Rayat Bahra & Oracle University Signs MoU for Three Specialized Degree Programs

Rayat­Bahra University (RBU) joins Oracle University under the Oracle Workforce Development Program (WDP) launching three specialized Degree Programs using Oracle technologies: Oracle Database and Analytics, Java and Oracle IoT (Internet of Things), and Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). RBU, established in 2014 by an Act of the State of Punjab, is a part of Rayat­Bahra Group (RBG) founded in 2001 in India. The RBU promotes access, equity, affordability and excellence in education and requisite industry collaborations.

                                                 

Through the Oracle Workforce Development Program, Oracle University aims to provide education and certification programs that give students relevant job skills in an increasingly competitive global work environment. The partnership offers a unique opportunity for RBU to leverage authorized Oracle trainings and certifications to enhance the IT skills of youths in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and other parts of the country. Oracle Certifications provide a proven industry-recognized measure of ability and skills, and are highly sought after by individuals and companies alike.

As an Oracle WDP collaborator, Rayat­Bahra University (RBU) will gain access to the job oriented and industry-ready curriculum developed for the benefit of students in professional programs of engineering and management. The launch of the cutting edge undergraduate and postgraduate programmes was done in the presence of Mr. Jose Koshy, Country Head, Oracle University, India; Gurvinder Singh Bahra Chairman; Prof. Raj Singh, Vice-Chancellor, RBU; and Dr. Sandeep Kaura, Pro Vice chancellor, RBU.

“We are delighted to work with Rayat-Bahra University on this initiative. This resonates with the government of India’s Digital India & Skill India vision. Through Oracle University, we would like to build an ecosystem of technical experts who are industry ready and equipped with in-depth understanding on the latest Oracle technologies,” said Jose Koshy, Country Director, Oracle University India.

Under this curriculum, students will either work toward a Bachelor of Technology with a specialization in Oracle Database and Analytics or Java and Oracle IoT, or a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with specialization in Oracle ERP solutions under the mutual guidance of industry experts and experienced faculty from Oracle and the RBU.

“We at Rayat-Bahra University want our students to learn the latest technologies to be competitive and industry ready. With this vision, we have joined with Oracle University and are delighted about this opportunity,” said Gurvinder Singh Bahra Chairman, RBU.

Students who graduate from these programs will be eligible for professional and technically skilled jobs such as an IOT developer, IOT architect, software developer, Big Data Analyst, Big Data Analytics Business Consultant, Big Data Analytics Architect, Big Data Engineer, Big Data Solution Architect, Business Intelligence and Analytics Consultant, Metrics and Analytics Specialist, ERP Consultant, ERP Analyst, ERP Systems Analyst, ERP Manager, ERP-Oracle Apps Developer as well as a host of other such career options with organizations nationally and internationally.

UL’s Consumer & Retail Services Testing Laboratory Now in Bangalore

UL, a global safety science company has announced the opening of their Consumer and Retail Services Testing Laboratory in Bangalore.  The new state of the art laboratory will cater to the regulatory and voluntary testing needs of consumer products like textiles and apparel for the Southern and Western regions, which are a prominent base for textile and leather industries. This is the second such facility established by UL in India – the first consumer product testing laboratory was set up at Gurgaon, in 2013.

The Bangalore Laboratory, spread over 4000 sq ft, comprises separate units for analytical, colour fastness and physical testing as per global standards, with latest cutting edge equipment. customers at the new testing laboratory can now benefit from UL’s global expertise to widen their international market access by helping to ensure compliance to a host of safety standards and address product performance and quality.

Commenting on the occasion, Suresh Sugavanam, Vice President and Managing Director, UL South Asia, said, “In our  constant endeavor  to support the Make in India programme, we have helped Indian manufacturers expand and sustain their businesses by facilitating global market access. The Indian market is fuelled with growing impetus for quality assurance, coupled with the increasing awareness for the need for consumer and product safety. Our new laboratory is an extension of the company's commitment to be ‘In India for India’ while striving towards a safer living environment for all. UL will continue to enable manufacturers to comply with environmental standards and regulations by providing an efficient, cost-effective third party testing services.”

Sarbajeet Mukherjee, General Manager - Consumer and Retail Services, UL South Asia said,   “UL’s quality and time bound service has resulted in our customers requesting us to expand our services in Southern India. While catering to our existing and new clients, the laboratory will also help our clients to optimize their product performance with UL expert solutions that mitigate potential risks and help protect their brands.”

Bangalore is already home to UL’s sprawling 40,000 sq ft NABL accredited laboratory that houses advanced facilities for varied sectors like consumer technology, photovoltaic, HVAC, photometry, electrical products, medical devices, and drinking water testing.

Seagate Now Shipping 10TB Helium Enterprise Drive 3.5 HDD

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions has announced it is now shipping in volume its 10TB helium enterprise drives— the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD. Engineered to meet the storage needs of top cloud service providers, the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD features the industry’s lowest power and weight for maximum space efficiency at the lowest energy usage— lowering the overall total cost of ownership (TCO) of today’s large scale data centers. Currently the highest capacity drives available worldwide, these innovative new products are now available to purchase direct from global distributors.

“Seagate has the most comprehensive Nearline portfolio in the industry. Each of our Nearline products – including our new flagship 10TB helium enterprise drive shipping today – is designed to help customers take maximum advantage of top technology trends that have the highest impact on their business,” said Mark Re, CTO at Seagate. “While we offer a number of impressive technology advantages, at the end of the day customers really want solutions and insights that help them better leverage the value of their data so they can offer services and capabilities unmatched by their competitors. Seagate’s 10TB helium drive is designed with these market mandates front of mind.”

“Seagate is once again at the forefront of innovation with our Nearline portfolio. Our new 10TB drive boasts advanced write caching capabilities for better performance and the lowest weight and the best energy efficiency in the industry- making this new drive is a real game changer,” said John Morris, vice president of enterprise products at Seagate. “Now shipping in volume to our global strategic customers like Ciara and Supermicro, we are pleased to bring this drive to market with the knowledge that it provides highly-valued and unprecedented performance for our customers’ hyperscale solutions.”

Announced in January in conjunction with partners Huawei and Alibaba, the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD improves performance by using advanced caching algorithms to help cloud data center managers manage the increasing volume of data more quickly. Featuring Seagate PowerChoice™ technology, the drive helps businesses manage and reduce the ongoing costs associated with power and cooling during idle time, while Seagate’s PowerBalance™ feature helps optimize the IOPS/Watt for even greater efficiency. 

“Seagate’s 10TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD expands Supermicro’s hyperscale server and storage solutions optimized for cloud solution providers. With Supermicro’s 4U 60/90 3.5” top-load hot-swap bay server and single expander JBOD storage solutions, Seagate helium-based high capacity drives provide a robust foundation for building OpenStack cloud infrastructure, delivering maximum performance, scalability and capacity density at the lowest overall TCO,” said Don Clegg, vice president of marketing and business development at Supermicro.

“Reliability and performance in a storage solution are key criteria for Ciara’s cloud initiative. Seagate’s new helium-based 10TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD meets and exceeds both of these criteria,” said Darcy Letemplier, vice president of engineering, at Ciara. “Our partnership is a natural choice because of our combined intimate knowledge of the storage industry and a thorough understanding of cloud service providers’ needs.”

YatraGenie’s Walkathon Campaign Will Cover Over 60 Indian Cities in 30 Days

YatraGenie, a hyper market for bus, cab and hotel bookings is organizing ‘Walk for public transport,’ a unique initiative to encourage the use of public transportation. The walkathon will commence from Mysore on 1^st May and will cover 60 cities across Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 30 days.

As a part of this campaign, YatraGenie team will closely interact with the citizens at each city and understand the problems pertaining to the local transport sector. Flyers will be distributed and events will be organized for the public to interact and understand the importance of using public transport.

Speaking on the occasion, Renil Komitla, CEO, YatraGenie said, “The traffic situation in our cities and towns is becoming increasingly congested because of the number of privately owned vehicles.  Today, only a minor chunk of the population is interested in using buses and trains. Public transport facilities have been associated with lack of ease and discomfort.  To ensure that the congestion in our cities does not get more critical, it is imperative to create awareness among public for the usage of existing public transportation. Through this initiative, we want to understand the problems that exist in this sector and suggest measures that can be implemented to improve the facilities”

Towards the end of the 30-day campaign, a report will be submitted to the respective State Urban Development Ministry and Central Urban Development Ministry highlighting the problems and the improvements that can be made in the public transport sectors.

Juniper’s New cSRX and vSRX Provides Industry Leading Firewall Capabilities to Create Secure Networks

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks has announced several breakthrough additions to its cloud and virtualized service offerings as part of its Software-Defined Secure Networks (SDSN) framework. These enhancements include a new compact and containerized virtual firewall called Juniper Networks cSRX, a next-generation firewall providing advanced security services for Software Defined Networks, as well as a multi-core version of the Juniper Networks vSRX, the industry’s fastest virtual firewall that is expected to be capable of reaching 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps). This speed is 10 times greater than the nearest competitor and creates new possibilities for using agile and flexible virtual firewalls.

As the scale and sophistication of threats continue to increase, next-generation security must be built around automated and actionable intelligence that can be enforced quickly to reduce risk and protect the network and its users. Juniper’s vision for SDSN looks to tackle this need with an open threat intelligence platform and enforcement through its robust suite of physical and virtual firewalls, as well as network switches and routers. When combined with an open policy engine and global orchestration, users can set and enforce policy based on intent, either on premises or in the cloud.

Juniper is extending its SDSN offerings by unveiling the industry’s first virtual firewall in a containerized form factor. The cSRX is expected to provide a cost effective way to wrap advanced security services around every workload and the ability to scale up to high multi-tenancy. Additionally, Juniper is announcing a massive increase in performance on its vSRX, which further extends its lead as the industry’s fastest and most scalable virtual firewall. Both products are anticipated to enable the network to better detect and combat threats through increased performance, intelligence, and a higher density of services on the Intel® Xeon® processor family (x86 platform). These enhancements to Juniper’s virtualized security portfolio extend the network and security administrator’s ability to provision and scale firewall protection, enabling more enforcement points across the network to stop threats faster.

India Centre Expands R&D Center & Launches NI India Business Incubator Program

National Instruments (NI) India has launched the NI India Business Incubator Program and announced the expansion of their Research and Development Center in India. Both these initiatives aim to support the government’s Make in India program and enable Indian engineers to become global knowledge partners in driving innovation and development across industries and domains.

The expansion of the India RandD Center ensures that NI has access to the top talent instrumental in building a platform that meets the needs of all engineers and scientists today. NI works with leading universities to hire the best and brightest talent within the region and provides world-class, formal and on-the-job training to create a long-term and sustained career progression.

“We strongly believe we can help the Indian startup ecosystem overcome technological hurdles and succeed faster,” said Scott Rust, senior vice president of Global R&D at NI. “Our platform provides the fastest way for engineers and scientist to access new technology and accelerate productivity, innovation, and discovery.  By providing access to NI's platform and technologies, we are investing in future innovators and contributing towards sustainable development in all markets that we serve.”

Through NI India’s Business Incubator Program, NI will provide increased access to NI technology, technical training and support to shared local communities like domestic Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), academic incubation centers and startups.

"For Make in India to succeed and sustain, manufacturing in India should bring more benefits to the table than just cost of labor. Companies can differentiate themselves by adopting smart technologies to reduce defects and improve quality,” said Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director, NI India. “NI’s technology provides a flexible and powerful platform to build these intelligent systems that power the factory of the future. Startups are an integral part of building the future and we believe that the NI India Business Incubator Program will contribute to the Make in India initiative.”

To extend its reach and maximize the impact of the Business Incubator Program, NI is partnering with mission-aligned local organizations, as well as experienced technology and business consultants, to provide world-class support and assistance to the applicants. It is also aligned with the flagship initiative of the Government of India, Start-up India, which strives to build a solid eco-system to support innovation, promote domestic startups and generate viable economic growth by generating large-scale employment opportunities. These forward-looking actions of the Indian Government and the abundance of engineering talent will significantly contribute to Bangalore’s transformation into the home of some of the best technology companies in India and abroad.

Teams from Rupnagar, Nainital & New Delhi Emerge Winners of 14th Edition of Imagine Cup

Microsoft India announced the winners of the India leg of Imagine Cup 2016, after concluding the National Finals held in New Delhi. Imagine Cup is a global student technology competition, and one of Microsoft’s many efforts to transform skill development, nurture budding technologists and foster innovative spirit. Three teams emerged as the winners under each of the three categories – World Citizenship, Gaming and Innovation after an intense contest among 27 teams from across the country.  One grand winner will now be chosen to represent India at the upcoming worldwide finals in July in Seattle, USA, to compete among global teams for a US$ 50,000 prize.

Congratulating the winners of this year’s national finals, Narendra Bhandari, General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India, said, “Over the last 14 years, Microsoft Imagine Cup has been cultivating a spirit of social and technological entrepreneurship, empowering students to use their creativity to address real societal problems through technology. The participants have shown remarkable effort, zeal and enthusiasm to develop cutting-edge technology solutions to help resolve some of the world’s issues and challenges. I wish the winners and the participating teams the very best and congratulate them on this feat. At Microsoft, we will continue in our commitment to empower youth with opportunities, help them imagine new possibilities and nurture the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Microsoft Imagine Cup continues to witness strong participation from India, as well as world over. This year, more than 9500 students participated from 23 states across India in the contest. The winning teams showcased their innovative thinking, technical skills and ground-breaking solutions to address everyday challenges. Team KudaPehchano developed a real-time garbage management system using machine learning and vision techniques, while Team DIGIY developed an interesting game of suspense and Team AxeJulius built an app to publish ebooks and share them with the public. While the World Citizenshipcategory is focused on solving global problems in areas such as health, environment, and human rights, the Innovation category seeks ideas that appeal to consumer audiences, as well as inspire and delight a wider audience. The Games category challenges teams to develop innovations that raise the bar in the global game revolution. This year’s competition included three engaging contests under these three categories - the Hello Cloud Challenge, and the Earth Challenge, in addition to the main competition, to empower students to explore various avenues and platforms to develop and showcase their ideas.

Imagine Cup is one of Microsoft’s many efforts to transform skill development, nurture budding technologists and foster collaborative and innovative spirit.  Now in its 14^th year, this global technology competition boasts of several success stories emerging from the competition. Last year, CodeBlue, an Indian team, bagged second place in the Apps for Office Challenge at the Imagine Cup 2014 Worldwide Finals held in Seattle on July 31, 2014. Team CodeBlue was awarded a cash prize worth USD 3,000 for their innovative app – Molecule Maker, which provides a library of molecule visualizations in World, Excel and Powerpoint, enabling the representation of molecules visually. After competing in the Imagine Cup in 2009, Mrityunjay Bhadauria launched his project into a company, EDUKINECT. Based in Hyderabad, the company provides an educational service platform to help more than 20,000 students be future-ready. The business has grown by 400% annually – supporting educational services in more than 150 engineering campuses across India.