Roder.in To Make Outstation Cab Travel In India More Affordable

InstaCab, a venture founded by IIT KGP alumni, is an InterCity cab aggregator has rebranded the product and services to new brand name: Roder.in. Roder.in aims to make over-expensive outstation cab travel affordable and accessible to everyone. Moreover, Roder.in has expanded the services to 12 more cities in North India.

The venture of the parent company, Vecto Technologies Pvt Ltd,started off as a marketplace for taxi industry, the first product was launched in Aug 2014. After generating GMV of Rs 1 million in just under 4 months, the team identified serious problems in the outstation taxi industry, which had been neglected by the major players in the market.

They aim to eliminate “the return-fare” concept from the market by optimizing resources so that customer only pays for the distance travelled. With a fleet of 2500 drivers, does not own cars, its“one-way rates” operations are spread across more than 350 routes covering North India (increase from 32 routes last month), providing good connectivity with well-maintained cabs at affordable prices. Roder.in has expanded and started accepting booking requests from the following cities: Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Agra, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Kanpur, including Delhi-NCR.

Roder.in will continue expansion to new markets in North India for the next quarter to create a wide network of cabs, with which customers will be able to avail one-way rates to travel between cities across North India.

Roder.in, offers three types of cars: mainly hatchbacks, sedans and multi-utility vehicles. With this, the initial months of this year from January to October has seen over 1500 outstation trips with average size being to the tune of 5,000, generating a GMV of around Rs 8 million.

Roder.in is a technology platform and aggregates cabs for outstation travels. They maintain and optimize fleets across cities in a particular region to provide one-way rates to the customers. They charge commission per ride provided to the operators. They focus heavily on driver verification and cab verification to ensure customer safety.  

Save 100 Million Litres of Water with Eco-friendly Car Wash

About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water but still water scarcity is one of the biggest problems faced across the globe. Although many start-ups are advocate various social causes and have awareness campaigns, water conservation still remains to be an untouched domain in the start-up space.

As per a recent case study, there will be no drinking water in India by 2040, if the consumption (read wastage) of water continues at the same rate. Among the mega cities in India, Bangalore is the second highest waster of water. Out of the total water supply of 1300 MLD (million liter per day) , more than 40% of city’s water goes to waste, out of which more than 250 MLD is lost due to leakage and household wastage while the city still faces the deficit of 150 MLD against the huge demand. Bangalore loses as much water as Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli or Belgaum consume.

Among other things, water wastage during car wash is one of the common concerns. Have you ever imagined, how much water do you consume when washing a car? A normal water wash generally takes 10 buckets of 10 liters each, i.e. 100 liters of water on an average. Bangalore has 10 lakh cars and it estimated that 10 crore liters of water per week is used for car washing which is equivalent to emptying the Bellandur lake 50 times!

To save the 14 million liter water from going to waste every day, Bangalore based Cartisan is promoting Eco-friendly car wash campaign. It not only saves the water but keeps your car body in a good condition.

Here’s how it works:

·         Eco-friendly waterless car wash saves hundreds of liters of precious water.

·         We use unique moisturizing agents, lubricants and protectants.

·         Special micro-fibre towel is used to avoid scratches while wiping.

·         Water wash leads to dullness of the car paint and leaves run off marks whereas the eco-friendly car wash leaves high gloss shine and protective barrier on car’s paint.

If you start doing your bit for conserving water, you can start with something as small as making sure that your water taps don’t leak unnecessarily. If you waste a lot of your time and water every week washing your car, it’s time to stop the same. You’ll be surprised to see how a small activity like a dry car wash can save hundreds of litres of water every week with minimal efforts. Moreover, if a car is washed in the street, it can lead to water pollution in the river due to pollutants like grease which in the end is harmful for sea life. Waterless car wash is an easy way to prevent water pollution due to car wash.

Waterless car wash has been lesser known in the car owners’ community. Cartisan on-boards service providers who have expertise in waterless car wash. Cartisan also hires car cleaners and their experienced service advisors extensively train them to wash cars without water. Cartisan hopes to provide more employments and at the same time spread awareness about the eco-friendly car wash. They have seen an incredible response so far and the car owners have welcomed the waterless wash. Moreover they offer the doorstep eco-friendly wash at almost 80% discounted prices as compared to regular wash, to spread awareness.

Cartisan has saved around 1 Lakh litres of water so far in Bangalore and Mumbai. They has also tied up with Myles cars, a self-drive car rental service in Bangalore to provide car cleaning services to their entire fleet and is saving 10000 Litres of water every week additionally.

Do your bit today for your city by getting an eco-friendly waterless car wash done by trained professionals. It not only saves the precious water but also leaves your car with a glossy shine and makes the body paint last longer than usual. It’s time to encourage startups working in the space of water conservation.  

abof.com – A One-Stop Online Portal for Fashion Products

Announcing the launch of abof.com (all about fashion:  ae-bof), an online one-stop fashion portal for apparel, footwear and accessories for men and women, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group said “The e-commerce sector is a sunrise sector from an investment point of view. While a lot has happened in the last couple of years, a lot more is yet to happen in this space. With abof.com, we aim to offer a wide but curated range of merchandise and a differentiated shopping experience that can compete with the best in the world. We see abof emerging as the most admired player in online fashion within the next 3 years”. 

Elaborating further Mr. Birla mentioned that the Aditya Birla Group is already India’s largest fashion player through Madura Fashion and Pantaloons. “Therefore, it made sense for us to enter into fashion e-commerce to further strengthen our pole position in the business of fashion in India. We see the potential to build another billion-dollar business of the Group in this space” commented Mr. Birla.

Built with a vision to become India’s most admired online fashion brand and to provide a personalized shopping experience, abof has leveraged best-of-breed technologies. Its experience has been built as mobile first, and it works seamlessly across a wide range of devices including desktops.

The snappy and glam-led platform is targeted at millennials, the aim being to offer the latest styles, a daily dose of proprietary fashion content and style tips. The webstore provides the trendiest looks of the season from around the world through its curated collection of products handpicked from brands, and from its own brand ‘abof’.

“Today’s millennial generation wants everything fast and personalized. Within fashion, we identified this as a white space that can be tapped into by a focused player,” avers Mr. Prashant Gupta, President and Chief Executive Officer, abof.com.  “abof.com is a result of our quest to address this gap in the market.  We are building India’s most admired online fashion store and fashion brand, even as incumbents race towards becoming a fashion marketplace offering deeply discounted branded products”, he added.

abof.com is equipped with India’s first-of-its-kind 3D virtual trial room - a tool where customers can instantly view themselves in any product by inputting their basic body proportions. The tool allows one to layer various garments to check out looks.  The webstore also uses a unique style quiz to understand a customers’ preference and shows only relevant personalized content. abof has built an ecosystem of best-in-class partners across technology (e.g., IBM, Cognizant, Razorfish, Oracle), fashion brands, marketing, and operations.

Additionally, the consumer experience at abof.com is designed to treat consumers like celebrities.  It uses premium packaging that ensures garments are intact during transit, and has superior delivery services throughout the week including Sundays.  abof has established a world-class supply chain infrastructure that is fully tech-enabled.  Delivery and customer care services have been set up to cater to more than 400 cities across the country. 

Over 150,000 Devices in India Infected By Ghost Push Malware

In September 2015, Cheetah Mobile Security Research Lab warned Android users against a new type of malware affecting devices called ‘Ghost Push’ - a stubborn Trojan which is nearly impossible to remove. Multiple variants of this dangerous virus have been discovered and so far this malicious code has affected more than 900,000 Android users (ranging from 2.3.4 to 5.1) in over 116 countries. Experts from the Cheetah Mobile Security Research Lab found that behind this virus family is an illegal mobile marketing industry chain who make 4.05 million dollars every day.

India is among the major regions that is being affected by this virus with 158,729 devices being infected. While globally Samsung suffered most, in India Micromax had around 55,444 devices being infected. This is followed by 19,984 HTC and 9,905 Samsung devices. Globally, Ghost Push has infected 10,000 phone types and 2,742 brands.

According to Cheetah Mobile, this Trojan mainly resides in popular games, tools and social software, including Talking Tom3, Super Mario, Amazon, and more. Cheetah Mobile experts believe that the attack might originate from China. So far, virus samples have been found in Google Play, Aptoide, mobogonie and other popular app stores.

The virus developers have repackaged popular apps and injected malicious code and ad components into them. The repackaged malicious apps are then released into legitimate app markets and made available to massive numbers of users who are keen to download these (disguised) popular apps. According to Cheetah Mobile, these developers can make an average of $1.50 every time the virus installs an application on a smartphone.

NASSCOM & Facebook - Next Billion Program to Motivate Innovation Among Developer Community

                                                                     

                                                                

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has announced the introduction of the Leaders Building for the Next Billion Program. The aim of program is to inspire large-scale innovation for new internet users by supporting and spotlighting developers who are building innovative apps and mobile websites for these communities.

NASSCOM 10,000 Startups is a vision, which is committed to incubate, fund and provide support to impact 10,000 technology startups in India, by 2023. The aim is to nurture the promising startups into full-fledged technology stalwart companies, by giving them support via access to startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, startup support groups, mentors, and technology corporations.

The next billion program introduced in India by NASSCOM 10000 Startups will invite developers and students through an application process wherein 10 developers will be selected who will demonstrate a commitment to build for new-to-internet populations, and hence will be part of a six-month program. The developers will be provided with technical, marketing, and financial support, and leadership skills, to build their applications and businesses. They will further be connected to industry leaders such as CEOs, thought leaders, VCs, ecosystem evangelists, social change leaders, funders and the media to bring public attention to their commitment, solutions and impact such that they inspire many other developers to build innovative solutions for new-to-internet users.

Further, students will be selected through application process to build mobile application relevant to the next billion and lead engagement with engineers, designers, and other students on campus interested in applying their talent to build mobile applications that are relevant to the next billion. There will be four students per campus across seven different universities.  

IET Bangalore Local Network Felicitates Bharath Lal Meena

Bangalore Local Network of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) - one of the world’s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community felicitated Bharath Lal Meena, IAS- Additional Chief Secretary to Government Education Department (Higher Education) – Government of Karnataka, at the IET Dr Abdul Kalam Memorial Oration today. Bharath Lal Meena was awarded with Unnatha Shikshana Pravarthaka in recognition of his exemplary contributions towards Higher Education in Karnataka.

In his most recent role at the helm of Karnataka Higher Education, he is leading a team of education officals on an 86-point plan to bring in digitisation in higher education institutions.  Focused on automation and student centric initiatives, the department is planning to introduce online application and admission process for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

The IET Dr Abdul Kalam memorial oration was held on the birthday of Late Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and is 1^st in the annual series in memory of the engineering genius. Prof H P Kincha, Chairman, Karnataka State Innovation Council and Mr Kapil Khanna, Chairman of the IET Bangalore LN were the Guests of Honor at the function. 

Marc Carrel-Billiard New Managing Director of Accenture Global Technology R&D

Accenture has announced the appointment of Marc Carrel-Billiard as managing director of Global Technology Research & Development within Accenture Technology. In this role, Carrel-Billiard will oversee the Accenture Technology Labs, Accenture’s global technology R&D organization which explores new and emerging technologies, with locations in Silicon Valley, California; Sophia Antipolis, France; Arlington, Virginia; Beijing, China and Bangalore, India.

Marc Carrel-Billiard, Managing Director, Global Technology R&D, Accenture

Additionally, Carrel-Billiard will direct Accenture Open Innovation, the group that works with start-ups, venture capitalists, leading academic organizations and corporate R&D groups.  He will also lead Accenture’s annual Technology Vision research, which looks at the future of enterprise IT and makes recommendations for how organizations can take advantage of technology to improve their competitiveness and business results.

 “I’m thrilled to take on this incredible opportunity to lead Accenture’s Technology R&D group which continues to stretch the boundaries of traditional enterprise technology and help clients reimagine the future,” said Carrel-Billiard. “I look forward to working with an incredible global team of top minds, researchers and scientists, to take the latest technology innovations from vision to value for our clients.”

Carrel-Billiard joined Accenture in 1998. His most recent role was as Accenture’s global lead for emerging technology. He has conducted extensive research into artificial intelligence, and is the author of several articles and books. He holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Sciences from École Nationale des Telecommunications de Paris as well as a Master of Science degree in Computer Sciences from École Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique pour l'Industrie et l'Entreprise / ENSIEE (formerly Institut d’Informatiqu e d’Entreprises / CNAM) in France.

 “Marc is a visionary technologist who is highly respected in our industry and exceptionally qualified to lead this area of our company,” said Sanjay Podder, Accenture managing director, Bangalore Technology Labs and Software Engineering R&D. “He has extensive experience in developing and delivering emerging technologies, including key areas of IT such as cognitive computing and robotics. Throughout his career, Marc has distinguished himself as a thought leader and evangelist for new and innovative technologies, and has also had great success as an Accenture leader delivering business results to clients.”

Interior of the Accenture Technology Lab in Beijing

Accenture’s five Technology Labs are comprised of R&D professionals who research and explore key technology areas to uncover new methods of disruption, identifying and scaling innovative solutions to ultimately bring new opportunities to life for clients. Through the work of the Technology Labs under Accenture Technology R&D organization, Accenture is incubating new ideas that are changing how businesses operate and compete in the market. Accenture’s Open Innovation network and work has been hailed as pioneering by independent analyst firm Horses for Sources.