Cognizant & HTH Drive Innovation in Mobile Healthcare

Cognizant has announced that it is working with HTH Worldwide, a global technology-based health services and information company, to enable its members to maximize the use of mobile technology for managing healthcare needs more effectively while traveling abroad. As part of the engagement, Cognizant is helping HTH Worldwide transform its mobile footprint through an enterprise mobile platform to support the company’s rapidly growing business and further strengthen its leadership position in mobile medical assistance services.

Optimizing HTH Worldwide’s mobile applications such as mPassport and GeoBlue will enable members using these applications to more conveniently understand, access, and pay for the best available healthcare services in any corner of the world. HTH members use their smart phones today to consult destination-specific global health and safety information, locate doctors, emergency services, hospitals and pharmacies, schedule appointments, and translate medication names and medical terms and phrases. This enterprise solution will also allow HTH Worldwide to roll out new products quickly to meet their business and user demands all around the world with greater efficiency and agility.

“Innovation is the cornerstone of our mission to help travelers deal with medical questions quickly, efficiently, and safely,” said Angelo Masciantonio, Chief Executive Officer of HTH Worldwide. “As mobile devices become the gateway to understanding, finding, and accessing care, the convenience and reliability of an optimized mobile experience are what our members need to manage existing and unanticipated health conditions in faraway places where finding a doctor and explaining symptoms cannot be left to chance. In Cognizant, we have found a partner that understands our enterprise mobile strategy and has the capabilities to help us enable our members to make the most of their travel, no matter where they are.”

“We are pleased to be working with HTH Worldwide,” said Krish Venkat, President of Cognizant’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice. “We look forward to leveraging our deep expertise in SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) technologies to help HTH Worldwide continue to transform how it delivers health services to its members across the globe and engages with them. With smartphones and tablets empowering users and fast transforming the delivery of care, assuring a cutting-edge mobile experience for world travelers will help HTH Worldwide unlock greater competitive advantage and raise the bar of customer engagement.”   

Entrepreneurs Can Now Dial Hotline For Tech Querries

Microsoft Ventures in India announced the launch of “JumpStart,” a hotline to provide startups and entrepreneurs with a resource to ask business and technical questions. Open during business hours Monday-Friday (9am to 5pm IST), a team of dedicated professionals will be available to answer questions at 1 (800) 200-2114, a toll free number across India.

“Microsoft Ventures supports startups at every stage of maturity by providing them with the tools, resources and expertise they need to succeed,” said Joseph Landes, General Manager, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India. “Our experience has shown that a major pain point for startups across the ecosystem in India, irrespective of their stage of maturity, is the lack of real-time support for various critical queries they face. JumpStart fills a major gap and ensures that startups get professional advice that enables them to make smart business decisions,” said Landes.

JumpStart will be staffed by dedicated professionals who have been trained by Microsoft to answer business and technical queries. Microsoft will apply the learnings from these calls to fine tune the Microsoft Ventures program, including the India Accelerator, to make it more impactful for its recipients.

JumpStart is widely welcomed by the government and industry leaders throughout India.  Congratulating Microsoft, Srivatsa Krishna, IAS, Secretary, IT, Biotechnology, Science & Technology and Secretary, E-Governance, Government of Karnataka, who was present at the launch, said: “So many great ideas are born every day. While some are nurtured by the industry, many face a short lifespan because they go unnoticed and end up making wrong decisions due to lack of proper guidance or information. By availing this critical support through JumpStart, startups will have the opportunity to be heard and have access to informed decision-making support, a critical component in their journey. We are delighted that this service will also be available shortly through the Karnataka MobileOne Platform, our new mobile governance system.”

Explaining the importance of this service, Kattayil Rajinish Menon, Director, Microsoft Ventures in India, who is responsible for community and ecosystem engagement, said: “Sometimes answering even simple questions about how to get started or which service provider to contact can really help startups avoid delays and cost overruns. While JumpStart cannot promise the success of a startup’s business, it can definitely help by educating entrepreneurs how to get started quickly by providing information on the vast resources available today.”

Along with several startups, the event was attended by industry stalwarts, including Ravi Gururaj, Chair, Nasscom Product Council. Gururaj, who has been associated with Microsoft Ventures since its inception in India, said: “Product companies and startups are the next growth engines for the Indian industry and we at Nasscom are working on several initiatives to promote this sector. Microsoft Ventures has been a great supporter of our initiatives, and has partnered with us on several of them. I am very happy that Microsoft Ventures has identified this challenge that startups face, and taken concrete steps to address it, through JumpStart. It is an excellent initiative to get some support and start off quickly and efficiently. I urge everyone to take advantage of this facility.”

Now Buy Sony, Panasonic TVs From Flipkart

Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace, today announced its entry into the large appliances segment with the launch of televisions. 

This category will initially be available to shoppers in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore – and will soon scale up to other cities. Some of the key brands available at launch are Samsung, Sony, LG, Panasonic, Philips, Toshiba and Videocon.

Customers can avail of options like Cash-on-Delivery, 30 day replacement policy and In-a-Day delivery guarantee. Also, specific to this category are a number of value-added services, to be made available over time:

·         Product exchange,

·         Scheduled Delivery

·         Exhaustive Buying Guide

Commenting on the development, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, SVP - Retail, Flipkart.com, said, "Large appliances is a huge market in the country. With this launch, we look forward to delighting customers with a large selection, competitive prices and an exceptional post-order service experience. We will be adding many more products & verticals in the coming months.”

MATLAB, Simulink Expo In Bangalore & Pune

MathWorks' premier annual conference will be hosted this year in Bangalore and Pune. The conference will bring together engineers, scientists and partners to exchange ideas and explore the latest product capabilities in MATLAB and Simulink. The EXPO features presentations by MathWorks technical experts and customers in India and an exclusive exhibition area showcasing cutting-edge demonstrations.

Jason Ghidella, Technical Marketing manager, MathWorks, will present the keynote address entitled ‘Directions in Technical Computing and Model-Based Design.' He will discuss how MATLAB and Simulink are equipping engineers and scientists to respond to challenges and opportunities arising out of mega technology trends such as big data, cloud and mobile computing, Internet of Things, low-cost programmable micro-processors, online education and more.

In addition, a MathWorks India customer will deliver a keynote address at the conference.

STC Acquired Aditi Tech To Build Analytics-powered Cloud Apps

Symphony Teleca Corporation (STC) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Aditi Technologies (Aditi), a rapidly growing leader in cloud-led modern application development. With the acquisition, STC extends its leadership in innovation to drive clients’ revenue growth by being able to uniquely deliver Systems of Engagement (SoE). Aditi will serve as a strategic growth lever for STC through its design and cloud expertise, complementing STC’s engineering, mobile and analytics capabilities.

SoE are modern applications that businesses use to engage with their customers by utilizing the convergence of cloud, mobile and analytics. The SoE market is expected to grow from $33 billion in 2013 to $111 billion in 2020 (Source: Zinnov). The combined company will have unprecedented capabilities in delivering SoE based on analytics-powered modern apps and smart mobile devices. The company will serve a broad spectrum of customers spanning enterprises, independent software vendors and connected systems manufacturers. 

The combined team includes 7,500 employees spread across a network of 40 global offices with innovation hubs in North and South America, Europe and Asia. The company is expected to experience 20 percent growth by the close of 2014. Aditi will continue to operate as a new division of STC under the leadership of Pradeep Rathinam.

“Symphony Teleca and Aditi are both leaders in innovation and I welcome Aditi to the Symphony Teleca team,” said Romesh Wadhwani, chairman of Symphony Teleca Corporation and founder, chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group. “We take pride in our commitment to help our customers realize the huge potential that cloud, mobile and analytics present. This acquisition is further evidence of our commitment and the combined team is the clear global leader in delivering product and solution development services that drive innovation-led growth for our clients.”

Commenting on the transaction, Brett Brinton, president and CEO of Zonar Systems, a customer of Aditi’s, adds, “At Zonar, staying out in front as an enterprise SaaS provider is a constant battle. Not only do you need to own the cloud with big data and analytics, but even more challenging is leveraging a complementary cutting edge mobile strategy. Aditi and Symphony Teleca bring together deep competency around these three strategic levers. For us, this is a dream come true.”

Symphony Teleca’s acquisition of Aditi will accelerate its mission to be the innovation partner of choice for customers, helping to drive their growth agendas through SoE. SoE enable businesses to engage with customers in a more compelling way, analyze customer behavior and create personalized experiences, while increasing customer loyalty and revenue across multiple channels. SoE are built for scale, cloud-based and consumed on smart mobile devices as the point of engagement with customers. They connect back-end enterprise software with front-end mobile software and are supercharged with big data analytics. SoE require a radically new high speed, agile approach to development at the convergence of enterprise software, mobile software, user experience design and big data analytics.

Both parties are working to obtain certain procedural regulatory approvals to formally close the transaction. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Avendus Capital was the lead financial advisor for Aditi for this transaction.

Symphony Teleca President and CEO Sanjay Dhawan said, “The acquisition creates a unique force that will help today’s businesses drive their growth agendas and improve business agility by harnessing the power of analytics, modern applications and smart devices.”

“The confluence of intelligent devices, cloud and analytics is the next breakthrough business opportunity for our customers. Joining forces with STC positions us as an innovation catalyst for our customers by helping them engage and understand their customers," said Pradeep Rathinam, CEO of Aditi.

Polycom Promotes Scott McCool as New CIO

A twenty five years of IT leadership experience to help continue company's focus on improving operating performance Polycom, Inc. today announced that Scott McCool was promoted to the role of Group Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. He is now responsible for Polycom’s global Information Technology (IT) organisation and prioritising the company’s IT spend to investments that deliver the greatest value. 

McCool reports to Chief Accounting Officer and interim Chief Financial Officer, Laura Durr, who is responsible for managing all financial, accounting and IT functions at Polycom, and is focused on driving efficiency as Polycom looks to accelerate its momentum in the market.

McCool has more than 25 years of experience in building and managing IT organisations. McCool joined Polycom in July 2013 as the company’s Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Security Officer.

“We are excited about this expansion of our leadership team,” said Durr. “Scott brings significant experience in technical leadership roles, having managed technology solutions addressing complex business problems for a broad range of organisations, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies, large private companies and more. Scott is a great leader who is helping to drive Polycom’s future forward as we refine customer solutions designed to improve operating performance and profitably grow the company.”

“Polycom’s global team of IT professionals is comprised of the industry’s leading collaboration experts. They are passionate about developing new and innovative ways to leverage video, voice and content collaboration solutions, alongside our other IT investments and business processes, to make Polycom more competitive in the market, more efficiently operated, and a more engaging place to work,” said McCool. “It is a thrill to have the opportunity to lead that team and to help deliver that expertise and experience to our customers as they seek to build their own collaborative environments.”

Prior to joining Polycom, McCool directed global infrastructure engineering at Brocade, launching innovative designs and leveraging Brocade IP, storage networking and software-defined networking (SDN) solutions. Scott holds a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems, a Master in Business Administration, and numerous IT certifications.

Win US$100,000 For Best Ideas At Mytrah’s Competition

Saluting the entrepreneurial spirit, Mytrah, one of the largest Independent Power Producers will host Inspiring Solution Business Plan Competition. The competition calls for the best minds across the globe to present their entrepreneurial idea. The best idea will be provided with a seed fund of US$100,000 to set up their dream enterprise.

Participants can enter one of three categories - individual, start up and team. The competition is open to people above the age of 18 from any vocation or nationality. All one needs to do is harness their lateral thinking, creativity and channelize energies into drafting a business plan around their idea. In line with Mytrah’s philosophy, entries to Inspiring Solution should exude the following qualities visionary, change catalysts, perceptive to the needs of others, open, innovative and giving.

“We’re looking for thinkers, people who have courage, drive, passion, creativity and belief in themselves,” said Vikram Kailas, Managing Director, Mytrah. He further added, “Inspiring Solution competition provides an opportunity to make an elusive dream a concrete reality, which will create a ripple effect of positive change.”

The criteria for judging a business plan are threefold - The practicality of the solution being offered, the potential for running a business based on the solution, detailing and attention to financial projections, key metrics, marketing & sales strategies and understanding of market environment.

The finals of Inspiring Solution will be held on May 17, 2014 in Hyderabad. The top three nominees will be provided with mentorship and guidance to set up their enterprise.