over 13,000 Registrations Since Launch

Within less than a month of launch of its StartNXT Ideathon programme, Edtech Superapp Ken42 has recorded over 13,000 registrations from students of leading universities across the country. The company announced the launch for the startup acceleration programme in the beginning of July itself, inviting students to submit their innovative ideas and has received an overwhelming response for the same. The Ideathon will be conducted in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with support from multiple corporate giants.

Over 30 universities have participated across the country with leading names including IIT Kanpur, Indian School of Business (ISB), IIT Delhi, St. Xaviers Kolkata, Vellore Institute of technology, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, National Institute of Technology Delhi, IIMT College of Engineering, BITS Pilani, IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIT Varanasi, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra Ranchi, IIT Jammu. 

The entries also include international institutions like RMIT University Melbourne and James Cook University Singapore International Campus. 

Talking about the programme, Ganesh Raju, Founder & CEO, Ken42 said “We are delighted to receive such an overwhelming response from leading institutions across different cities in India. The core purpose for kickstarting this 6-month acceleration programme was to provide a solid impetus to generate a new wave of future-ready leaders. However, we are hoping to double the amount of entries received so far by the end of the registration period, with more students to share their ground-breaking ideas.”  

The purpose of the StartNXT Ideathon is to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship in India. After idea submission, refinement, solution generation and evaluation, pitching and assessments, the most impactful ideas will be recognised with cash prizes and assistance in building a company.

Ken42 is awarding the Top 3 winners with funding up to INR 2 crores each, and INR 10 lakh each to the runners-up as well, along with internship opportunities with leading startups and firms. Students will also have access to one-on-one mentor sessions with noteworthy Turbostart advisories where they will receive guidance from industry experts.

Registrations for the StartNXT Ideathon close on 31st August- Sign up here to submit your revolutionary ideas and kickstart your entrepreneurial journey!

About Ken42:  

Ken42 is a complete education ecosystem that revolutionizes how administrators manage their institutions, faculty imparts learning, and how students gain academic and real-world knowledge and skills. Designed to support students at every stage of their crucial learning years, from Class 6 through 12 in its offering for schools, and from standard 12 through higher education and placements, Ken42 is strongly differentiated from other learning management platforms.

Conceptualized by serial entrepreneur Ganesh Raju in October 2019, Ken42 also enables online classroom and exams, certificate courses from universities around the world, and opportunities for personal growth in the form of interview preparation, public speaking and professional skills.   

Backed by Turbostart, a bi-yearly programme for early-stage startups that aspire to be part of a unified and encouraging startup ecosystem, Ken42 occupies a unique position as mentors to the startup ecosystem with a focus on ed-tech. It boasts a series of strategic alliances as well as long-standing relationships with premier educational institutions and governmental organizations, enabling it to create a solution that is not just cutting edge with unmatched user experience but closely aligned to educational policy and change.   

With its one-of-a-kind integrated platform, Ken 42 is set to disrupt both universities and the K12 edtech industry by ensuring maximum student success, without the need of managing multiple platforms.  

5paisa.com Launches India’s Only Multi-Lingual Markets App for 5 Million Users

India’s fastest growing discount broker 5paisa.com has launched the country’s only multi-lingual stock markets app for over 5 million users, as part of its efforts towards providing opportunities to regional investors across the country.

5paisa.com offers the investing app in Hindi, Marathi and Guajarati besides English as of now and will launch Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali versions soon to allow most Indians have access to stock markets, mutual funds and other investment options irrespective of their language.

Prakarsh Gagdani, CEO, 5paisa.com said, “So far stock market and most other forms of investing could be accessed only by users who know English, this has resulted in regional users staying completely away from many forms of investing and wealth creation.”

“We have significant participation from tier 2 and 3 cities and there are an increasing number of investors who are new to capital markets who find it more comfortable to interact in their own language. Almost 30% of our daily active users are already using language options other than English. We wish to add more four languages covering entire south India soon.”

5paisa.com expects with availability of smartphones and of high-speed internet across India, the multi-lingual app will allow investors choose wisely instead of relying on spurious investing solutions provided many unscrupulous elements.

5paisa.com recently turned profitable after seventeen quarters since inception making it the only listed profitable discount broker in India. The firm has over 7 lac active users and offers equity investing at zero brokerage, mutual funds, insurance, and loans among others on its platform.

 

About 5paisa Capital

5paisa Capital Limited (NSE: 5PAISA, BSE: 540776) is engaged in providing financial products through its online technology platform and mobile applications. It is registered with SEBI as a stockbroker, depository participant and research analyst, and with AMFI as a mutual fund distributor. Its services are targeted at retail investors and high-volume traders who actively invest and trade in securities markets and seek DIY (Do-it-Yourself) services at a low cost.

The Company provides an online technology platform to clients through internet terminals and mobile applications for trading in securities in NSE and BSE; advisory services through the research undertaken by a team of fundamental and technical research analysts; and depository related services as part of its integrated services offering.

5paisa Capital is a technology driven company having mainly an online presence. The Company remains focussed on innovation, based on understanding customer behaviour, and constantly strives to achieve tech superiority as is visible through the developments of its robust trading platform, advanced mobile app, an Artificial-Intelligence powered Robo-Advisory platform, and the paperless account opening process.

MSME Day, 27th June 2020: 5 Companies Empowering Indian MSMEs

India’s Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) is the second largest in the world and are considered as the backbone of the Indian economy.The pandemic hit the economy and caused  liquidity crunch in the market.  MSME sector faced the most challenging time due to lack of funds and labour as a result of which a lot of MSMEs had to pause or discontinue their business. The government has been taking necessary  decisions and is addressing these  solvency issues, which will help the MSMEs to  stay afloat. Apart from this, there are companies that are also lending a helping hand to support the MSMEs and bridging the market gaps.

Crediwatch

Crediwatch is a ‘Data Insights-as-a-service’ company that provides lenders, businesses with actionable credit intelligence on private entities they need to improve trust and increase their lending and trading activity. Crediwatch does this with no human intervention by deploying the latest practical AI and technology tools that provide the most reliable comprehensive real-time inputs.A bank only looks up 200 of data points while considering decision for a loan. On the other hand, Crediwatch  picks up data from 25,000 different points which is the highest in the industry from already existing information in the regulatory framework. The intelligence can further be deployed for risk management and analysis, due diligence and in future can be used for providing “TrustScore” for MSMEs who are new to credit.

Udaan

Udaan is a Business-to-Business (B2B) ecommerce platform, designed to solve core trade problems for small, medium and large businesses across India. It is the largest such national distribution platform of its kind enabling retailers and businesses to source merchandise from manufacturers, brands, white labels, importers etc. on a single platform. udaan brings to users the power of technology to grow their business.The easy-to-use app gives them the power to BUY & SELL on their terms with secure payments and hassle-free logistics,GROW their network through access to new regions and customers for brands,manufacturers and marketing & sales support for retailers and businesses,DISCOVER customers, suppliers and products across multiple categories,CONNECT directly with sellers and interested buyers to discuss trade

Tradeindia

Tradeindia is India’s largest online B2B marketplace, connecting buyers and suppliers. Their mission is to help SMEs and MSMEs to go Digital. Now more than ever, company is committed to provide SMEs with the resources they need to take their businesses online. As the shift from offline to online accelerates, during these times companies are being asked to do more with less. Tradeindia client Relations team helps SMEs with tools to digitize their business operations and make your business future-ready. 

 Signzy 

Signzy offers a digital on-boarding solution for banks, NBFCs and other financial  institutions. Most banking services are going digital but one key process that is still offline and hampers consumer experience is regulatory compliance. There is a pressure to dilute digital KYC however digital has higher risk. We at Signzy believe that through a combination of Artificial Intelligence and blockchain we can ensure that digital compliance is convenient but yet secure. 

LENDINGKART 

LENDINGKART Technologies Private Limited is a fin-tech startup in the working capital space. The Company has developed technology tools based on big data analysis which facilitates lenders to evaluate borrower’s credit worthiness and provides other related services.LENDINGKART Finance Limited (formerly Aadri Infin Limited), is a non-deposit taking NBFC, providing SME lending in India. The Company aims to transform small business lending by making it convenient for SMEs to access credit easily. The Company uses technology and analytics tools, analyzing thousands of data points from various data sources to assess the creditworthiness of small businesses rapidly and accurately.

#MyLifeMyYoga: Twitter Celebrates #InternationalYogaDay with emoji

Ahead of International Yoga Day 2020, Twitter has launched a custom emoji to celebrate the much-loved physical, mental and spiritual practice on the service. People can trigger this emoji by using #InternationalYogaDay2020, #InternationalYogaDay, #YogaDay2020, #YogaDay, #MyLifeMyYoga, #योगदिवस, #अंतर्राष्ट्रीययोगदिवस in their Tweets.

The health benefits of yoga have led to its worldwide acceptance and popularity, embellishing Twitter Home timelines with pictures and videos of sun salutations and other popular yoga stretches, poses and asanas. 

Well-known voices from the world of entertainment and sports have been Tweeting to share their yoga sessions, from basic wellness moves to rigorous physical exercises, they have it all covered. Here’s a look at people practising yoga to relax, rejuvenate and find their inner calm:

Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/thesushmitasen/status/1253054471258517504

Two Web startups interest AOL

Internet pioneer AOL, which Time Warner plans to spin off into an independent company later this year, announced on Thursday that it had bought two small Web startups focused on local content.

AOL, in a statement, said it had purchased Patch Media Corp., a local news and information platform for local communities, and Going Inc., a platform for sharing information about events in major cities.

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

"Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today -- there's a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily," said Tim Armstrong, who was hired away from Google this year to become AOL chairman and chief executive.

"It's a space that's prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest," he said.

"Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL," Armstrong said. "The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us build out our local network further."

Patch.com is currently available in five local communities in the United States and expects to be available in a dozen by the end of the year.

Going.com provides information for young people about what is going on in major US cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston.

"By joining with AOL, we have the opportunity to greatly expand the reach of our platform to more cities both in the US and around the world," said Going chief executive Evan Schumacher.

AOL is currently the number four gateway to the Web after Google, Microsoft sites and Yahoo! and has been trying to refashion itself recently as a popular one-stop portal.

Agencies