Management Students from US, Norway Participates in Mehendi & Dandiya Dance Across India

A friendly cricket match followed by Mehendi and Dandiya night! Management students from USA, Norway and their counter parts from PES UP-India Management Programs performing to the Dandiya dance tunes with traditional attire. Hundreds of spectators including top executives from various Multi-National Companies (MNCs) and academicians were mesmerized by the traditional Dandiya dance which is associated with scenes of Holi, and Llila of Krishna and Radha at Vrindavan.

Last ten days were very unique for the 24 students from USA and Norway. As part of the Discover India programme, these 24 students visited historical and cultural cities of India beside visiting the corporate offices of various Multinational Companies. What added more colour to their Discover India tour was friendly Cricket match, Mehndi, Dandiya evening etc.

Discover India was a short term study program organised in association with PES Institutions and IUP-India Management Programs of the city. As part of this programme students from US and Norway visited between January 5 and 14.  All the students had educational, entertaining and exciting time in India on all nine days. As part of this initiative students visited world famous TajMahal, one of the seven wonders of the world, as well as many historic sites in world tourist places like Jaipur, Delhi, Bengaluru and Mysore. Beside visiting all these historical sites students also visited MNCs including Schneider,  Coca-Cola and TVS.  At Mysore city students visited the various places including world famous Mysore palace. At Bengaluru city they visited Chithrakala Parishat and Vidhana Soudha.

India touch: a friendly cricket match which is very new to the US and Norway students, Mehendi and Dandiya evening at PES Institutions added more colour to this 9 day programme.

At PES institutions, these students in traditional Indian attire participated in the Mehendi programme which was followed by a Dandiya performance by them. Students of IUP India MBA program also added more colour to this Dandiya night.

Symposium: as part of this Discover India event seminar on variety of topics including Indian economy, business and culture were held at PES Institutions which was followed by a panel discussion with Management of PES and IUP.

'My Personal Risk Advisor' Bangalore Hackathon on Jan 30-31, 2016

Swiss Re, in partnership with IBM, have announced its plan to host India’s first innovation hackathon event exclusively for the reinsurance industry. The two day event, scheduled on January 30-31, 2016 at Workbench Projects, Bangalore, aims to provide participants with an opportunity to develop user-based apps, utilizing data science, and harnessing cognitive technology from IBM Bluemix suite to address the growing needs of the insurance industry.

Themed "My Personal Risk Advisor", the purpose of the challenge is to enable individuals or small business owners to assess their total risk profile and learn about various product offerings. The hackathon is open to students and developer community – all those who aspire to design technology and aims to encourage developers to create innovative applications that can be integrated with digital solutions.

“The world, today, is rapidly changing and to keep pace with the risk landscape, we need to continually innovate around how we offer risk protection products,” said Alok Kumar, Managing Director, Swiss Re Bangalore. “Through this hackathon, we are creating an innovation platform that reinforces our long-standing commitment to bring out new and improved solutions that directly addresses real-world business challenges for the insurance industry,” he added.

An entry free competition, the hackathon is a team-based event. The participating teams will go through a shortlisting and selection process. Teams can register on the Swiss Re registration site and submit their idea, post which organizing team will notify the shortlisted entries. The last date for online registration is January 20, 2016. The winners will be rewarded with exciting cash prizes and also be considered for an exciting career placement at Swiss Re Bangalore office.

Rs 200 Crore Hospitality Sector Investment by Big Fish Ventures

With eyes firmly set on becoming a leader in the casual dining space, Big Fish ventures, a Delhi based start-up plans to open new outlets by raising around 200 crore rupees through venture capital funding. The start-up venture which caters to café dining and hangout segment of the market and runs premium dining lounges like Vault Café, Garam Dharam is mulling to launch new brands like Public connection, Oh My god (OMG), Junkyard, Three Peg Down over next 3 months.

With a host of brands in operation and new launches in the pipeline, Big Fish ventures indeed have ambitious plans in place as it aims to clock sales of over 50 crore in FY 15-16 and 150 crore in FY 16-17 respectively.

“Our vision is to become a super brand in Indian casual dining, café and lounge space. Unlike other brands who focus on creating single brand with standardized products, we aim to bring a cluster of concept based different brands across genres and large formats”, said Umang Tiwari, a veteran in Hospitality and founder of Big Fish ventures.

The company also plans to beef up their presence by increasing the total number of outlets to over 40 under different brands and by extending their presence across 8 cosmopolitan cities.

Underlining the future plans, Tiwari said, “Our team will create, build and operate over 40 outlets by FY 17-18 under brands created by us. Each outlet will be known for its prime location, unique concept, world class food quality and unforgettable service experience. Additionally, we plan invest over 200 crores in building our outlets and hope to register a gross sales of over 500 crores by FY 18-19,

“Big Fish will be present in 8 cosmopolitan cities of India and will be employing over 5000 people servicing over 6 lac orders per month across our outlets with daily gross transaction value, he added.”

The company has also roped in Nishant Singhal co-founder of  YouWeCan ventures along with cricketer Yuvraj Singh.

“We want to create an investment vehicle across cuisines and concepts in the restaurant and eating out space. Funds between 50 or 60 crore for the first eight stores are already in place and Big Fish intends to operate 8-10 large format stores of 5000-8000 square feet by the end of the year”, said Nishant Singhal who has joined Big Fish ventures as Chief Mentor.

“Big Fish venture will centrally manage key business processes like design, supply chain, logistics and quality control to optimise costs, he added.”

To address the issue of shortage of skilled manpower, biggest issue that mar the industry Big Fish ventures will employ and train 5000 professionals in various aspects of the job.

Tiwari said, “Dearth of skilled manpower is the biggest issue faced by our industry. We will set up Big Fish Academy to address this challenge and train team of 5000 professionals like Outlet managers, servicing staff, bar tenders and chefs”.

Big Fish ventures currently employs 500 employees. Big Fish will also bring all its outlets on a mobile application to provide seamless booking and payment experience to customers.

Win Big Money at Demo Day for Startup’s in Ten Indian Cities

Startups Club, a premier destination for early stage startups, today announced the kick-off of their year-long event, Demo Day 2016 in Bangalore. Demo Day 2016 will take place across 10 cities and provide early stage startups with the opportunity to attend boot camps, meet investors, secure funding and win prize money.

The 4th edition of Demo Day will be hosted in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Vizag. Each city will have local startups presenting their ideas and one winner from each city will win prize money of Rs.1 lac. These top 10 winners will then participate in the Chennai finale in December 2016, where they will present their ideas to a prestigious panel of Investors, Mentors & Entrepreneurs. The national winner will be awarded with a Grand Finale Prize of Rs.5 lacs plus many tools as support system.

Indian startups are attracting more funding in early stages than ever before. In the first nine months of 2015, around $1.4 billion in early stage investments—the highest ever for the country—has been pumped into startups, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a research firm. Last year, 304 deals saw a total funding of $1.2 billion.

“Demo Day is a platform for a cherry-picked set of startups to pitch to a set of investors to possibly raise funds. Demo Day 2016 promises to be bigger and better, covering 10 cities across India, with over 1500 attendees across locations and participation from around 100 startups. We are confident that early-stage startups will leverage the platform to take their ideas to a larger audience and create a compelling value proposition,” said Salma Moosa, Core Organizer, Startups Club.

A pan-India hunt for startups, Demo Day simplifies the process of meeting with investors one on one, to pitch ideas directly, get validated and get funded. For participants it is a platform for sharing ideas, networking with industry veterans and reaching potential Seed and Angel investors. Visitors can listen to the thought leaders of the ecosystem, network with entrepreneurs and observe the trends in the startups world. More information on Startups Club Demo Day 2016 is available at http://startupsclub.org/demoday/

Vikas Thapar Takes Charge as New Sr VP – Finance at Micromax

India’s leading smartphone player and consumer electronics brand, Micromax Informatics Ltd., has announced the appointment of Vikas Thapar as its new Senior Vice President-Finance. In this role, Thapar will be responsible to build the company’s asset and revenue base while leading the external relationship developments with all key stakeholders including bankers, equity partners, investors and government authority among others.

Commenting on the appointment, Rajesh Agarwal, Co-founder, Micromax Informatics Ltd. said, “We are delighted to have Vikas who brings with him a wealth of financial experience across industries and is very much aligned with our industry, brand and culture. With his expertise spanning over two decades, Vikas will be a great asset to our company as we transform from just a devices company to a hardware, software and services organisation. His extensive insight, knowledge and experience should allow him to quickly contribute to driving performance at Micromax."

Thapar will also be responsible for overall financial and management accounting policies and procedures, fund syndication and financial resourcing, group operations, legal entity structuring while providing strategic support for business expansion through operational and functional optimizing activities. He will also be taking charge of risk management, control and compliance.

Commenting on his new role, Vikas Thapar, Senior Vice President-Finance, Micromax Informatics, said, “Micromax is an incredible organisation that maintains its entrepreneurial spirit while ramping up to grow as a formidable force in the global handset industry. I am excited to have joined the company at such an important juncture to lead its finance initiatives as it enters the next phase of growth led by disruptive innovations and commitment to consumers and business partners.”

SanDisk’s New X400 Client SSD Offers Faster Response and Longer Battery Life

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions has announced availability of the new SanDisk X400 SSD, the world’s thinnest one terabyte (1TB) M.2 solid state drive (SSD). It is the first single-sided 1TB SATA M.2 form factor with a mere 1.5mm height. The X400 SSD is designed for fast start-up and application launch, as well as for extended battery life. Consumer research conducted by SanDisk in late 2015 indicates that these benefits are important for more than 70% of consumers when using PCs.

“Consumers have spoken. They want to work faster, with fewer interruptions. Our ultra-slim 1TB²  M.2 X400 SSD enables our OEM customers to build completely new form factors with outstanding reliability and the near-instant boot-up and application loading that consumers expect,” said Tarun Loomba, Vice President and General Manager of Client Storage Solutions at SanDisk. “The X400 SSD is the flexible, highly reliable platform that our customers need to ensure an exceptional user experience for consumers.”

“We have been witnessing a major shift in PC user-adoption as more consumers are increasingly choosing ultramobile devices,” said Jeff Janukowicz, research director for solid state drives and enabling technologies at IDC. “The evolution of flash storage and its form factors has helped this category grow. SSD-based machines that are thinner, more lightweight and optimized for mobility provide a compelling and powerful solution to consumer and business users.”

            

Designed for High Reliability

Both consumer and enterprise PC users can expect exceptional reliability even with heavy use. For example, in testing, a 256GB X400 SSD was rated to operate for more than 5 years with a workload of approximately 40GB/day. This performance makes the X400 SSD an optimal solution for enterprise or other OEM customers who need a highly reliable solution for systems that are broadly deployed in the field, such as digital signage, networking gear, point of sale (POS), and commercial PCs.

The X400 SSD also achieves increased reliability and endurance by implementing SanDisk’s own nCache 2.0 technology and DataGuard technology as well as additional error correction mechanisms. Based on SanDisk’s 6^th generation X3 Technology, the SanDisk X400 SSD uses 90% less power than a traditional hard disk drive. Consumers that upgrade to the X400 SSD will now have the luxury of working longer without a power source, and enjoying faster response times while moving data more efficiently.

In addition, the X400 SSD offers data protection through AES 256-bit compliant encryption and TCG Opal 2.0 compatibility, targeting users in the healthcare, financial services and education sectors who need to be compliant with industry regulations.

The SanDisk X400 SSD is currently available in 2.5’’ cased and M.2 2280 form factors at 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities.

Netflex Enter Indian Market; Offers Entry Level Monthly Package Starting Rs 500

Netflix has officially launched operations in India on Wednesday, with plans starting at Rs 500 per month.

The basic plan starting at Rs 500 per month offers access only SD content and is limited to a single user. For Rs 650 per month you can watch HD content on 2 screes at a time, and Rs 800 per month will get you 4K content on up to 4 screens simultaneously.

Netflix is aggressively moving into new markets and aims to reach 200 countries by the end of 2016, as slowing domestic growth puts pressure on the company.

Users can access Netflix through an app on a smart TV, a videogame console, a streaming player, a smartphone or a tablet.

Agencies