Indian Tourists Heading to Iceland to Double in 2016; Tourist Workshop Held in Three Indian Cities

With 30 million Indians expected to travel across the globe by 2018, tourism boards and tour operators companies are selling international destinations big time. Iceland, better known for its volcanic activities hosted a Tourists Workshop in Bengaluru on April 6, 2016, as part of a three city roadshow to promote tourism in Iceland.

Addressing the media, the Ambassador of Iceland, Thórir Ibsen says, “India has a very large tourists population looking for new destinations to visit and Iceland is the perfect place to visit. In terms of numbers, it’s only about 1000 tourists who visited Iceland in 2015 but expect the number to double each year. We are hosting the roadshow in Bangalore to build awareness among the tour operators and intern sell group packages.”

Iceland has become one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world. The number of global tourist arrival in 2015 was 1.2 million and are expecting it to touch 1.6 million or even 2 million in 2016, says Ibsen. In fact, it has grown three times the country’s population and it is growing rapidly.

Ideally group tourism is more popular in Iceland with 40-100 in a group. However, independent tourists also come as part of Euro trips. Lately, the number of Indian tourist visiting Iceland is steadily increasing as more and more people come to know about the country through films, tourism promotions and word of mouth. Indian travellers can reach Iceland by air from most European capital cities with flying time of three hours or less…

It’s stark landscape and amazing range of geological and natural phenomena with imposing glaciers, geysers, black sand beach makes for arresting visuals. Iceland also offers picturesque floating icebergs, majestic waterfalls, stark highlands and lava fields. Its yellow sulphur mountains, active and dormant volcanoes have been a treat for film makers from all over the world.

"The recent Shah Rukh Khan film Dilwale has helped us a lot in creating awareness about Iceland. We recognize India as a huge untapped market and we would like to be the pioneers."

Other prominent films shot in Iceland in the past are The Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Batman Begins, Thor, James Bond Films, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, Nayak, Brindavana, Aadhavan etc. The spectacular locations, professional services and government incentive makes it indeed one of the best places to shoot a film in the world.

Iceland Wants to Assist India Develop Hydroelectric & Geothermal Renewable Energy

By Manu Sharma

Indian government has set a target  to have 100 GW solar power, 60 GW wind energy, 10 GW small hydro power, and 5 GW biomass-based power projects operational by March 2022. Since this a huge target to achieve, It’s time the Prime Minister Modi led government looks at getting technology expertise from advanced countries like Iceland to speed up the process.

Iceland is the world's largest electricity producer per capita. Ibsen says, “The presence of abundant electrical power due to Iceland's geothermal and hydroelectric energy sources has led to the growth of the manufacturing sector. We can assist India in building its renewable energy.”

By harnessing the abundant hydroelectric and geothermal power sources, Iceland's renewable energy industry provides close to 85% of all the nation's primary energy - proportionally more than any other country - with 99.9% of Iceland' electricity being generated from renewables.

The other major industries in Iceland include: fisheries and meat processing, food supplements, aluminum smelting, ferrosilicon production, tourism and services. “We don’t have a Free Trade Agreement in India yet but the negotiations are in progress. We have strong skills in food supplements like Omega3, cosmetics and mineral water technologies. The trade between Iceland and India presently amounts to about $70 million. 

"We were not focused on India so far but now are learning to deal with Indian businesses," he concludes.

Eminent US, Swedish & British Surgeons Share Experiences on Robotic Surgeons Meet in Delhi

Nearly 200 surgeons from India converge at New Delhi, this week, to update themselves on the latest developments in Computer Assisted Robotic Surgery. 

In this 2-day Robotic Surgeons Council meet, at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Robotic Surgeons from the US, UK, Sweden and India will have intensive discussions across specialties. As Robotic Surgery has proven to be most efficacious in cancer cases, the meet will focus on Urology, Gynaecology, Thoracic, Paediatric, General Surgery, and Head & Neck cancers. Obesity reduction procedures in Bariatric surgery will also the subject of discussion. 

Prof. Peter Wiklund, Professor of Urology at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the pioneers of robotic surgery, who has mentored over 100 robotic surgeons and fellows from around the world, since 2003, will be among the lead speakers. 

Prof Wiklund, a specialist in removal of cancerous urinary bladder, is among 2-3 urologists in the world to have mastered the technique of creating in situ a new urinary bladder robotically from parts of a patient’s intestine. 

Dr Nikhil Vasdev, a Consultant Urological and Robotic Surgeon at Lister Hospital, UK will hold an interactive session on cancers in Urinary systems. An accomplished minimally invasive surgeon Dr Vasdev is known for mentoring scores of Robotic Surgeons. 

“After establishing value for Robotic Surgery in India with documented superior patient outcomes and efficacy, India is posed for a quantum jump in Robotic Surgery. We can already see a huge momentum,” says Dr Mahendra Bhandari, Director, Robotic Research and Education, Vattikuti Urology Institute, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, USA. 

“As Robotic Surgery has to cater to the needs of the masses to overcome scourge of cancer Vattikuti Foundation has worked with the Indian healthcare system to grow the number of just a handful of trained competent Robotic Surgeons in 2010 to 190 currently,” adds Dr Bhandari who is also the CEO of Vattikuti Foundation. 

Surgeons from Tata Memorial Hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Medanta Hospital, Apollo Hospitals, Manipal Hospitals, Max Hospitals, Amrita Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Mohak Hospital, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences and Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre among others will make presentations over the two days. 

A Surgical Robot 
Each surgical robot has 4 arms that can reach organs and areas where human fingers can’t. The 3-dimensional view, that can be magnified multi-fold, helps the surgeons achieve precision that is hard to match. Surgical Robots combine the best of science, engineering and medicine. 

Today Surgical Robots are being used in almost all specialties involving soft body tissues. Compared to conventional modes of surgery patients benefit by way of minimal blood loss, quick healing and less pain leading to shorter hospital stays. The patient can return to work faster. 

“In 2015 nearly 4000 procedures were performed in Indian hospitals equipped with Surgical Robots. In general most soft tissue body parts lend themselves to Robotic Surgery, says Gopal Chakravarthy, CEO, Vattikuti Technologies that makes Surgical Robots available in India. 

“By the end of the year, we expect Surgical Robots in India to grow to 40”,adds Chakravarthy. 

Many Indian surgeons have carried out procedures that have not yet been attempted. 

Vattikuti Foundation is working on a strategy to grow the trained pool of Robotic Surgeons to 300 from the current 190 through its Scholar and Fellowship programs. The Foundation has provided Vattikuti Fellowship to 9 doctors and plans to grow this number to 100. 

Vattikuti Foundation, that hosts Robotic Surgeons Council meet, is committed to train highly competent surgeons and will continue to motivate young surgeons. Vattikuti Foundation will offer Fellowships to select young surgeons, embarking on their journey to train themselves as Robotic Surgeons, at the meet on April 8 and 9, 2016.

The Foundation works with hospitals to make robotic surgery affordable to the masses in India. 

Vattikuti Foundation’s Fellowship Program 
Vattikuti Foundation is working on a comprehensive strategy to enhance the number of Robotic Surgeons in the country to 300 by 2020.

The strategy begins with a medical student engagement program where identified Vattikuti scholars (with a post graduate degree in surgery and a super specialisation) are exposed to webinars and Robotic Surgeons Council meets. About 10 scholars are awarded a 1-year paid fellowship, where they spend full year as an understudy to a Robotic Surgeon. From then on they are expected to become accomplished Robotic Surgeons capable of handling procedure independently. 

CP Gurnani & Raman Roy Appointed Chairman, Vice-Chairman for NASSCOM for 2016 - 2017

National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has announced the appointment of CP Gurnani as its Chairman for 2016-2017. He will take on the new role as Chairman of NASSCOM effective 6 April 2016. He succeeds BVR Mohan Reddy, who served as Chairman of NASSCOM for 2015-16. 

Gurnani is part of NASSCOM’s Executive Council and is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tech Mahindra. As Chairman of the Executive Council, He will lead and assist NASSCOM in catalyzing the growth of the Indian technology and services industry and enabling the fulfillment of its future goals and aspirations. The Executive Council also announced the appointment of Raman Roy, Chairman and Managing Director of Quatrro Global Services as the Vice Chairman of NASSCOM for 2016-17.

Speaking on the occasion, CP Gurnani, Chairman, NASSCOM and MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra, “I feel very humbled to be given this opportunity, at a time when the industry is on the threshold of an exciting new journey. Innovative startups and disruptive technology have together created exciting times for the industry. Being at the helm of NASSCOM, I will continue to drive greater engagement with our stakeholders and members to address the prevalent industry issues of inclusion, education, infrastructure security and corporate governance.”

BVR Mohan Reddy, Former Chairman, NASSCOM stated that, “I feel very proud of the progress the industry has witnessed in the past one year. 2015 was a defining year for the industry as we outlined our vision for the decade ahead and witnessed innovative entrepreneurs rise to achieve tremendous success, making India one of the key Startup hubs across the globe. It has been a great opportunity leading NASSCOM during the last one year and I am confident that NASSCOM will grow from strength to strength.”

Chairman, CP Gurnani along with Vice-Chairman, Raman Roy and President, R Chandrashekhar will lead NASSCOM to carry out its diverse array of priorities to enable NASSCOM in achieving the 2020 vision for the industry.

HGS Website-as-a-Channel Now Combines Virtual & Live Support to Optimize Customer Experience

Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGS) has announced the enhancement of Website-as-a-Channel (WaaC), an intelligent customer engagement offering that helps businesses give their customers the right answer fast. HGS WaaC is a self-service system that combines virtual and live agent customer support, creating a more efficient and engaging customer experience.

“When it comes to online customer experiences, today’s consumers have high expectations,” said Parikshit Kalra, Senior Vice President of Solutions and Capabilities at HGS. “They demand web interactions that are fast, seamless, and engaging—across all of their devices. That’s what Website-as-a-Channel is all about: creating a painless experience that delivers the right answer fast.”

An online self-service system, HGS WaaC revolutionizes the way customers get answers to their questions with intelligent search, self-help videos, and highly interactive virtual assistant capabilities. HGS WaaC features smart design that enables intuitive and satisfactory customer experiences, turning consumers with problems into brand promoters. The service is powered by Smart Channel Selector, HGS’ proprietary technology uses analytics to guide the consumer and automatically pivots to the best channel to ensure resolution, including live agents. Smart channel selector is constantly learning; it gauges customer satisfaction with the resolutions it provides and optimizes the experience to help consumers get the right answer fast.

The HGS WaaC solution is so successful that for a particular client up to 97% of customers on the portal get their issue resolved without needing further assistance from an agent.  By using automation and analytics to contextualize and personalize the experience HGS WaaC is making it easy to do business. In addition to improving overall customer satisfaction, the service drives tremendous cost-savings ranging from 30-60 percent for the client.

HGS provides WaaC to businesses by working through existing company websites or by creating and managing new custom portals for customer support. The solution resolves customer questions across multiple devices, including mobile phones and tablets. HGS WaaC is cloud-based, capital-light, and quick to deploy in as little as 90–120 days. It does not require a complete transformation of a company’s website or support infrastructure.

HGS WaaC uses HGS Digital Natural Assist (DNA), a knowledge management technology that unifies the customer experience across channels. A full-service solution, HGS DNA helps companies in complex industries save time and money by helping customers easily access the information they need, often on their own.

HGS WaaC has garnered significant accolades since its implementation in 2013. The solution won a Gold Stevie Award for Best Use of Technology in Customer Service (2016), Gold Contact Center World Award for Best Outsourcing Partnership (Americas) (2015), and Best of Outsourcing Thought Leadership Award – Cost-Savings (2015).

“With the vast majority of customer engagements beginning online, over a variety of devices and channels, the entire customer experience needs to be rethought,” said Chris Lord, Head of Global Growth, Strategy and Marketing at HGS. “Getting the first customer engagement touch point right by empowering consumers to find and connect with the answer they are seeking is critical. Our goal with Website-as-a-Channel is to ensure consumers get the right answer fast while driving business results with an amazing CX.”

Semiconductor Wafer-Level Manufacturing Equipment Market Globally Declined 1% in 2015

Worldwide semiconductor wafer-level manufacturing equipment revenue totaled $33.6 billion in 2015, a 1 percent decline from 2014, according to final results by Gartner, Inc. The top 10 vendors accounted for 77 percent of the market, down slightly from 78 percent in 2014.

"Slowing demand for key electronics end markets, combined with looming oversupply in memory, prompted semiconductor manufacturers to adopt conservative capital spending plans in 2015, which impacted spending on WFE," said Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner. "Strength in memory spending was not sufficient to overcome caution in logic markets as major producers focused on logic process upgrades instead of adding new capacity."

Applied Materials retained the No. 1 position in the WFE market with 1.3 percent growth (see Table 1). The industry's investments in 3D device manufacturing, fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) and 3D NAND were the main drivers for the company's growth in 2015. Lam Research experienced the strongest growth of the top 10 vendors in 2015, moving into the No. 2 position. The move of the industry to 3D device manufacturing pushed the company to 24.7 percent growth. Lam continues to be the dominant conductor etch manufacturer, but competition in the etch and deposition segment is expected to be fierce moving forward.

"Capital spending in 2015 was selective, with logic manufacturers focused on upgrades and the latest technology buys, while memory added new capacity in response to increased demand and favorable pricing," said Johnson. "However, there was another factor at work: Both the yen and euro declined significantly against the dollar in 2015. In a market which was essentially flat over the previous year, the changes in these exchange rates had a noticeable effect, especially in the lithography segment, where all tools are priced in either euros or yen."

In dollar terms, lithography dropped 13 percent, the largest decline of any of the major segments. Two segments were especially strong: The ion implant segment grew 24 percent, and the material removal and clean segment grew 6 percent. Process control overall declined 2.5 percent, with the optical patterned wafer inspection segment dropping 15 percent as manufacturers held back on purchases of new inspection tools.

Oracle Brings Cloud Platform inside Customers’ Own Datacenters

To kickstart Oracle CloudWorld Mumbai, the company has introduced Oracle Cloud at Customer in India, a new suite of offerings that remove some of the biggest challenges organizations face when transitioning to the cloud. Oracle Cloud at Customer provides Chief Information Officers (CIOs) with new choices in where they deploy their enterprise software and a natural path to easily move business critical applications from on-premise to the cloud.

“While organizations in India are eager to move their enterprise workloads to the public cloud, many have been constrained by business, legislative and regulatory requirements, especially in tightly-controlled industries such as telecommunications, government, and banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI),” said Oracle’s Senior Vice President of Cloud, Shawn Price. “With today’s launch, Oracle addresses these challenges so that organizations across industries can reap the performance, cost and innovation benefits of Oracle Public Cloud and run it wherever they want – in Oracle Cloud or in their own datacenter.”

“This is the first offering from a major public cloud vendor that delivers a stack that is 100 percent compatible with Oracle Cloud, but available on-premises,” added Shailender Kumar, managing director, Oracle India. “Companies in India, especially those bound by regulatory pressures, can now leverage the cloud and speed up their business transformation. Oracle Cloud at Customer supports complete control over data, while facilitating data sovereignty and data residency requirements.”

Since the software is seamless with Oracle Cloud, customers can use it for a number of use cases, including disaster recovery, elastic bursting, dev/test, lift-and-shift workload migration, and with a single API and scripting toolkit for DevOps. It allows organizations to get all of the benefits of Oracle Cloud in their data center – agility, simplicity, performance, elastic scaling, and subscription pricing. Oracle Cloud at Customer solutions cover infrastructure, data management, application development, enterprise integration and management.

Additionally, customers can:

-       Enable workload portability between on-premises and cloud using identical environments, toolsets, and APIs.

-       Easily move Oracle and non-Oracle workloads between on-premises and the cloud based on their changing business requirements.

-       Work with security and privacy regulations such as PCI-DSS for the global credit and debit card industry, HIPAA for the US healthcare industry, FedRAMP for the US federal government, Germany's Federal Data Protection Act, the United Kingdom's Data Protection Act, and other industry- and country-specific regulations.

Cloud technology is one of the most significant opportunities in Oracle’s history. The company is in a period of hyper growth and has bolstered its cloud presence throughout India within a variety of business segments. Many customers are purchasing more than one Oracle Cloud service and renewing at high rates. In India, Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud, Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud, Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud, and Oracle Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings are attracting customers including Fiat Automobiles, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Hi-Tech Textile Automation, IndusInd Bank, Kovaion Consulting, LnT Finance, Safexpress Pvt. Ltd., Sun Edison, Schneider Electric, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd., among others.

Globally, Oracle Cloud has shown strong adoption, supporting 70+ million users and more than 34 billion transactions each day. It runs in 19 data centers around the world.