Schneider Electric’s New Lithium-ion batteries Optimize Energy Storage for UPS’s in India

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, has introduced a Lithium-ion battery solution for UPS operations. The new lithium-ion battery solution for three-phase uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), brings compact, lightweight, long-lasting and sophisticated energy storage protection to data centers, industrial process, or critical infrastructure.

“It is important for companies to choose the right energy storage solution for their data centers, industrial processes, or critical infrastructure. The backup storage solution must maintain or even increase availability and manageability while reducing UPS footprint”, says Nikhil Pathak, Vice President and Country General Manager - IT Business India and SAARC, Schneider Electric India. In addition, there is a challenge to manage TCO (total cost of ownership), cooling costs, maintenance overheads and other operating expenses, in addition to minimizing the upfront capital cost.

“The traditional valve regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries have been the mainstay of energy storage systems with advantages like low costs, mature technology and relatively stable performance. However, its shortcomings, which are sensitivity to elevated temperatures, large footprint, heavyweight and short lifespan has created a new set of customers shifting to Li-ion batteries (LIB)”, says Pathak. Reduced battery footprint, maintenance, weight, total cost of ownership (TCO) and cooling requirements, improved backup storage predictability and double the life cycle, is making LIBs the preferred energy storage solution.

The LIB system from Schneider comes as a complete package comprising a standard cabinet / rack which houses the battery modules, the SMPS which powers the BMS and the protection switchgear. This solution is currently supported by Schneider Electric’s Symmetra MW, Galaxy 7000, Galaxy VM, and Galaxy VX UPSs.

Digital Platform for UP State Legislature Proceedings, Based on Solution from Persistent Systems

Persistent Systems has announced a new, innovative Multilingual Intelligent Search and Analytics Solution - addressing the needs of India’s State legislatures. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, inaugurated the solution at the Vidhaan Sabha Bhavan in Lucknow. 

Uttar Pradesh Vidhaan Sabha, India’s largest state assembly, is the first state legislature in the country to embrace the Persistent Systems solution and to embark on such a comprehensive digitization of the proceedings of the State Legislature. SemanticBits, a Hyderabad-based company, partnered with Persistent as part of a consortium for this initiative.

“The Legislature of the State of Uttar Pradesh is the first State Legislature to undertake this stupendous task. Persistent Systems with their partner SemanticBits have completed the task successfully and they deserve appreciation for that. The features of this software like its search engine and other aspects are the latest technology in the field,“ said Pradeep Dubey, Principal Secretary, Legislative Secretariat Uttar Pradesh. “I hope other state assemblies will follow suit.”

“Like every business is becoming software-driven, the opportunity is in front of every state to become software-driven in its functioning. It is a privilege and an honor for all of us at Persistent Systems to be able to impact and improve lives with such a solution. There is an urgent need in India today to make Governments more accessible, transparent, and efficient – both within its own departments and to the general public.” said Dr. Anand Deshpande, Persistent Systems founder and CEO.

More about Multilingual Intelligent Search and Analytics solution:

Legislative information, often dating back to when legislative bodies were first created, is comprised of books of proceedings, newspaper cuttings, orders, letters, as well as audio and video recordings. The Multilingual Intelligent Search and Analytics solution is an integrated solution to scan, annotate and indexed books of proceedings – stored in a secure and tamperproof digital vault, and available on the portal accessible from any device. The solution allows searches in English, Hindi and other official Indian languages, through a specialized search capability custom built for Indian languages.

Multilingual Intelligent Search and Analytics solution replaces the traditional and cumbersome practice of manual or physical searches and retrievals. Time to information is now reduced from days, weeks or even months to mere seconds. It also allows users to look for information and to collate the information, reducing the time and effort taken to compile research reports and improving the accuracy and thoroughness of information. This allows Research Officers to handle more requests with improved efficiency and more qualitative discussions happening in the legislative assembly. Multilingual Intelligent Search and Analytics solution extends access and reach within the Government departments of the State legislatures, and also to the general public.  

Kotak Mahindra Bank Offers Monsoon Bonanza Uphill September 10

To celebrate the long-awaited bountiful rains this year, Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) is presenting several tempting offers: Interest rates on home loans and business loans have been lowered; processing fees have been discounted, and foreclosure charges are being completely waived off, till September 10, 2016.

Customers can now avail home loans at a special interest rate of 9.35% p.a., and business loans/overdraft up to 1% lower interest rate with 25% waiver on processing fees. Additionally, Kotak Mahindra Prime, the 100% subsidiary of KMB, is also offering 50% waiver on processing fee and 100% waiver on foreclosure charges.

Further, on account opening, new customers will also receive gift vouchers from Club Mahindra, Pizza Hut, BookMyShow and Yatra.

Sumit Bali, Sr. EVP and Head – Personal Assets, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said, “In addition to offering 6% p.a. interest rate on savings account on balance of above Rs. 1 lakh, we have designed several loan offers for new and existing customers, for a limited period.”

“Good monsoons always translate into positive news for the country’s economy. We want customers to prosper more, through our special deals on home, business and car loans, in addition to the higher interest rate on savings account,” added Bali.

KMB’s latest campaign – Kona Kona 6% - is also celebrating the rains. After two years of drought, India is witnessing normal to excess rainfall in most parts. The national mood is upbeat, as a good monsoon promises prosperity and better agricultural output. The Kona Kona 6% TVC uses the backdrop of rains to narrate stories of prosperity from different corners of India.

Interest rates on small savings schemes such as postal savings, term and recurring deposits, National Savings Certificate (NSC), etc. saw deep rate cuts recently, and further cuts are on the anvil. The RBI too in recent times cut repo rate by 25 bps to 6.5%. In a falling interest rate scenario, KMB is committed to offer 6% interest rate on savings account balances above Rs. 1 lakh.

Indian Roadshows for Dubai Parks and Resorts As It Opens For Public On October 31, 2016

Dubai Parks and Resorts, set to become the region’s largest integrated theme park destination when it opens on October 31st, has successfully concluded its first three-city trade road show in India. The last leg of the event in Mumbai was also personally attended by the Minister of Tourism of the state of Maharashtra, Jaykumar Jitendrasinh Rawal.  Dubai Parks and Resorts organized this road show with the objective of officially introducing the destination and highlighting its distinctive offerings.

The three-day road show targeted the top Indian trade agents in New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, and focused on asserting Dubai Parks and Resorts’ position in the Indian tourist market as the next ultimate family entertainment destination that is only a three to four-hour flight away. The trade events were successful in educating the industry on the destination’s offer and highlighting what guests can expect to experience in the amazing world of Dubai Parks and Resorts when it opens on October 31st, 2016. Each city witnessed staggering attendance of over 200 travel and trade partners’ keen to understand Dubai Parks and Resorts’ offer for the Indian market.

Vinit Shah, Chief Destination Management Officer of Dubai Parks and Resorts said, “We’re extremely pleased to have introduced the region’s largest integrated entertainment destination to India.” He further added, “With the expertise of hundreds of professionals all over the world, Dubai Parks Resorts will be one of the region’s biggest entertainment destinations. And since India is one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets in the world and with a close proximity to UAE, we strongly believe that it is at forefront of other source markets for us.”

Nevil D’Souza, Head of Sales, Dubai Parks and Resorts said, “It has been an absolute pleasure to have opened up the world of Dubai Parks and Resorts to our potential partners in India. As Indians are keen to explore the world for unique travel experiences, the parks are all set to do exactly that. We look forward to welcoming our guests to the largest multi-themed leisure and entertainment destination in the region”

Dubai Parks and Resorts will feature MOTIONGATE Dubai – a movie based theme park showcasing some of Hollywood’s most beloved characters from DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Studios and Lionsgate as well as the region’s first LEGOLAND Park and a LEGOLAND Water Park. Committed to bringing together the best of the East and West, Dubai Parks and Resorts will also feature Bollywood Parks Dubai, the first theme park based on the sights and sounds of Bollywood. The entire destination will be connected by Riverland Dubai – a uniquely themed retail and dining destination at the heart of Dubai Parks and Resorts, and guests can stay at the Lapita Hotel, a Polynesian-themed resort catering to families as part of the Autograph Collection of Marriott Hotels.

Job Opportunities to Over 40,000 IT Tech Engineering & Freshers Across the Country?

There is a big challenge  - Out of over 1,50,000 engineering students, who graduated in last year from colleges across India, 80 per cent of them were deemed 'unemployable' by India Inc. How does one ensure that engineering students and fresh engineers are able to showcase their capabilities in getting the job done? Some of them are lucky enough to get into a 'branded' college and get placed from campus… but most are not. TechGig Code Wizards  - India’s biggest recruitment drive for final year Engineering and MCA students is set to change this by providing job opportunities to over 40,000 freshers across the country.

CREDIBLE ASSESSMENT - THE SOLUTION TO THE EMPLOYABILITY CHALLENGE

The sustainable competitive advantage of any business is its people – their passion, dedication, ability and creativity in applying their knowledge to come up with innovative solutions. With a highly volatile environment, evolving technologies and challenging market conditions, hiring the right people with the correct capabilities is critical. And if companies need more out of a candidate, they need to look for more in a candidate. When it comes to hiring engineering talent today, evaluating his “tech quotient” is a must. Tech Quotient is possibly the largest, tangible and most robust benchmark of measuring the competency level of a candidate as on date and has been used by nearly 90% of the Indian IT Industry to assess the competencies of millions of Techies. 

INTRODUCING TECH QUOTIENT:

"Tech quotient measures the ability of a technology professional in the application of their knowledge in the work place rather than the knowledge itself. It also removes bias of institute, location and education grades," says Nilanjan Roy, Head of Strategy, Times Business Solutions.

Tech Quotient is a uniquely designed algorithm that allows coding competency evaluations across multiple languages. It is a highly credible measure that tests the capability, coding proficiency and knowledge application ability. Tech Quotient has been used by all IT Giants who work in India including Amadeus, Accenture, IBM, Microsoft, HCL, Sapient, Oracle, Intuit, Persistent, Cisco, Infosys, GE Digital, TCS, HP, Cognizant, Intel, Fiserv and Amazon just to name a few.

Tech Quotient forms the backbone of the TechGig.com, India’s largest platform for IT professionals, and allows employers to assess a techie's individual merit and ability to apply his knowledge, irrespective of his work experience, designation, previous employers, degrees, qualifications or past institutions. 

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD FOR FRESHERS:

Industry recognized Tech Quotient allows TechGig to successfully conduct several types of coding contests, skill tests, hackathons and other tech challenges, including India's Largest Coding Contest – TechGig Code Gladiators, bringing all techies on to a common benchmark. This technology is now being rolled out to assess final year students on campuses around India in the TechGig Code Wizards Campus Hunt.

TechGig.com helps employers identify and hire the best programmers straight from the colleges through this premium-coding contest Code Wizards. Before you think that Code Wizards is just another coding contest, where a bunch of geeks meet to code for pleasure, here’s more information for your consumption. Code Wizards acts as a serious hiring platform for some of the biggest IT players including BirlaSoft, Sapient, Amazon, Infosys and Iris Software. BirlaSoft shortlisted as many as 1,145 candidates from Code Wizards 2015, followed by Sapient (650) and Amazon (515).

THE CODE WIZARDS SOLUTION:

Explaining how Code Wizards acts as a hiring enabler for tech companies, Nilanjan Roy, Head of Strategy at Times Business Solutions, shares, "Code Wizards brings everyone, despite their geographic location or academy, onto an even platform and uses Tech Quotient to give a fair and unbiased judgment of their ability to apply their knowledge in real world situations as a technology professional. Over 25 top IT companies will be using this particular event to screen and shortlist high performance talent, who may have been overlooked if it were not for this all-India level event."

Going to campuses individually involves large investments in terms of time, manpower and money.  To avoid these challenges, many-a-times, companies focus on just a few 'branded' colleges in prime geographies. This definitely involves lesser effort, but takes them away from a bigger talent pool. On the other hand, candidates in remote parts of the country also loose on their chances of getting hired.

Being an online coding contest, the Code Wizards platform reaches out to the programmers in the remotest parts of the country, to ensure that hiring companies can reach out to the deepest regions and get the best talent from across India, irrespective of their geographic proximity to their future employers.

INDUSTRY ACCOLADES:

Companies like Amazon, who have used Code Wizards, think that it is a powerful platform that eases campus-hiring activity. Rajendra Prasad, Talent Acquisition Lead at Amazon, shares his experience of Code Wizards 2015. He says, “We have leveraged Code Wizards in few of our campus hiring activities. Code Wizards has immense database of colleges and students with associated rankings and ratings. This was helpful in prioritizing from a recruiting standpoint. The team from Times was extremely helpful in following up and updating the status to the campuses and students. The entire activity was well managed by them. We would continue our association with Code Wizards.”

Adding to it, Suhail Akhtar, Head of Development at IG Infotech, says, “TechGig.com provides a great platform for online assessment of programming talent. The Pan India reach of the Code Wizards contest helped us in hiring fresh graduates without having to visit individual campuses.”

The latest edition of the coding contest, TechGig’s Code Wizards 2016, is going to see over 25 top IT Companies screen and shortlist students from over 100 Campuses across India. Final year Engineering and MCA students can click here (http://www.techgig.com/codewizards) to get an opportunity to be hired by the biggest IT companies in the country.

Samsung R&D Institute Inaugurates Khronos Bangalore Chapter To Advance Technology Development & Evangelization in India

Samsung RnD Institute, Bangalore (SRIB) recently hosted the inaugural meeting of Khronos Bangalore chapter to bring visibility to India’s efforts and involvement in the standard APIs. The event was organised in collaboration with Khronos Group, a non-profit open global consortium of leading graphics hardware and software industries responsible for creating open standards.

Khronos Group, headquartered in California (USA), delivers royalty free APIs, to facilitate authoring and acceleration of applications in parallel computing, graphics, dynamic media, computer vision and sensor processing on many platforms. The specifications help companies accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge 3D platforms and applications including conformance tests.

The Khronos Bangalore chapter meeting focused on promoting regular technical deliberation and interactions amongst industries as well as academia working in graphics and computer vision domains. Given the presence of many leading MNCs and Indian companies in graphics, vision and gaming area, the Bangalore chapter is expected to play a crucial role in advanced technology development. The event was attended by 80 delegates from approximately 15 companies (Samsung, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, TI, etc.) and academia (Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore; International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore and Hyderabad).

On the inauguration, Dr. Aloknath De, Corporate VP and CTO, Samsung RnD Institute India emphasized, “Samsung is a strong supporter of global standards to enable interoperability and wider eco-system of standards-based products and services, in upcoming revolutionary areas such as Advanced Graphics, Augmented Reality-Virtual Reality (AR-VR), Computer Vision & Machine Learning”. Also, he added, “Chapters such as these would strengthen the technical community through regular meet-ups and further helps Indian researchers to contribute actively in standards related to graphics applications / solutions”.

Key Note Speaker, Dr. P J Narayanan, Director of IIIT-Hyderabad who is a renowned expert in Graphics, Computer Vision and Parallel Computing, highlighted “Formation of such a chapter representing the Khronos global consortium, would surely go a long way in boosting the technical discussions and collaboration amongst the Indian industries and academia. Additionally, Khronos

Bangalore chapter has huge potential to contribute towards many initiatives from the Indian government such as Digital India, Smart Cities and Make-In-India.”

Technical talks on Khronos eco-system and upcoming next generation graphics APIs such as Vulkan delivered jointly by experts from SAMSUNG, AMD, NVIDIA, QUALCOMM; was very well received by the audience.

The kick-off event concluded with a panel discussion on “Way forward for Khronos Bangalore Chapter”, consisting of eminent panellists including Dr. Aloknath De (Samsung), Dr. P.J. Narayanan (IIIT, Hyderabad), Dr. Vijay Natarajan (IISc, Bangalore), Veera Manikandan (TI), and moderated by Prabindh Sundareson (NVIDIA).

The audience expressed keen interest to consider focus on Computer Vision (OpenVX) and facilitate larger involvement from local engineering institutes in the follow-up event which is expected to be organized within next three months. Balaji Holur (Senior VP, Samsung), presented vote of thanks and concluded the event.

Samsung RnD Institute Bangalore in collaboration with local industry and academia shall continue to work towards strengthening the India ecosystem in the domains of 3D Graphics, Computer Vision and Heterogeneous Computing; while bringing a key focus on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies, benefiting from these Khronos Standards.

AcadGild & IL&FS Skills to Train Two Lakh Students in Technology and Business Skills by 2019

Technology education startup AcadGild, has entered into an exclusive, multi-year partnership with ILnFS Skills Development Corporation (ILnFS Skills) to offer technology and business-oriented courses to more than two lakh Indian students by 2019, with the aim of improving the employability of trainees. ILnFS Skills is promoted by ILnFS Education and Technology Services Limited (ILnFS Education), the social infrastructure arm of ILnFS Group, in partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

The partnership will enable ILnFS Skills to expand beyond its current vocational and skill-based training programs, to technologically advanced, professional courses like Android Developer, Big Data & Digital Marketing conducted by AcadGild which will now be offered at more than 100 ILnFS centres across the country.

Vinod Dham, CEO and Co-Founder, AcadGild, said: “Our focus at AcadGild is on addressing the severe shortage of employable professionals in the country. Prime Minister Modi himself has consistently highlighted the importance of skilling the young and growing population in the country in preparation for the transformational changes India and the world needs.

“The skill-gap in the country has reached crisis proportions and our partnership with ILnFS Skills is aimed at addressing this. With our partner’s network, our reach has expanded exponentially enabling even those who do not have access to computers, the opportunity to benefit from the courses we conduct.”

“Skills was fairly new when we first launched the programme in textile sector in 2006. Industry was keen to hire, and young people (18-35 yrs) were looking for jobs but had no employability skills. Since then, we have invested in building the Skills portfolio by way of setting up institutes; what we call as ILnFS Institute of Skills, multi-media content, training of trainers academies, etc and brought in several innovations in the entire skills value chain with employability of the  youth and employment i.e industry requirement being the key focus. This partnership with AcadGild will help us expand our offerings beyond school drop outs to graduates/engineering students and enable us to deliver high-quality technology and business courses conducted by expert mentors to a large number of youth across the country” said RCM Reddy, Managing Director and CEO ILnFS Skills.

Revealing further details on the partnership, Vikalp Jain, President and Co-Founder, AcadGild noted that the courses will be conducted using a hybrid approach wherein students will get access to physical labs and classrooms at of ILnFS Skills’ vocational training centres. AcadGild will deliver live sessions using their state-of-the-art platform. In addition to this, students will also get access to a local mentor at the ILnFS Skills’ centres.

ILnFS Skills core focus areas are addressing the needs of the Industry and offering placement linked, market oriented, skills training programs to youth for a long-term and sustainable impact. ILnFS Skills has impacted 1.5 million youth (6 lac under placement linked skill development programmes and balance under skill upgradation) till date in various sectors in manufacturing, engineering, construction, services, health and IT/ITES.

All AcadGild courses are developed with the aim of increasing the skills and employability of students and working professionals by teaching them hands-on, job ready software programming and business skills. They are delivered online in small batches of 8-10 by expert mentors who are carefully handpicked from leading companies such as Accenture, Infosys, Cognizant, Oracle and BookMyShow.